Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Bonney (00:09):
Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of
web marketing insights podcastfrom Gulo solutions.
Uh, with us, we have as usual,Zach Wilson, the cofounder of
Gulo and myself, Chris Bonney,VP of strategy.
And today, Zach, we are going totalk about the conversational
web and what that means and howyou can think about it as you
(00:32):
build new websites.
As you think about search engineoptimization, as you think about
how you get conversions on yoursite, that's what we want to
talk about today.
It is a small mindset changethat can yield huge results.
Zach Wilson (00:47):
Huge.
Um, yeah, well I'm excited totalk about it and it's been a,
it's been a while.
The lockdown has, uh, has reallypulled us away from podcasting
Chris Bonney (01:01):
in general.
So I'm happy to be back andhappy to be talking and getting
back in it and the rhythm of, uh, of having these conversations
with you.
Yeah, I agreed.
I agreed.
So, and I'm really excited abouttoday's topic because it's
something that we talk aboutwith prospective clients and
existing clients.
To say not a lot has to change,uh, tactically or, or from an
(01:23):
application or developmentperspective, um, or
executionally per se, other thanjust thinking about, um, a new
way to think about your imagery,a new way to think about how you
engage with people online.
Um, a new way to write copy andeven send emails.
So want to just kinda jump inreal quick and start talking
(01:44):
about sort of what is theconversational web.
Um, and really it's just a sortof a new approach to help you
rethink how to engage yourcustomers, your members, your
constituents, and to leveragesome proven strategies sort of
with a new focus.
(02:06):
Um, there are, there have beencountless articles written about
this, about conversationalmarketing, conversational media,
the conversational web.
Uh, we'll put up something onthe screen, uh, that shows some
of the headlines, uh, from someof those recently.
Um, how to actually build aconversational marketing
strategy from HubSpot, etcetera.
(02:26):
So it's not as if we're justsort of dreaming this up.
This is a real thing.
This is a big part of, of the,where the web is today.
And I only, I only really saythat because when we talked to
people about it, they don't go,Oh yeah, I heard of that.
But it does sort of set off, youknow, sort of a light bulb
moment when they think about thethings they have seen recently,
you know, on the web.
(02:48):
Okay.
Zach Wilson (02:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, and it is a, it is abudding space and I think that
people will, it, it will becolloquial.
I realized and Oh well knew whatthe term is and what the term
means within the next, withinthe next couple of years.
(03:09):
Because the space in generalfrom a just an a software
perspective is really, is reallyblowing up.
It's blowing a lot of brands,big brands are jumping on these
different platforms that arehelping them navigate these
waters.
Uh, okay.
Through different conversational, um, mediums, uh, social, Chris
(03:34):
mentioned, uh, newsletters, uh,on page SEO and uh, what part,
there's a couple of parts of itthat get us really excited.
Uh, I, I think anyway, our one,the, the messaging, the
messaging aspect of it, which,how that cascades into your
(03:54):
different channels, socialOnPage, organic, um, and, uh, an
email as well.
And even there, there are some,another, a whole nother space
with conversational advertising,which is a whole nother ball of
wax that we won't get much into.
But really there's the messagingcomponent and how that pertains
(04:16):
to your brand.
And then what we really getexcited about is of course,
converting, converting customersengagement and finding, uh,
tactics and mechanisms whereyour customers are doing more.
Again, on page email.
(04:37):
Um, we've, uh, we've beenworking, uh, internally, you've
been heading it up a big shiftin terms of how we're, uh,
communicating that in email.
And, um, yeah, what was it, afour for four months, four or
five months ago, maybe a week,we flipped, uh, out of the, into
(04:59):
a more conversational, uh, emailmarketing campaigns.
Um, we've seen, uh, uh, you cantalk about this a little bit,
uh, but we've seen, uh, somereally good results in certain
channels.
We're experimenting with somedifferent channels as well.
So results do vary depending onwho your audience is.
But do you want to talk aboutthat a little bit?
Chris Bonney (05:21):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And I think maybe a way to framethis up is to say, um, what are
the sort of the tenants of, ofconversational web as far as we
see them.
And that can sort of lay thefoundation for, for some of
these examples.
And we actually have a clientwho's in the space as well that
we can talk about, but generallythere's sort of five things that
(05:43):
we talk about, uh, as theconversational web that things
are a little more casual, uh,that can come across through
imagery, uh, copywritingespecially, um, naming
conventions, button labels, allof those things, uh, that is
personalized.
