Conversational Messaging Podcast by Gupshup

Episode 005: Conversational Marketing: Take Your Brand Closer To The Consumer

June 10, 2021 Beerud Sheth and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan Season 1 Episode 5
Conversational Messaging Podcast by Gupshup
Episode 005: Conversational Marketing: Take Your Brand Closer To The Consumer
Show Notes Transcript

In today’s episode,  Beerud and Srini discuss how marketing evolved with the infusion of technology. Together, they talk about the evolution of marketing from offline to digital, and now, conversational. Find out why conversational marketing is the best for your brand.

Conversational Marketing Appeals To Intimacy

What makes conversational marketing better than offline and digital marketing is its ability to appeal to consumers’ intimacy and relationship with the brand. Conversational marketing can make the consumers’ experience highly personalized as they are talking to someone who knows them by their names, styles, preferences, and dislikes. The best thing about it is it doesn’t cost that much to invest in, as it can be tied to the brand’s existing marketing campaigns. 

“In conversational marketing, you know the person, so that changes a lot of things. It can be a highly personalized and very textual interaction.” - Beerud Sheth

Conversational Marketing Personalizes Consumers’ Experience

For most brands, having personal “shopping assistants” is only available for VIPs and premium-type of consumers who shop. However, with conversational marketing, it becomes possible for everyone to get their own shopping assistant/concierge/partner/helper that would be helpful in making valuable decisions for each purchase, only with the use of their smartphones. Beerud compares this level of experience with notable brands like Nordstrom and Zappos, which are both known for their top-tier customer service. 

“There's the offline analogies of that. With conversational marketing, you can replicate that same dynamic. That's an extremely powerful thing.” - Beerud Sheth

Conversational Marketing’s Powerful Entry Point

Beerud says that the first step towards shifting to conversational messaging is to have a platform (i.e. WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, etc.) where your brand and your consumers can have a conversation. Once that has been set up, the next step is to find natural entry points like SMS campaigns, billboards, QR codes, or any existing campaign of the brand. Beerud shares that finding a powerful entry point provides richer experiences for the consumers and more opportunities for the brand to upsell and cross-sell. 

“SMS is a very powerful entry point into their search. Social media, print, TV ads, advertising as well. Linking into these and building these rich experiences offer innumerable possibilities.” - Beerud Sheth

To know more about Conversational Marketing and why 

Bio:

Beerud Sheth

Beerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 100K+ customers and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.

Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.


Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan

Srinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.


Resources:

Gupshup.io


0:01

Listen to insights on how conversational messaging is changing the way businesses and their customers engage. Join Gupshup CEO Beerud and VP for marketing Srini, and an array of guests for conversations about conversations. This is the Gupshup Conversational Messaging Podcast.


0:28

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the conversational messaging podcast. I'm Srini. And as always, I'm joined by Beerud. Today we will talk about a function which all of you are familiar with for a company. And that's, that's marketing, and marketing over the last 20 to 30 years has really changed across many dimensions, I think the most important dimension has been the infusion of technology to help various marketing processes. As consumers have started adopting more and more digital platforms, brands are trying to find them on those platforms, and create frictionless paths for them by engaging with them in innovative ways. So we're going to delve a little deeper into how marketing is changing in the conversational era. So we will start off by asking you, I mean, you've seen almost 333 decades or 30 years of evolution of the industry. So how do you think marketing has a function has evolved in that time?


01:30

Well, I think you can operate at many different levels of details, but let's just say at the highest level, right? If we sort of look at it as three phases, there was the offline marketing, and then with the rise of the web, and so on, and we moved to digital marketing. And now we're getting to conversation, right. And I think, going from sort of traditional or offline marketing channels to you know, which was TV, radio, print, outdoor, things like that, when we went from those to digital, I think digital marketing was just clearly, you know, so much more targeted, so much more dynamic, you know, changing in real time. And it really just democratized marketing, right? Traditionally, if you think about it, we are to do a TV ad or get a billboard campaign or print ad, I mean, only large businesses would typically do that. But, but with digital tools, I mean, millions of businesses now do you know whether it's search advertising, social media advertising, or other kinds of digital advertising, because, because you really, you know, by paying per click, I mean, you spend, you can spend as little as 10 cents of, you know, a penny, for marketing, right as little. And then you can target it and optimize it, and you can sort of create a funnel and really build some very rich interactive experiences. So anyway, you know, that's not the focus of our discussion here. Right. So, now that digital marketing is now I think, getting to its most evolved form, which is conversational marketing, okay. And the big difference here is in conversational marketing, you're not talking to a stranger, you're talking to a known person, you know, their phone number, and their very, you know, their name, you know, their activity, right, versus let's say, in search, or social media advertising, or marketing, you're really you don't know who the person is, you may know them by profile, maybe by attribute. But you don't know really, the identity is unknown. In conversational marketing, you know, the person. So that changes a lot of things, right? Because it can be a highly personalized interaction can be very textual interaction and so on. The other big thing is, it's, it's a conversation, right? By which I mean, the user can control the flow of conversations and interactive thing, which allows them to, you know, sort of tweak and optimize the marketing experience for themselves, right, much more than you can with, with a search ad or a social media ad and so on. So I think, you know, once you once you do that, I think it really opens up a lot of possibilities, to really transform to do this sort of one on one hyper personalized marketing experiences that are simply not possible with digital, let alone offline media as well. And I think that really, you know, represents a major new step in the evolution of marketing. You know, marketing frameworks. Yeah.


