Your greengrocer does it. So does that guy selling sunglasses on the beach. It’s why the funny old French bakery around the corner’s been running for 15 years.Conversational marketing. A buzzword, a footnote, a revelation. Everyone’s talking about it, but what is it?At its most simple, it’s the act of talking — and more importantly, listening — to your customers: their problems, their stories, their successes. Forging a genuine connection and using that connection to inform your marketing decisions.At its most complex, conversational marketing has become synonymous with cutting-edge technologies for computer-based dialog processing.Brands have always known that one-to-one conversations are valuable; but up until very recently, it was impossible to personalize these conversations at scale, in real-time.No longer. Chatbots have become a mainstay of digital marketing, and every day their underlying AI becomes more sophisticated. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 30% of our interactions with technology will be through “conversations” with smart machines.In his 1999 Cluetrain Manifesto, David Weinberger reminded us thatthat’s a hundred times more true today.A successful conversational marketing strategy will pair the spark of authenticity from real conversation with the emerging technologies of the future.In a 2016 article, Chris Messina distills the concept:Conversational converse is the process of having a real-time, one-to-one conversation with a customer or lead. It’s a direct, personalized, dialog-driven approach to nurturing long-term relationships, collecting data and increasing sales.Unlike traditional digital marketing, it ‘pulls’ users in instead of ‘pushing’ content on them. It’s a discourse, not a lecture.Despite recently picking up speed, conversational marketing isn’t new.The concept made its first appearance in 2007 with Joseph Jaffe’s Join the Conversation. Jaffe wanted to teach marketers to re-engage their customers through community, partnership, and dialog:In the past, brands have been able to talk at their customers — through email, website interactions and social media — not with them.Brands have struggled to capture, keep and convert attention into sales, sign-ups, and long-term loyalty. Engagement was passive, and results were shallow.Customer service was relegated to a formulaic question-answer scenario that was unsatisfying for everyone involved. Take it from leading conversational marketing platform Drift’s stellar report:Today, messaging apps have over 5 billion monthly active users, and for the first time, usage rates have surpassed social networks. Whether it’s chatting with friends on WhatsApp or exchanging ideas with coworkers on Slack, messaging has become an integral part of our lives.Despite extreme app saturation, the average person only uses five apps regularly and, you guessed it — messaging apps claim these spots, boasting 10x better open rates than the next leading digital channel. These messaging platforms have huge audiences: there are over 4 billion active monthly users on the top three messaging apps.Like the rise of the internet or the app economy of the past decade, conversational marketing is born from current desires: for real-time connection and genuine value.Conversational marketing is an umbrella term that encompasses every dialog-driven tactic, from opt-in email marketing to customer feedback.But the engine powering recent developments is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Chatbots represent the new era in conversational marketing: scaleable, personalized, real-time and data-driven.Of course, these bots aren’t intended to replace human-to-human interactions; they’re there to support and enhance them: helping users have the right conversations with the right people at the right time.(For the meantime, anyway. According to Gartner research, chatbots will account for 85% of all customer service by 2020).Chatbots are a blank canvas, with the potential to be molded and infused with a persona that reflects a company’s values — like our very own GrowthBot(AKA a mini Dharmesh Shah).This technology is still in its infancy, so most bots follow a set of rules programmed by a human via a bot-building platform. The differentiator is that the chatbots carry out conversations with users using natural language.AI uses first-person data to learn more about each customer and deliver a hyper-personalized experience. Reps and bots can then join forces to manage these conversations at scale.Let’s imagine I’m going to a fancy party. Tonight. It’s last minute, and I’ve just received a message that it’s black tie; but I don’t have the right shoes. I need to quickly find a pair that is appropriate; my size; coherent with the rest of my outfit; a good price, etc.I would usually Google for a shop in my area, then go to browse on their website to find a pair I like. But other issues would soon crop up: do they have my size? Are the shoes smart enough? Are they in stock?I could fill out a query on the site’s contact form, or give them a ring, but will they answer? And if they don’t have the right pair, they are unlikely to suggest a range of alternatives. The whole process is time-consuming and inefficient.But suppose the brand I like has a strong conversational marketing culture. Instead of resorting to email, I would be able to conduct the conversation in seconds on my phone; instantly, I’m given the colours, sizes and styles in stock. I can pay for the right shoes with a tap of a button.Conversational marketing enables users to get the information they need instantly, without picking up the phone or engaging with a person. It’s not about laziness; it’s about ease.Chris Messina concludes,As Clara de Soto, cofounder of Reply.ai, told VentureBeat,If users are made to toggle between various apps and platforms to get the answer they need, the value of the bot is moot: it needs to be native to the place they spend most time, whether that’s Slack, Messenger or onsite chat.But it can be tricky for brands to consolidate all their conversations in one place. That’s why HubSpot created Conversations, a free, multi-channel tool that lets businesses have one-to-one conversations at scale.says Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot.We have a much lower tolerance for mistakes with machines compared to humans: 73% of people say they won’t interact with a bot again after one negative experience. And if a bot seems to be able to converse in English, we tend to easily overestimate how capable it is.That’s why it’s crucial to manage your customers’ expectations appropriately. Bots are far from being autonomous, and people aren’t easily fooled; trying to present your bot as a human agent is likely to be self-defeating. Bots don’t understand context created by preceding text, and conversational nuances can easily affect their capacity to answer.Because bots live inside messaging apps, they have the potential to invade a highly personal space, making the stakes of getting it right much higher.According to research, people use messaging apps for customer assistance with one key goal: to get their problem solved, fast. Bots should serve one simple purpose well, without getting tangled up in the conversational complications that are better left to humans.The way brands and users interract is undergoing a monumental shift. Customers are smarter and better-informed than ever before. They expect personalization and transparency as a prerequisite. They feel empowered by their options. It’s hard to fool them, and even harder to gain their loyalty.And most significantly, they want 24/7, 365 days of the year instantaneousness: to be heard, to be helped, right now; not in half an hour, not tomorrow. That’s why conversational marketing represents a new cornerstone in marketing but also in customer service and experience, branding and sales.Building a bot for the sake of being on-trend is not enough; it needs to be part of a larger strategy where each conversation has a purpose. As a long-term strategy intended to facilitate lasting relationships, it needs to be spearheaded towards a long-term goal.Effective conversational marketing is an intersection of brand values, user engagement and valuable dialogue. It’s about building your audience first, selling last.Thanks for reading.Originally published at blog.growthbot.org.From a quick cheer to a standing ovation, clap to show how much you enjoyed this story.Head of Growth for GrowthBot, Messaging & Conversational Strategy @HubSpotMedium's largest publication for makers. Subscribe to receive our top stories here → https://goo.gl/zHcLJi