How Science-Driven Companies Can Use Conversational Marketing

Imagine this: you're scrolling through a website, uncertain if buying this pricey piece of lab tech is the right choice for your company. Suddenly, a message pop up and invites you to speak to an expert right away. The invitation is engaging, personalized, and it actually makes you pause and respond. This is the magic of conversational marketing.

Traditional, one-way marketing isn’t enough anymore. To get noticed nowadays, it’s all about creating authentic, two-way interactions that capture attention and build relationships.

In this article, I’ll explore what conversational marketing means for your science-based company. Ready to join the conversation?

Let’s dive in.

What is conversational marketing?

Conversational marketing is a strategy that uses personalized dialogue to engage customers, enhance their experience, and build meaningful relationships.

It ranges from addressing customer issues on social media to implementing live chat on your website.

At a time when many large companies are cutting customer support costs and replacing employees with AI, conversational marketing is a great opportunity to be seen as a brand that's closer to your customers and more human.

While traditional marketing feels like a monologue, conversational marketing, on the other hand, is more like a two-way conversation between your customer and your company.

Another key difference is that conversational marketing can happen in real-time. This makes it feel more genuine, rather than a cold, calculated game of influence.

Though it might seem daunting for companies used to traditional marketing, conversational marketing offers many benefits. Let’s explore them now.

The benefits of conversational marketing in science

Conversational marketing may take some effort to implement, but it's often worth it due to the numerous benefits it can bring to your company.

Here are some key advantages:

1. Improve customer care

One of the most common uses of conversational marketing is in customer support. Adding a live chat feature to your website is a great way to dive into conversational marketing with minimal risk. Live chats are increasingly popular with consumers, especially among younger generations who are accustomed to this type of communication.

The main benefits of live chat include:

• Ease of use: Customers find it simple and convenient
• Instant responses: No need to wait for an email reply
• No phone calls: Ideal for those who prefer not to make phone calls.

Live chat is also effective. According to the Conversation Trends Report by Drift, based on over 30 million chat conversations, the number of times buyers expressed gratitude through chat nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023. This shows that customers appreciate and value this form of support.

2. Increase brand awareness

Conversational marketing also helps increase brand awareness by proactively engaging with customers where they already spend their time. For instance, many companies now respond to customer inquiries on social media, offering helpful answers and support.

Nike is a pioneer of this strategy. The sportswear giant actively responds to customers on their social media channels, showcasing how effective conversational marketing can be:

This approach promotes transparency and quickly builds trust in your brand. In some cases, positive interactions can go viral, serving as excellent advertising for your company. However, be cautious—always be helpful and keep a positive tone, even when dealing with complaints. Backlash can also go viral.

3. Get insights from customers

An underrated benefit of conversational marketing is its ability to generate valuable insights from customers. By focusing on dialogue, you can quickly uncover customers’ pain points as well as what they value most in your products or services. This feedback can help improve your current offerings and inspire new features.

In addition, the way people talk about your brand and communicate with you online provides a wealth of data about how your company is perceived.

That's why it's important to have a clear data collection strategy in place within your conversational marketing process so that it's not only a great communication channel but also a useful intelligence platform.

4. Increase lead conversion

Conversational marketing not only helps retain existing customers but also convinces prospects to choose your company over the competition. When deployed strategically, it becomes an excellent way to communicate with leads and address their objections before they decide to go elsewhere.

According to data from Intercom, website visitors are 82% more likely to convert to customers if they’ve chatted with the company first. Additionally, customers who engaged in a conversation before signing up saw a 13% increase in their worth.

This report shows that creating discussions with your prospects not only boosts the number of clients but also increases their total spending.

How to apply conversational marketing to your business?

Conversational marketing doesn't have to be complex. You can make significant progress with simple implementations and readily available tools.

Sometimes conversational marketing is not about talking directly to your customers, but about giving them an easy way to reach you or engage with you (like points 2, 5, and 7 below).

Here are a few examples:

1. Chat communication on your website

People don't like to call hotlines, and email support always feels too long or too uncertain of getting a response. So, a great solution is to let them chat instantly with your customer support team via instant messages. Implementing this is easy with tools like Intercom or Zendesk (those can be expensive but there are many other options for smaller budgets). The trickiest part is making sure your team is available to respond, at least during business hours.

I like how Twist Bioscience displays photos of their employees who are online to show you that someone is ready to respond:

If availability is an issue, consider AI-powered chatbots. These can handle common issues, but make sure customers can quickly reach a real person for more complex problems (see the section below for the pros and cons of using AI in conversational marketing).

2. Callback option

If implementing a chat isn't practical due to limited staff, consider offering a callback option instead. A simple form on your website can allow people to enter their phone number, and you can call them back as soon as someone is available.

This approach avoids long hotline waiting times, which can frustrate customers. You can even ask in the callback form for the best time to reach them, so you don’t disturb them when they’re not ready to answer.

This solution is easy to implement and can leave a great impression on your customers.

3. Social listening

It could take an entire article to dissect social listening, but let's just talk about it for a minute.

Social listening consists of actively monitoring mentions of your brand or products on social networks. As with the Nike example above, keeping tabs on what people are saying about your company can offer insights and opportunities for engagement. There are many tools available to implement social listening, with SproutSocial being a popular option.

Social listening can be very powerful, but it takes some effort to implement and stay consistent. If you plan to implement this strategy, don’t forget to look at platforms like Reddit, where many scientists help each other troubleshoot experiments and equipment issues.

