Conversational AI is the new rage in the marketing sector and it deserves all the attention it is getting. Conversational AI tools are offering brands an automated and efficient way of streamlining lead nurturing (link to the blog), a process that tremendously helps businesses. In this article, we will delve deep into how conversational AI is boosting lead generation efficiencies at the top of the lead nurturing funnel.
Conversational AI – Capturing the Essence of Lead Generation
Conversational AI platforms have presented brands with an effective and automated solution to implement and streamline their lead generation strategies. You may be scratching your head and wondering how is it that speaking to a machine can be more effective than what is currently in place. Let’s slice down to the basics to develop a better understanding of the concept.
What is Lead Generation?
The topmost stage of the lead nurturing funnel, lead generation is a process that focuses on marketing a product or service. The objective of lead generation is to stimulate prospects’ interest in a product or service, capture their attention, and eventually convince them enough to share information that is essential to move them to the next stage of the sales funnel.
Most industry leaders and experts already understand that capturing attention, the crux of lead generation has become a steep hill to climb in modern times. The internet that has become the most commonly used channel for marketing has already become a fathomless ocean of information. Additionally, the volume of information, marketing pitches, and data continue to grow. According to a recent report, 90% of the online data today was created in the last two years.
With the introduction of new technology and the gradual digital transformation of industries, the ocean of information is only expected to expand. This poses a grave threat to marketers who are finding it increasingly hard to swim through to their targeted audiences which are anchored at distant remote corners. In an era of information overload and saturation, conversational AI offers businesses a solution that is successfully able to cut through the growing noise and capture prospects’ attention. Equipped with self-learning capabilities, the technology learns on-the-go and leverages it to personalize conversations and identify prospect interests and preferences.
Benefits of Using Conversational AI for Lead Generation
Capture More Leads
Most prospects today are hesitant in sharing details. However, this does not mean it is fit to rule them out. Generally, doubts and queries about products either restrict or drive prospects to provide information. But the wait associated with the information to reach prospects causes even the generated leads to lose interest in the product. Unlike static pages, pages with AI-powered chatbots immediately engage prospects and provide the answers to their queries driving lead generation. This way prospects become more aware of the product and overcome their hesitation. To sum it up, with an intuitive and responsive AI assistant at your behest you will become more likely to capture a prospect’s information and their business.
Grade Leads
Conversational AI can act as a lead scoring software and grade prospects based on their intent and affinity towards a product or service. AI chatbots can be easily trained to evaluate a prospect’s interest in the product or service. Additionally, conversational AI assistants can work round-the-clock and produce sales accepted leads. This way sales teams can focus on working and closing on high-intent quality leads.
Shorten Sales Cycles
Conversational AI unleashes a two-way communication channel that is allowing brands to interact with prospects in real-time and quickly guide them through the sales funnel towards conversion. With AI-powered chatbots, you simplify prospect navigation, provide them real-time assistance, and engage with them immediately to reduce friction points and seamlessly guide them through the different stages of the sales funnel.
How can You Integrate Conversational AI into Lead Generation Strategies?
Omnichannel Lead Capturing
With conversational AI platforms, you meet prospects where they are. AI-powered chatbots are versatile and can be integrated into various digital platforms for lead nurturing and generation. This will help your business widen the scope of lead generation and meet with prospective customers on their channels of preference. Here is how you can use conversational AI on various platforms to generate leads:
Website
AI chatbots serve as a navigation guide and an information repository that empowers visitors to find answers to their questions. In fact, 67% of customers prefer the option of servicing themselves over speaking to a company representative. This way you provide immediate answers to prospects’ queries and drive them to the next stage of sales funnel. The technique not only allows you to capture a lead but also influences their perception of your brand positively.
Text Messaging Platforms
Approximately, 45% of the global population spends 2 hours and 33 minutes each day on social media text messaging platforms providing you readymade channels for highly attentive two-way communication with prospects. Besides this, prospects view these channels as a way to interact with brands and are more likely to end up doing business with them. The high-intent audience on these channels can be easily engaged with conversational AI and are more likely to share information. These lucrative channels can help you capture significantly higher leads than emails and cold calls.
Strategically Place AI Chatbots to Maximize Impact
Placing conversational AI pop-ups on every landing and social media page can become annoying for prospects and repel them away. Therefore, the placement of AI bots plays a vital role. Conversational AI APIs should be integrated on social media and website pages that experience high-intent visitors. Here are the areas where the integration can have maximum impact:
High-intent Pages
Website pages that showcase the different pricing and payment offerings or are categorized as end-of-sales funnel pages should be conversational. The idea behind this is to engage high-intent visitors to resolve their queries and drive conversion. A key point to keep in mind is that the AI chatbot should be trained to handle the varying nature of queries to deliver accurate results. You can also use conversational AI assistants on these pages to schedule meetings and follow-up calls with customers and sales representatives.
Pages that Experience Heavy Traffic
Every page that you believe receives a considerable and significant amount of traffic should be integrated with AI chatbots. The responsibility of conversational AI on these pages would be to answer visitor FAQs, promotional content, and other information that adds value to their visit. By doing so, you can create brand awareness, project a consistent brand image, and build trust and authority.
Couple Conversational AI with CRM for Better Lead Generation Efficiency
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and marketing automation complement each other and are a great duo to streamline and optimize lead generation and nurturing. The information collected on each lead or prospect is stored in CRMs and can be leveraged to optimize conversations. Through this, your conversational AI assistant will be aware of the lead or prospect’s position in the sales funnel which will enable it to contextually tailor the conversations and drive leads to conversion.
For instance, a lead has already downloaded a whitepaper. Utilizing this information your AI chatbot can promote other content, product, service, or drive the lead to perform a certain call to action and hyper-personalize interactions. Besides this, conversational AI will also behave as a data collation tool and store consumer data on customers augmenting the already existing data providing accurate customer insights.
The array of benefits conversational AI offers for lead generation along with add-on features such as 24x7x365 customer support, customer survey, meeting scheduling, and more make it a necessity for brands to survive in the fiercely competitive marketing landscape.