Now, personalization issomething that's been going on
for the web for a long time, butsomething as simple as putting a
(06:06):
person's first name, uh, intothe subject line of an email
increases, uh, open rates fairlydramatically.
I don't have the data right offthe top of my head to support
that adding, uh, this is perMailChimp though.
Also even adding, um, what anemoji of some kind into a
subject line or the first fewlines of a, of a, of an email
(06:27):
helps generate, um, open ratesas well.
Uh, being interactive with thesite user in whatever way that
might be.
We can put up on the screen a,um, something that we did for up
for probiotics, which was a, aquiz.
And at the end of the short quiz, uh, it said, well, here's the
(06:48):
four probiotic that we recommendbased on your lifestyle.
So that's a way to not just say,Hey, go visit this page to learn
about it.
Hey, let us learn about who youare as a person and then make a
recommendation right online.
That's a great personalized sortof interactive approach, um, on
the conversational web and youneed to be engaging.
(07:09):
That's another one that's superimportant.
Of course, we always wantengagement on the web that's not
new.
And you know, social media isall about engagement and how
they do that.
But I think the folks that turnor that coined the term
conversational marketing, Oh,that's drift drift.com.
They're the ones that do the AIchat bot where you see the
(07:29):
little, uh, uh, uh, sort of, uh,chat box in the lower right hand
corner of many websites that yougo to now asking you a question
or seeing if you need help.
A lot of times there's not aperson behind that, but it's an
AI mechanism that allows you toask questions and answered
questions and, and put youranswers in and then it directs
(07:50):
you a coordinate without a humanon the other side.
So that's really a lot ofengagement there.
And then timeliness, which justmeans we need to be current, we
need to be modern, we need tobe, wherever the news is right
now, that's a good place tostart in the conversational web.
Let's make sure that we're, youknow, we're not dated, um, in,
in what we do.
So those are sort of the fivetenants that we've worked with.
(08:13):
Zach, do you wanna is thereanything in there you want to
expound on or, or,
Zach Wilson (08:17):
yeah, I think one of the things, yeah, one of the
things that, um, from myperspective that I've seen you
play around with again andspecifically in the email
channel, uh, is, uh, isengagement.
Uh, not just open but clickthrough what have you, what have
you done tactically to, uh,incomplete increase, uh, some of
(08:41):
those, some of thoseclick-throughs and emails.
What are, what are the changesthat you've made from style to
length two number of number ofengagement points to you.
You already said the subjectline, uh, emojis, things like
that.
But what else?
What else?
Chris Bonney (09:01):
Yo, yeah, I mean, it's such a dramatic shift with
great results.
I mean, going from the days ofhaving sort of the HTML based,
you're, you open the email andit looks like a webpage and
there's pictures and there'sheadlines and there's multiple
topics and there's multiplebuttons to click through.
It's not saying there isn't aplace for that, but it's a very
noisy inbox these days and ourheads are filled with a lot of,
(09:23):
you know, a lot of, lot ofnoise.
And we're really, at the end ofthe day, we're looking for
someone's attention.
And the best way to get it isnot by flashing imagery, Adam,
but by just trying to beconversational, just to break
through in a very simple, whatwe do now is text-based email.
Okay.
It's casual, it'sconversational.
(09:43):
Literally it isn't formal.
And what I mean just to say,well how do you do that?
What does that exactly mean?
Well, the easiest way to sort ofsay from a copywriting
perspective to just keep in yourmind as a marketer is to say, am
I writing this sentence with amassive people in mind or my
writing this sentence with oneperson in mind?
(10:03):
And you always want to do theone person in mind that they,
you know why, Oh you use thatword instead of us or, or you
know, whatever the words mightbe.
That sort of imply a group.
You want to just pick thatperson, you know you're talking
to that sit there reading youremail and talk to them directly.
That's the easiest way to getinto a conversational mode
(10:25):
quickly.
You want to double space yourlines and what some of the
shifts we made is, I mean ouremails are maybe 150 words,
maybe, maybe 200, probably not.
Um, and not inundate the wordswith anything like uh, links or,
or sometimes you could do ananimated GIF in there if it's
topical or if it's humorous.
(10:46):
But at the end of the day, thisone email is asking for one call
to action, not multiple one.