4:36

Yeah, that's an interesting perspective and gets me thinking about how with each evolution in technology, the brand and the consumer are sort of coming closer and closer. Together. TVC is still a one to many sort of a distant medium or a billboard is fairly distant. But now, to use another analogy, you know, in the world of cinema and television Television actors enjoy a much warmer relationship with their fan following because you watch television in the confines of your home, whereas you go out, typically step out and watch movies in the theater. So do you see conversational marketing, bringing a brand from an entity that is outside of your ecosystem into something as personal as your phone? Did you see that shift also?


5:24

Yeah, I think certainly, right, I think the phone is probably the only device that nobody ever leaves, you know, you might forget your wallet, you know, you might, your keys, but you're not going to forget your phone. And life, livelihood depends on it, it's always on your surface, people even sleep with it, right. So. So it's really from a consumer standpoint, it's a very intimate device. And therefore, a brand that can engage effectively through competition experiences can tap into, you know, that level of intimacy, right? First part of it. other part of it is, you know, you can build extremely rich profiles. Over time you collect, you know, user history, context, details, and so on. And sort of you use that so brand can become, they can take the personality of, of a friend of an advice of a partner, or a helper or an assistant. Right? It depends on so what, what exactly the services, but it really allows brands to have these, it's sort of, let's say, let's say, if you're a bank, then it's as if a bank can deploy an individual relationship manager for every customer. Right? Now, they do that today. But they only do that for premium customers, right, and so on. But with technology, now, they can deploy to everybody, or in a ecommerce setting, it's as if every person gets a shopping assistant. Right? advice that help them guide them and so on, or in travel and hospitality, it's like every customer gets a concierge, a personal concierge, that they can ask anything to, and they just take care of it. Right. So so I think these sort of now these are commonplace already in the offline world, where they interact with, you know, with customers, and even if you think about how marketing happens in the offline world, you walk into a store, and you can tell like some of the best tours, you know, a salesperson will come out to you right away, be friendly, helpful. So they will chat with you, invite you in. Very likely, they might know you because you've been there multiple times. So they already know what you like, what you don't like. And then they can really cultivate or even in a restaurant, right? The waiter invites you welcomes you, and so on. So that personal interaction really makes a huge, huge difference. Even the brand, perhaps best known for sort of high end consumer experiences, right Nordstrom to have these sort of personal shoppers, the shopping districts, they will know your budget, your style, your prep, you know, fashion choices, and things like that, and can answer any question, you know, even unusual ones. Zappos is another one that made really, you know, ,made history with customer support. So all of these are really around one on one personalized conversations and interactions right there. There's the offline analogies of that. And with conversational marketing, if you can replicate that same dynamic. That's an extremely powerful thing.


8:41

So let's look at what you said in the context of, of messaging now. So I think a lot of these functionalities, sometimes people are used to seeing these virtual assistants pop up on websites, maybe on a branded mobile app that they download from, from, let's say, from a retailer, but how does conversational marketing come to life with messaging? Does that add... and as CMOs typically, you know, they think of a lot of digital as multiple platforms, you have search and social and affiliate and all of that, but how do you get how what would you say to a CMO to strategically leverage messaging as an enabler of conversational marketing?


9:20

So, I think well, so there are two separate things right. So, one is you build these delight this delightful conversational experience, where a brand and a consumer can talk very nicely right, but then you still need to solve the problem of an entry point, like how does the customer arrive into that sort of conversational surface, right. It could be through WhatsApp, it could be through SMS, it could be you know, through Telegram or you know, even at Gupshup we have this GIP messaging channel, it could be through GIP and so on. Now, if the customer already knows the brand, then of course, a customer may seek out the brand, they may approach, you know, maybe they reach out to the call center, they reach out to a customer support sort of link, and things like that. But But in many instances, right, I mean, if they want to do outbound marketing, they want to do activation, right? You're driving awareness, you're building interest, and so on. Now, in those situations, you know, it goes very well with conversational marketing goes is very closely interlinked with messaging. So imagine, for example, right that you you send out, it could be an SMS campaign, for example, with, which brings the user it's an entry point back into this, it could be a QR code, right? on some surface could be in a print ad could be on a billboard, when the user scans the QR code, it brings them again, into this conversational experience, right? So there could be many different entry points, it could also be on your website when a user is visiting there. And they, you know, they opt in to say, okay, feel free to contact me through messaging channels. And once and if they give you the number, then now you have the permission to reach that user, and so on, right, so So I think the best way to think about this as you create this rich experience, and then you think about entry points, and these entry points can be deeply integrated into their existing campaigns. Right. So businesses are going to continue. So suddenly, all these whether it's offline, or digital, or any advertising channels, whatever is working, they can continue with it. But they can be when these conversation experience into these campaigns through an entry point. So, you know, like I said, in some cases, the QR code, in some cases, it's an SMS link, or WhatsApp link or a number and so on. There are many different ways in which they can promote that.


