Remington BeggWhen it comes to implementing the latest marketing strategy into your IT company, you’ll want to think about the user experience in relation to Conversational Marketing.
Why?
Because the first question conversion is critical when implementing a conversational marketing strategy. IF your first question is weak, you will not see the success you could see. A winning first question will show you how well your message resonates with your audience.
Also, as an IT company, you’re most likely serving current customers on issues ranging from immediate “my server is down” to less urgent “I need a new email user.” So when they go to your website and see a chatbot available, they’ll want a seamless, instant experience just like you’re looking to give new customers.
What kind of chat strategy do you deploy to figure out how to help your existing customers? You don’t want to offend those existing customers.
You need a way to delegate chatbot and live chat messages between the support and the sales teams. If your job is to support your existing customers needs, how do you differentiate those people from new sales requests? And what about account based marketing and anonymous visitors?
It can get complicated. But there’s no need to fear what you don’t know. We’re going to start with homepage conversational marketing tactics, just like your website visitors would most likely start with your homepage.
So when we think about chat strategies, we think about the bottom-up. For instance, when it comes to current customers, they have a certain need when coming to your website. It’s important to think of the first question your chat tool asks them.
This is where we start. Who’s most likely coming to your website?
- Known customers (they’re cookied or signed in) with immediate needs.
- Incoming customers
- Unknown visitors and ABM visitors
Once we’re on the same page with thinking about who’s coming to the website, we can then tackle conversational marketing strategy for IT companies at a more granular level. We want to make sure your first-question conversion is stellar, for whoever is coming to your site.
3 Conversational Marketing Strategies for IT Company Website Visitors
1) Immediate need with known contacts/customers
This is critical. Since IT companies source so many support requests from a home page, starting off on the right foot with those clients is vital.
Go deeper: Conversational Marketing: How to Measure ‘First Question Performance’
We suggest starting with a chat tool that identifies your current customer base. Customers will feel left out immediately if they have nowhere to go for answers, but new users have all the tools. In other words, if your customers have an immediate need, they expect an immediate response. It won’t bode well if your immediate answers focus solely on potential sales. Serve your current customers well, and they’ll stick around and may even sing your praises the world over!
So start with creating a knowledge base document that answers common questions, and can escalate a conversation to your support team.
HubSpot Service Hub & Drift can handle a knowledge base option with their tools.
When you show someone is a customer, you can choose to show them only support questions and upgrade opportunities. You should speak to them as a customer, not as a potential customer.
When an IT services provider experiences an influx of support requests, and the homepage can change to reflect the experience the majority of traffic should experience, that company makes a stellar UX for those viewers. Most companies can’t do that right now, or simply don’t do it… so offering your viewers that custom experience will set you apart.
2) Known contacts in your funnel - non-customers
Then it’s time to shift your focus to conversations with new visitors, potential customers, and leads. Now that you’re serving customers, it’s time to find new ones! These are the people raising their hands.
This is where a homepage conversational strategy shines. After your level one support, second tier are the people in your buyer’s journey, or your funnel. These are known contacts who aren’t yet customers. They’re the leads, the MQLs, the opportunities… you want to make sure you’re serving them up conversion opportunities.
This could look like continuing a conversation rather than starting that conversation (like you’d do with unknown contacts, which I’ll cover below). You could even help connect these viewers to their sales rep if they have one, truly taking the personal touch to a deeper level.
What does this look like in real life? A chatbot that pops up with the sales rep, saying to the viewer, “I noticed you were interested in our managed IT services. Other companies who explore this track often ask about monthly billing versus paying quarterly. We can either. What questions can I answer for you?”
Directing your known contacts who aren’t yet customers to the resources needed to help them make a decision will help them to feel served, building trust and positive connections in their minds. Creating conversation plans for each of the most common needs, then iterating on other questions that come in, and routing them to the best solutions for what they need.
3) Anonymous / Account Based Marketing (ABM)
The final tactic for conversational marketing at your IT company is to reach those anonymous viewers who are just starting off. I put these folks in the same bucket as account based marketing (ABM) leads, because we may not know who they are, but we know where they work based on data. So we can serve them up what we need to, in order to help convert them into known leads.
For instance, if you know you’re going after dentists in Texas, and your data shows that’s who’s on your page, your chatbot can have a very specific message on resources for dentists in Texas. And if they’re truly anonymous and your system can’t identify them, you get to have a more general, high-level conversation.
This is where the conversation begins; the beginning of a relationship. It’s important to serve up the right context to the right website viewers.
What’s Next
We offer a conversational snapshot to help you understand how your IT company’s marketing is currently working. Let us help you find your way in this new world of conversational marketing.