And that link is at the bottomof the copy.
The copy sure can beconversational, but it also
needs to be compelling, right?
If you're not familiar with howto copyright for marketing or
the flow of how something likethat, a sales letter, so to
speak, needs to be, you know,the formula of that.
(11:08):
That's something to look intoand then ask for that call to
action at the bottom.
And then the other thing we wantto do Zach and think about is
where in the funnel do we wantthis email to lie, right?
Is it at the top of the salesfunnel where we're just building
awareness and we want them toclick through to a blog post and
sort of gain their trust as anauthority?
Or are we asking for a sale?
Right?
(11:28):
And sometimes you can have acampaign of these emails that
might sort of walk peoplethrough the funnel, right
through their inbox.
It also could walk them throughthe funnel on your website.
So those are some of the things,just anecdotally that, that
we're doing and seeing otherpeople doing, recommending that
people do in their, in theiremails.
Zach Wilson (11:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean it's all it.
And I think too, there's, Idon't know, from my perspective,
the burden, uh, marketing shouldreally be about, uh, high burden
versus low burden.
But the burden of, uh, puttingtogether, uh, you know, well
(12:12):
formed emails that look, lookright on every single device and
all that.
Like, I mean, a lot of thesoftware takes care of that now.
But you still end up runningthrough all these tests and you
know, making sure all yourspacing, all that.
I mean now I feel like I feel, Ifeel like it's just like kind of
write a couple paragraphs, sendout, you know, some sort of,
(12:34):
some sort of content, uh, likeyou said or message and, and go
in our, I know our frequency of,uh, email marketing has, has
increased over the last fewmonths as a result of that.
So, um, that's also, that's alsoone upside is there's less,
hopefully less time, uh,invested in having to do that,
(12:55):
that email marketing as well.
Chris Bonney (12:57):
That's a very good point.
No, it's a legitimate point too.
And if you are only asking forone call, I think what the
mentality can be is we're goingto send out this big blast.
Let's accumulate all this stuff.
Let's get every departmentaccounted for in every box and
we're going to send this one bigemail.
Let's see what people click.
So yeah, I mean just send 40emails, but just keep them short
(13:20):
and brief and compelling.
So that's a shift.
I mean that's something to getused to and try to get used to.
And that's hard for people, Ithink.
Zach Wilson (13:27):
Yeah.
Big time.
Big time.
How, so?
Where, where are there areasthat we're seeing?
Uh, we're seeing this play outwith, uh, uh, our clients.
Chris Bonney (13:38):
Yeah, no, that's a , that's a great question.
Um, you know, the Americanmarketing association, the
Chicago chapter, who, you know,we do a lot of work with and
they're pretty big and they'remarketers, so they know what
they're doing.
Uh, and we'll put up on thescreen right now a screenshot of
one of their pages.
That's the call to action is tojoin the organization.
(13:58):
Okay.
So, um, what you'll hear as Iread this is they're making the
allure, uh, we know Chicago andyou know, Chicago, right?
And let's just, you know, weshould probably, uh, bring our
unique perspective and ourhistory together and what we
know into this heritage of whatit means to be a Chicago in and,
(14:20):
and they're going to say thingsthat only someone from Chicago
knows.
And that's a perfect example ofwhat this conversational thing,
this approach looks like.
So we'll put it up on the screenright now and let me read it to
you.
Uh, as we look at it, uh, forthose that are just listening,
uh, it says in a big boldheadline, join the Chicago
(14:41):
marketing community.
Then the sub headline, the cityof big shoulders, the second
city, the windy city, and thenin the textbook youth, it says
from, from Subsaharan summers toSub-Zero winters, from the
magnificent mile to the bustlingburbs steeped in creativity and
tenacity.
(15:02):
Our complex history brings aunique perspective to marketers
in the great city of Chicago.
And then it has a joint AMAChicago button, uh, for the
single call to action on thatpledge just below it.
It's not talking about memberbenefits, right?
It's not talking about, Hey, youget a discount if you join.
It's emotionally connecting withyou in a casual way and saying,
(15:24):
Hey, we're brothers and sistersin the city of Chicago.
Let's come together as marketersand be a part of our tribe.
That's how I, that's how I readthat copy as well.
At least.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I really love that.
As an example, you know thatthat's, that's, that's a, that's
a big one.
