Could AI become your greatest conversion specialist?

Marketing has always been somewhat about driving conversions. In 2023, when almost everyone is tightening their belts (including brands themselves), you might be feeling this reality more than ever.

We empathize with today’s marketers who are challenged to do more. They have conversion goals that the organization and everyone in it relies upon. 

It’s a lot of responsibility right now, so it's no surprise that upping conversions is high on the agenda. And we're not just talking about acquisitions – new customers are great, of course, but you'll be just as focused on upsells, cross-sells and renewals. Everything needs attention!

And yet this isn't an article about hard times and great expectations, but excitement. There's serious reason to be hopeful as a marketer, because 2023 has already proved to be special when it comes to conversions and AI?

For a start, this is the year that AI has really broken through in marketing. Just think: late last year, almost no marketers were using ChatGPT; while it’s hard to find one today who isn’t.

Professionals have embraced ChatGPT and other LLMs far and wide. And already there’s powerful competition from the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft, making fertile ground for the proliferation of AI marketing tools.

Ultimately, a tool is just a tool – it’s the car, not the destination. The real reason to be excited is because AI can now help brands connect with customers in the way that’s always proven to be most valuable – emotionally. And guess what? That impacts conversion metrics across the entire customer journey.

So let's look at how AI can now take your conversions to the next level in 2023 and far beyond. 

AI can turn conversations into conversions

Whether it’s personalized product recommendations, predictive analytics or optimized websites, AI has always been great at dealing with data. 

But AI's potential exists far beyond its back-end number-crunching abilities.

Think of the last time you bought an item in store for more than, say, $1,000. Did you just go into the store blindly and say: “give me that one?” Or did you have a conversation with someone who knows the entire range, can give recommendations, answer your most detailed questions and tell you if a product meets your requirements and expectations?

Conversations lead to conversions – and beyond that, happy customers.

With advances in conversational AI, brands are able to create sophisticated digital humans that actively drive conversions in web environments, similar to a human sales rep. 

These AIs are designed with a personality that best represents your brand: fun, quirky, reassuring, motivational, serious – you name it. So when customers speak to a digital human, they can have free-flowing conversations that feel spontaneous and natural.

And what's more, these customers feel supported; their feelings of doubt and apprehension over a considered purchase can be converted into confidence that they're making a good purchasing decision.

That sounds all well and good, you may be thinking. But does it work? Can AI-powered digital humans in sales produce tangible results? 

Our data is pretty compelling on that front. We've developed digital human product specialists that have improved conversions rates on clients' websites by up to 2x what they were before. And they do this in a variety of ways. 

For instance, they encourage more people to complete online forms and self-service workflows – almost 70% more, to be exact. They also reduce cart abandonment rates by approximately 10%. 

In fact, ecommerce customers are twice as likely to go through with a purchase online when a digital human places items in their cart for checkout.

Again, the reason why it works is simple. Digital humans replicate that care, knowledge and attention that in-store product geniuses have. They open a dialog, they don’t just spout a marketing monolog.

And they do so online – a place in which it's been notoriously difficult to offer an in-person customer experience – 24/7 and in a huge range of languages.

See how Deutsche Telekom does it in the video below:

AI can take you beyond acquisitions 

There's a well-worn adage in sales that it costs five times more to create a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. Some studies claim the cost can be 25 times as much! 

It's worth remembering, particularly as recent research shows that marketing budgets have dropped back to almost pre-Covid numbers after hitting a 15-year high during the pandemic. 

If you too are working with smaller budgets that last year, you'll want to nurture and retain customers as best you can.

Existing customers trust your brand, and that means they're usually more willing to buy your new products and spend a little extra when doing so. That makes them an important piece in the conversions puzzle. 

So let's talk upsells, cross-sells and renewals. One of the kets is knowing your customers. What are their needs and desires?

The deep-marketing answer would involve cross-platform data mining, CRM scraping, social media data harvesting, and a six month project to set up a reporting and execution strategy.

Or you can just ask people what they want, and give recommendations in real time. Which is how AI-powered conversation works.

The best customer service reps understand their customers by speaking to them, building a rapport that strengthens brand relationships and loyalty. It's these connections – the human touch – that many people believe has been lost from most online shopping experience today, according to PwC. 

And customers are right. eCommerce has been able to offer nothing resembling that in-person experience. Until we entered the age of AI.

Here’s how digital humans help brand interactions online feel more personable – more human. 

A dedicated digital human product genius can be trained to educate users on product features, current trends and a variety of other topics to help them make more informed purchasing decisions. 

With open and free-flowing conversation, they can learn about what the customer needs and steer them towards complementary items that may also appeal to them. Say your customer is buying a new TV that'll require a certain type of wall mount. The AI can ask questions around mounting and suggest the right product for that situation.

Our digital humans have helped tangibly improve upsells, cross-sells and renewals, as well as increased the average size of ecommerce transactions.

That’s the power of giving people confidence in they’re purchases – confident that they’re making the right decision. And confident customers come back again and again.

Let’s create dialog, not monolog

Much of what we've talked about above involves using LLMs to power these more natural, open customer conversations.

In fact, 2023 could be described as the Year of ChatGPT for marketers. The past few months have brought a large leap forward in how marketers use AI – and how receptive the general population are to it too.

And let’s be honest: for many marketers, they need something to help them convert more. It’s not an easy year; LLMs have come at the right time.

But if there’s one mistake in using AI, it’s only using it for the functional stuff – the number crunching. Marketers should use it to make people feel something again!

Our advice: the next time you’re considering what could improve your web conversions, think about if you’re opening a dialog with customers, or just another monolog.

If you’re stuck giving monologs, it might be time to unleash the capabilities of digital humans.