October 29, 2020 
Drift conversational marketing is something you or many people in the online marketing stratosphere would have come across at one time or the other.
There is a lot of giddiness surrounding conversational marketing nowadays; why? They are simply a new way to do business.
Although this blog is to examine Drift conversational marketing, it is safe to say this article will not be complete without an analysis of what conversational marketing entails.
What is Conversational Marketing?
As said earlier, conversational marketing is now a new way to do business. It is a form of reaching out to your customers that will benefit both the business and customer massively.
Conversational marketing means using real-time conversations and dialogue-driven activities to interact and engage with users, customers, and visitors on a website.
With conversational marketing, customers do not have to go through the agony of waiting days, and sometimes weeks, for a response.
By using targeted and personalized messaging as well as highly intelligent chatbots, you can engage your users and customers in real-time whenever they are on your website.
Instead of relying on lead capture forms, conversational marketing aims at using the experience of a real-time conversation to build relationships with users and customers.
Real-time conversations allow you to achieve so much within a short frame of time. You can provide immediate solutions to users’ problems in record time which will go a long way in showing how committed you are to customer service.
Conversational marketing is productive because it uses the experience of a personalized real-time conversation to make it easier for users to engage your business which will drive-up user engagements and in the long run help you convert these leads faster.
This means that conversational marketing will not only bring customers as leads, but it will also bring quality, qualified, and useful ones.
What is Drift’s Story?
After Performable, an innovative marketing feature to aid how people made purchases, it was later acquired in 2011 by Hubspot.
Following comments regarding real-time conversation by the CEO David Cancel in 2014, Drift emerged a year later. This led to a new time of messaging for marketing and sales.
Drift removed all lead capture forms from their operations in 2016, and the results were monumental.
There was a 15% increase in leads; about 50% of their business operations were powered by conversations with a faster sales cycle experienced within three days after the initial conversation to the demo.
2017 marked the beginning of AI chatbots into the sales cycle, which leads to another massive increase of 50% in conversations.
What is Drift Conversational Marketing?
Drift is widely regarded as one of the pioneer adopters of innovative automation and is also considered as the world’s front-runner conversational marketing platform. They have literally said goodbye to lead capture forms and hello to conversations.
Drift works with their users in helping them achieve a more efficient marketing approach.
Drift is a prominent chatbot application software that you can add to your website, which will prompt your new and existing customers to ask questions or engage in conversation.
The drift conversational marketing chatbot can have scripted or programmed communications with leads and answer their questions.
It works in place of a human customer care representative, only that it can be available at any time of the day, does not get tired, does not get paid, can multitask and can be used in several parts of a business, among many others.
The drift conversational marketing chatbot can help your customers book easy appointments with your business as well. Whether a representative is available or not, the chatbot does its work flawlessly.
When a representative is unavailable, the chatbot can engage your users with whatever they want. Answer questions advertise products, book appointments, etc.
When a representative is available, the drift conversational marketing chatbot can still have real-time conversations with your customers.
It can also connect the customer with any of your agents that are available, especially if the customer wants to speak with a human.
Chatbots are capable of reaching leads (which are your potential customers) who may not be interested enough to contact you for business but may have underlying doubts that need to be cleared and questions that should be answered.
As they explore your website or business page as the case may be, they may have some questions about the product and services, and chatbots are on-hand to help.
Drift can field real-time questions, and conversations, even when your live agents are unavailable, are a huge step forward in lead outreach.
As recent studies confirm that leads or customers who reach out to an online business expect a reply within the first 10 minutes, drift conversational marketing chatbots have become even more prominent.
Drift Software Alternatives
Although Drift is widely regarded as the pioneer of conversational marketing and innovative marketing automation, there are similar software platforms out there that perform basically the same tasks.
One of these marketing software options includes Zebrabuzz. Each platform has his special pros and cons, and Zebrabuzz is one of the few out there that balances conversational marketing to give customers a preferable platform to reach their customers.
Zebrabuzz is a marketing software platform that has a chatbot for business leads and sales. You can connect with new and existing customers wherever they may be. It also allows you to generate leads and sales in real-time via web chat, SMS & Facebook Messenger.
Zebrabuzz, although, came later than Drift has also formed a strong reputation for providing innovative conversational marketing strategies to help ease real-time communications with customers and make the sales cycle as easy as possible.
Advantages of Drift Conversational Marketing Software
Drift conversational marketing software has certain benefits that have made it stand out over time. Zebrabuzz has taken inspiration from these advantages as well as the cons to give what it currently offers today.
Here are some of the pros of the Drift conversational marketing software:
- Easy to Use. Drift is widely regarded as one of the easiest conversational marketing software out there. It is also a very functional chatbot that has had many modelled after it.
- It makes it easy for you and your team to make sales decisions and rearranging the schedule to suit quality leads which will, in the long run, lead to bigger and better sales.
- Several customers have said the interface is user-friendly and it is also easy to archive and organize chats ensuring you can never be lost in the heavy flow of text threads from chatbots.
- The customer service team helps you figure out the best ways to improve your chatbot for your new and existing customers which will help them when asking questions.
Disadvantages of Drift Conversational Marketing Software
- Although rare, there have been reported cases of glitches, especially with the mobile interface.
- When more features are applied, especially for large scale businesses, it could accrue a lot of expenses for the business.
- The onboarding process has also been described as ‘rigid’ by some sections of the users who feel it could be diversified a little bit more to suit more industries.