Um, our, our other, uh, clientswho are in the conversational
(15:48):
media space, who is nativemessage, and we'll make sure we
put their link in the commentsbelow in YouTube, in any worlds
we post this, uh, but you knowwhat we propose to them, which
is a unique perspective as wellas, as, as, as opposed to having
five, six, seven nav buttons ontheir website.
We knew there were kind of twovisitors to their site.
(16:09):
At the end of the day, therewere people that wanted to learn
and there were people thatwanted to buy basically.
So you want to learn about thisnew conversational media world,
great.
Go to this realm.
There's one button and it opensup to a mega nav and learn about
it.
Now you're ready to buy.
Okay, well why should you buyfrom native message?
That's the other button.
And it opens up to make an adwith all those sort of selling
(16:30):
and buying kind ofconversations.
So they know right where in thefunnel they are on their nav
bar.
Right?
Um, and they know where in theprocess someone is trying to
maybe convert with them and theycan track that through
analytics.
And we did that by just keepingit very simple and
understanding.
At the end of the day, there'stwo people, not people too
intentions of, of the brand willcome into your site.
(16:52):
Really at the end of the day,they, they know all about it and
they're ready to buy or theydon't really know when they want
to learn.
Zach Wilson (16:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's some, uh, there's beensome really interesting things
happen, uh, excuse me, happening, um, on their site, uh,
specifically, uh, with that, youknow, they're, um, yeah, uh,
just as an example there, uh, toexpound on that, their, uh,
session duration since makingsome of those changes and those
(17:23):
things are up.
Um, 83%, uh, they're page numberof pages, uh, visitors are
visiting per session up 50%.
Um, the sessions in general,this is not a Testament to
conversational, uh, elements,but the sessions are up, uh,
over 15%.
(17:43):
So, you know, some of thosebehavioral change, uh, that are
cascading again from theperspective, uh, too, uh, like
you said, the site structure andhow people, uh, journey through
the site and those can have abig impact because, uh,
ultimately the longer somebody's, you know, ideally what we want
(18:06):
to do is we want to try and getsomebody to the exact page
through marketing or a searchthat they, we want them to go
to.
And that answers their question.
Uh, obviously that isn't alwaysthe case, but we, uh, beyond
that, we want to provide themeasy ways to, uh, extend their
(18:31):
journey and navigate to otherplaces of the site.
So, you know, that's a, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, those are,
those are great things.
The, you know, there, uh, justto expand on that, the bounce
rate is down, uh, almost 20% aswell since the new site.
So the, a lot of, a lot of thesethings in terms of, you know,
people getting to the site, themessaging, uh, the conversation
(18:55):
that's happening on the site,that style, uh, of, of, of
design, the style ofconversation, style, messaging,
those all, um, those all add up.
They, uh, they add up, uh, in,in big ways.
So, um, so yeah, so that's a,that's super, uh, super exciting
I think.
Chris Bonney (19:15):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Agreed.
And they also have a blog andwe've also created landing pages
for them.
So is that, can you know, what'syour sort of 32nd take on?
I have a topic I want to tellthe world about how do I decide
if it's a blog post or it's alanding page?
What, what helps me distinguishwhat I'm trying to do there
(19:36):
between the two?
Zach Wilson (19:38):
Um, yeah, that's a good question.
Uh, so I think the, the, thelanding pages are better geared
towards, uh, uh, specificsegments.
Uh, that's, that's a way that wesort of separate them out.
You know, if there's a, ifthere's a segment or if there's,
uh, a story of sorts that you'retrying to, Mmm, well, you're
(20:03):
trying to flush out whether withvisuals or, or not whatnot.
The landing page just ingeneral, can short less copy,
more visuals.
Um, big, big, uh, big bulletpoints.
Uh, as you journey down thepage, blog a little bit more,
um, uh, editorial informational,uh, they, you know, they always,
(20:28):
it's always good to have avisual AIDS with that or video
AIDS with that and things likethat.
But, you know, you've got,you've got something that's, I
mean, it's almost like writingup, writing a book, right?
Like, it's, you've got a thesis,you've got a topic that's
becomes very topical.
I'm sure it can be editorial.
(20:48):
I mean, for, for people that arein like the B2B, B to C space,
uh, like us and a lot of ourclients, uh, it's gotta be
typically, if you're doing a, ifyou're doing content marketing,
it's gotta be pretty long tail.
Uh, so we usually go from avolume perspective.