11:57

Right. Yeah, I think one, one classic example is that a lot of digital campaigns use landing pages as the first touch point for traffic. And landing pages are often you know, static, and you have a form and all of that, but a landing page can very easily be replaced by a bot that asks you some basic questions gives you a little bit more insight into what is being, what is being promoted, or what is being sold.


12:23

Exactly, I think it's the, it's a incremental stepping stone process into sort of the full on brand experience, right? So when a customer comes in, they obviously have some intent or some interest, or maybe just curiosity, and the you know, but instead of throwing a landing page or a website with a lot of information, and then it's a lot easier to say, what can I help you with? Right? I mean, if you walk into a hotel, right, the reception desk, or the concierge, they don't start suddenly throwing brochures at you. Right? They sort of say, what can I help you with? Madam or sir? Right? Then you state, whatever it is you're looking for? And then they answer it. Right? So I mean, that's how that's the most natural intuitive thing, this is how human beings interact with business, you know, in, in, face to face situation. So So I think, you know, for the same reason, throwing them onto a landing page with a lot of information that the user has to sort through and navigate and very likely doesn't have what the user is looking for. Instead if you just bring them to this thing. It says, Okay, what have you with and you know, with the query or, or some of the options the user can, can engage in a very rich, interactive conversation, I think that's a very, very powerful thing.


13:46

And, you know, finally, we've done this scenario, play the role play with in other episodes as well. So if I were a CMO that largely was investing in search and social, and other channels in digital, and I only leveraged messaging, literally SMS or sending SMS for promotions, and etc. What would your advice be to move towards conversational marketing with messaging, if I'm only doing SMS today?


14:15

Well, actually, so you know, most CMOs may not even realize that their businesses are sending out hundreds of millions of messages every month, right? Maybe billions of messages annually to to virtually every customer. So if you're a bank, you're sending out, you know, could be an OT, could be a banking transaction, or a credit card transaction update, or an e commerce company sends out you know, trade confirmations, delivery notifications, things like that. Right now, each of those messages today is sort of a dummy notification, meaning it just says, Hey, something happened, right? But imagine if they could also bring the user back into a conversation right, every every notification instead of it being an end in itself. to actually be the starting point of a rich conversation. And you know, not every user may click through, but even if 10, 20, 30% of the users click through, either to get more information about that transaction, or to, you know, engage in other things, and the moment the user is engaged in that, the brand has the opportunity to upsell and cross sell, right? To offer new things, and so on. So if it's a credit card user can now offer them a personal loan, you can offer them insurance, maybe other kinds of, you know, other banking services and so on. So I think the CMO today, one is just to look at existing campaigns where you can be when, or you know, and like I said, an entry point into a conversation experience. So really, it doesn't cost anything more, but it offers a much richer experience. So it's, you know, automatically, like extremely high ROI, maybe infinite ROI, because, you know, you're really not spending anything new, you're just tying it into existing campaigns. But the other then is, you know, have the ability to link it to even outbound SMS campaigns, right. Now, of course, when it comes to promotional SMS, yes, there are some limitations, right, there are the try regulations, and there are certain kinds of messages you can and cannot send, who you send it to, and template wills, and so on. But we figured out, you know, and we can figure out ways to comply with those and still do it, you know, in a compliant way. So I think, we don't have enough time in this call, or in this, you know, sort of podcast to go through all of that. But, but there's a lot of different possibilities. So so absolutely. I mean, these are, you know, certainly in India, I think SMS is a big part of it. SMS messages are a very powerful entry point into their search and social media and print and TV ads as well. outdoor advertising too. But, you know, linking into that, and building these rich experiences offers innumerable possibilities.


17:08

Who thanks so much. And to any dollar listeners, and particularly marketers, who might have tuned in, I think this represents a great opportunity to get you're closing the gap between your brand and your consumer by leveraging conversation technologies, especially with with messaging. So thank you so much for tuning in. And Beerud, thanks always for your valuable insights. 


17:33

Okay, thanks.