For instance, ThermoFisher actively monitors and engages with their customers on Reddit, as seen below:

4. Organize live product training

Regular training sessions can significantly improve how users interact with your product, especially if it's a laboratory instrument. These sessions not only help users get the most out of your product, but also help create a community of engaged users.

Another effective method is to host webinars to present case studies with real customers and allow invitees to ask questions about your product.

For example, bit.bio frequently hosts webinars to highlight their products and technologies, like this one that was promoted on LinkedIn:

5. Open a dialogue via email marketing

Email marketing doesn’t have to be a one-way street. You can use newsletters and regular email campaigns to spark conversations with your customers. And it doesn’t take much effort, just let them know they can reach out with every email you send (avoid using “no-reply” email addresses; those are engagement killers).

Another quick trick is to always include questions in the email you send, even if the email is promotional. It will feel more engaging and who knows, you might get some interesting conversations as a result.

6. Use text message channels

Text messages—whether SMS, RCS, WhatsApp, or another popular platform in your region—are often underrated channels despite their growing importance in marketing.

In Europe, in particular, WhatsApp has become a preferred solution for marketers looking for a direct communication channel with their customers. It's an excellent option for both customer support and customer acquisition. WhatsApp allows for easy, personal interactions and can be used to deliver valuable information via text.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, the WHO used WhatsApp to disseminate important information about the virus. Through interactive messages, you could just text the WHO channel and receive updates on the pandemic’s status:

7. Feed your conversations into a FAQ

While it may not seem like a conversation, a “Frequently Asked Question” section (FAQ) can go a long way in helping your customers. Be sure to constantly update your FAQ with new common questions you encounter while talking to your customers.

A good FAQ section will save you a lot of time, as it will address most of the common issues while allowing your customers to find the answer themselves without wasting time.

Now let's address the elephant in the room. Most of the strategies above can be enhanced by artificial intelligence, but is it really a good strategy?

Should you use AI for conversational marketing?

I couldn’t talk about conversational marketing in 2024 without mentioning AI. Since ChatGPT became a thing, AI chatbots have been all the rage.

As you can probably guess, sometimes AI works, and sometimes it’s just a disaster. To help you choose, let's review the pros and cons of using AI in conversational marketing.

Pros of using AI in conversational marketing

Here are some strong advantages in favor of using AI:

• 24/7 availability: AI doesn't sleep, and that can come in handy when your customers need round-the-clock support. According to the Conversation Trends Report, “39% of all conversations happened outside of normal business hours”, which shows how useful it can be to have non-stop support.
• Efficiency (in some cases): AI can handle high volumes of low-stake, repetitive requests. For instance, Swedish fintech company Klarna revealed that its AI assistant could handle the workload of 700 customer support agents. The company even boasted that its AI was more accurate than humans and helped to reduce repeat inquiries by 25%. While the AI primarily deals with simple requests, this frees up human agents to focus on more complex issues.
• Increased conversion: Speed is crucial in sales, and it’s hard to beat AI for responsiveness. The Conversation Trends Report found that “live agents who responded within 2 minutes of a site visitor engaging with a chatbot saw the highest chance of booking a meeting”. In addition to that, “agents who waited 5 minutes to respond increased the risk of site visitors leaving by 10x. Agents who waited 10 minutes to respond increased that risk by 100x.” So yes, offering a fast response can boost your sales, but be mindful of the potential downsides.

Cons of using AI in conversational marketing

• Lack of human touch: As AI becomes commonplace, talking to a real person can now feel like a luxury. The numbers tell the same story, as Drift reported that “from 2022 to 2023, the number of requests to speak to a human increased 2.5x.” Even if you decide to implement AI, don't forget to provide a quick and clear path to a conversation with a real person. And please don't try to trick customers into thinking they're talking to a human when they're not; people can tell.
• Off-tone responses: Even if AI can do the job, you want to consider how it does it. Anyone who's used generative AI in the past year can attest to the particular tone (which I would describe as "overly literary") that these tools tend to use. For example, Klarna’s AI support, while efficient, sometimes delivers responses that are excessively lengthy and flowery, as noted here. This can be problematic when users need quick, straightforward answers.
• Limited understanding: Relying solely on AI can lead to issues, as demonstrated by McDonald’s recent experiment with IBM's AI-powered drive-through in Chicago. The experiment was halted after numerous customer complaints and a notable incident involving a $222 McNuggets bill. Not only did the AI ordering machine fail, but it became a running joke on TikTok and other social networks, which can hurt a brand in the long run.

There is no right or wrong answer to the use of AI in conversational marketing. In my opinion, it can be useful in some contexts, especially for companies with a high volume of inquiries, but if not implemented correctly and with a human alternative, it can actually be harmful to your business.

Conversational marketing with scientists: Where are they?

Conversational marketing is a broad topic that spans strategies that can sometimes feel disconnected. After all, implementing a customer support chat on your website and engaging in social listening have their own specificities, and aside from the fact that they both create a conversation, they have little in common.

If you're investing in conversational marketing, the key takeaway is to go where the scientists are.

Of course, starting by investing in your website’s conversational marketing tools is a safe bet because that's where your customers go, but don't forget that scientists have their own behavior.

For example, a lot of graduate students or young scientists regularly interact on Reddit to either complain about bad products or ask for fixes.

Since Twitter went down the drain, thousands of scientists have deserted the platform to go elsewhere. This means that LinkedIn and other social networks are becoming increasingly popular with scientists.

To effectively engage with scientists, find out where your target audience is most active and join the conversation there.

Be part of their community, offer valuable support, and contribute meaningfully. This is what conversational marketing is all about.