We'll, you know, we'll, we'llsort of go for a bunch of long
(21:11):
tail keywords that all relateyeah.
To, um, a more, uh, pie in thesky keyword.
For example.
You know, if we're talking aboutconversational marketing, right,
Google conversational marketing,you're, it's going to be pretty
hard to win that.
Well, like you said earlier onbecause of some of the players
(21:33):
in that namely drifts, they'vecoined that, what was that like
three years ago or somethinglike that.
And they dominate that prettyheavily.
But, you know, how can you makea footprint there?
Well, you try and find sometangential, uh, tangential space
in there to play, um,conversational media,
conversational commerce, uh,conversational web, uh, and all
(21:55):
these sort of derivatives thatrelate to, uh, that you can play
with to find, uh, to findopportunities and, and in search
to have some visibility.
So, Mmm, we've shot, we've,we've seen some really good
results with that.
I mean, that's really cursoryexplanation of the methodology,
but that, that's, that's seems,seems to be working pretty well
(22:17):
for us.
Chris Bonney (22:19):
Yeah, no, agreed.
It all makes a ton of sense.
Um, so what else can we talkabout here?
Um, we did talk a little bitabout con how we convert and the
way we convert, uh, by keeping asingle, uh, call to action in an
(22:41):
email.
I think as we saw with the AMAexample on that page, again,
they're, they, they know whatthe intent of that page is and
that's uh, to keep people tojoin.
Um, I think the intent of a blogpost is, is it can, it can be a
conversion mechanism andsometimes is to maybe, uh, get
(23:01):
someone to give you their emailaddress cause they found you
through an organic search,right?
So that's an action they cantake that moves them down.
The funnel.
Landing pages tend to be alittle more focused and
optimized, uh, to, uh, you know,a little farther down the funnel
with a single call to action.
Um, sometimes it's not as muchabout information as about
(23:22):
selling.
Is that a fair thing to say?
The distinction between a blogpost disorder for sure.
Is, is informational and thelanding pages a little more
compelling?
Zach Wilson (23:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
I would say that's a great,that's a great distinction for
sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
The, um, but I think the, youknow, the, the, you know, to
wrap, to wrap all this up in anice pretty bow, if you're
(23:52):
looking, you know, if you'relooking for one, one take away
from all of this, it's okay thatthis the, the, the, the, the
conversational, uh, uh, engagingin conversational media and on
conversational web.
You've got all of thesedifferent ways you can play on
it.
Uh, conversational ads,conversational, um, AI,
(24:16):
conversational commerce, um, uh,conversational, uh, chat bots as
we don't really like to callthem, but that's what they are.
Um, and conversational marketingand all of these things.
You know, what you're ultimatelytrying to achieve is, is it's
two things.
(24:36):
One, you're trying to create atighter connection with your
customer.
And two, you're trying to create[inaudible] as a lot of these
companies are tuned, trying todo, uh, less friction for your
customers.
And if you're, you're in the Bto B space or B to C space and
you're, you're, no, you're notplaying and true conversational
software, chatbots ads, um, exconversational AI, and you're
(25:01):
just trying to get into theconversational web at, you know,
step one as we're talking aboutit and changing your, um, your
email style, changing yourmessaging, your style, what
should you look for?
Well, you know, at one thingthat we looked for was more
engagement, more, more, moreopens, more click throughs, more
(25:23):
um, uh, uh, more conversions onour, on our website.
Uh, whether it's a landing pageof blog posts, some sort of
form, but those are the thingsthat, that's, that's ultimately
your goal, right?
Like you're trying to, in termsof making, creating this
conversation and changing thelandscape and how you
(25:43):
communicate with your customersor converse with your customers.
You're ultimately, and whatwe're ultimately all trying to
do is, is trying to create amore, a higher conversion rate.
Chris Bonney (25:55):
Yeah, no, I agree.
I think that's what this isabout.
Why should you takeconversational web and
conversational marketingseriously?
And why, why make the shift?
That's exactly right.
We ultimately, yeah, we'relooking for a conversion of some
kind.
If it's an new, you know,whatever it is.
Uh, we are, and we know thatthis is the way, and I think
(26:16):
what people can take away fromthis too is keep an eye out for
this now.
Cause it is a nuance, but theminute you start seeing, Oh,
that's really formal and that'snot really taking the
conversational tenants into,into, you know, account and look
at this over here, this is, andit, and it feels a little more
emotionally connected.
I think that's one of the fiveto that.
Maybe we'll make it a six one tohave sort of an emotional
(26:36):
connection focused on thatemotional connection.
That's sort of like maybe ournew number six because I think,
you know, it's a good one.
It's an after effect of it, butI think it is a big part of,
it's a big part of all marketingbut, but I think that is an
aspect that you kind of, youkind of do get drawn in
emotionally.
So, yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
So, so that's, yeah, that's agood wrap up, I think.
(26:59):
Um, this was a good session,Zach.
I don't know if you haveanything else you want to share
before we wrap up and saygoodbye today.
Get more conversions.
Let's all do that.
We can do some too.
Yeah.
Excellent.
All right, so thanks everybodyfor listening to this, uh,
podcast today of web marketinginsights from Gulo, Zach Wilson
(27:20):
and myself.
Thank you very much forlistening.
If you're on YouTube, feel freeto leave a comment or subscribe
in the bottom.
If you're listening throughiTunes or anything else, please
feel free to rate or I'll leavea comment as well.
We'd love to hear from you andstay tuned for our next web
marketing insights, podcastscoming soon.
Okay.
Thanks Zach.
Take care.
(27:41):
Alright, bye.
Bye.
Hi everybody.
Thanks for checking out thepodcast today.
Uh, go to Gulo solutions.com tolearn more about us.
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that would be great as well.
Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of
web marketing insights podcastfrom Gulo solutions.
Uh, with us, we have as usual,Zach Wilson, the cofounder of
Gulo and myself, Chris Bonney,VP of strategy.
And today, Zach, we are going totalk about the conversational
web and what that means and howyou can think about it as you
(00:32):
build new websites.
As you think about search engineoptimization, as you think about
how you get conversions on yoursite, that's what we want to
talk about today.
It is a small mindset changethat can yield huge results.
Zach Wilson (00:47):
Huge.
Um, yeah, well I'm excited totalk about it and it's been a,
it's been a while.
The lockdown has, uh, has reallypulled us away from podcasting
Chris Bonney (01:01):
in general.
So I'm happy to be back andhappy to be talking and getting
back in it and the rhythm of, uh, of having these conversations
with you.
Yeah, I agreed.
I agreed.
So, and I'm really excited abouttoday's topic because it's
something that we talk aboutwith prospective clients and
existing clients.
To say not a lot has to change,uh, tactically or, or from an
(01:23):
application or developmentperspective, um, or
executionally per se, other thanjust thinking about, um, a new
way to think about your imagery,a new way to think about how you
engage with people online.
Um, a new way to write copy andeven send emails.
So want to just kinda jump inreal quick and start talking
(01:44):
about sort of what is theconversational web.
Um, and really it's just a sortof a new approach to help you
rethink how to engage yourcustomers, your members, your
constituents, and to leveragesome proven strategies sort of
with a new focus.
(02:06):
Um, there are, there have beencountless articles written about
this, about conversationalmarketing, conversational media,
the conversational web.
Uh, we'll put up something onthe screen, uh, that shows some
of the headlines, uh, from someof those recently.
Um, how to actually build aconversational marketing
strategy from HubSpot, etcetera.
(02:26):
So it's not as if we're justsort of dreaming this up.
This is a real thing.
This is a big part of, of the,where the web is today.
And I only, I only really saythat because when we talked to
people about it, they don't go,Oh yeah, I heard of that.
But it does sort of set off, youknow, sort of a light bulb
moment when they think about thethings they have seen recently,
you know, on the web.
(02:48):
Okay.
Zach Wilson (02:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, and it is a, it is abudding space and I think that
people will, it, it will becolloquial.
I realized and Oh well knew whatthe term is and what the term
means within the next, withinthe next couple of years.
(03:09):
Because the space in generalfrom a just an a software
perspective is really, is reallyblowing up.
It's blowing a lot of brands,big brands are jumping on these
different platforms that arehelping them navigate these
waters.
Uh, okay.
Through different conversational, um, mediums, uh, social, Chris
(03:34):
mentioned, uh, newsletters, uh,on page SEO and uh, what part,
there's a couple of parts of itthat get us really excited.
Uh, I, I think anyway, our one,the, the messaging, the
messaging aspect of it, which,how that cascades into your
(03:54):
different channels, socialOnPage, organic, um, and, uh, an
email as well.
And even there, there are some,another, a whole nother space
with conversational advertising,which is a whole nother ball of
wax that we won't get much into.
But really there's the messagingcomponent and how that pertains
(04:16):
to your brand.
And then what we really getexcited about is of course,
converting, converting customersengagement and finding, uh,
tactics and mechanisms whereyour customers are doing more.
Again, on page email.
(04:37):
Um, we've, uh, we've beenworking, uh, internally, you've
been heading it up a big shiftin terms of how we're, uh,
communicating that in email.
And, um, yeah, what was it, afour for four months, four or
five months ago, maybe a week,we flipped, uh, out of the, into
(04:59):
a more conversational, uh, emailmarketing campaigns.
Um, we've seen, uh, uh, you cantalk about this a little bit,
uh, but we've seen, uh, somereally good results in certain
channels.
We're experimenting with somedifferent channels as well.
So results do vary depending onwho your audience is.
But do you want to talk aboutthat a little bit?
Chris Bonney (05:21):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And I think maybe a way to framethis up is to say, um, what are
the sort of the tenants of, ofconversational web as far as we
see them.
And that can sort of lay thefoundation for, for some of
these examples.
And we actually have a clientwho's in the space as well that
we can talk about, but generallythere's sort of five things that
(05:43):
we talk about, uh, as theconversational web that things
are a little more casual, uh,that can come across through
imagery, uh, copywritingespecially, um, naming
conventions, button labels, allof those things, uh, that is
personalized.
Now, personalization issomething that's been going on
for the web for a long time, butsomething as simple as putting a
(06:06):
person's first name, uh, intothe subject line of an email
increases, uh, open rates fairlydramatically.
I don't have the data right offthe top of my head to support
that adding, uh, this is perMailChimp though.
Also even adding, um, what anemoji of some kind into a
subject line or the first fewlines of a, of a, of an email
(06:27):
helps generate, um, open ratesas well.
Uh, being interactive with thesite user in whatever way that
might be.
We can put up on the screen a,um, something that we did for up
for probiotics, which was a, aquiz.
And at the end of the short quiz, uh, it said, well, here's the
(06:48):
four probiotic that we recommendbased on your lifestyle.
So that's a way to not just say,Hey, go visit this page to learn
about it.
Hey, let us learn about who youare as a person and then make a
recommendation right online.
That's a great personalized sortof interactive approach, um, on
the conversational web and youneed to be engaging.
(07:09):
That's another one that's superimportant.
Of course, we always wantengagement on the web that's not
new.
And you know, social media isall about engagement and how
they do that.
But I think the folks that turnor that coined the term
conversational marketing, Oh,that's drift drift.com.
They're the ones that do the AIchat bot where you see the
(07:29):
little, uh, uh, uh, sort of, uh,chat box in the lower right hand
corner of many websites that yougo to now asking you a question
or seeing if you need help.
A lot of times there's not aperson behind that, but it's an
AI mechanism that allows you toask questions and answered
questions and, and put youranswers in and then it directs
(07:50):
you a coordinate without a humanon the other side.
So that's really a lot ofengagement there.
And then timeliness, which justmeans we need to be current, we
need to be modern, we need tobe, wherever the news is right
now, that's a good place tostart in the conversational web.
Let's make sure that we're, youknow, we're not dated, um, in,
in what we do.
So those are sort of the fivetenants that we've worked with.
(08:13):
Zach, do you wanna is thereanything in there you want to
expound on or, or,
Zach Wilson (08:17):
yeah, I think one of the things, yeah, one of the
things that, um, from myperspective that I've seen you
play around with again andspecifically in the email
channel, uh, is, uh, isengagement.
Uh, not just open but clickthrough what have you, what have
you done tactically to, uh,incomplete increase, uh, some of
(08:41):
those, some of thoseclick-throughs and emails.
What are, what are the changesthat you've made from style to
length two number of number ofengagement points to you.
You already said the subjectline, uh, emojis, things like
that.
But what else?
What else?
Chris Bonney (09:01):
Yo, yeah, I mean, it's such a dramatic shift with
great results.
I mean, going from the days ofhaving sort of the HTML based,
you're, you open the email andit looks like a webpage and
there's pictures and there'sheadlines and there's multiple
topics and there's multiplebuttons to click through.
It's not saying there isn't aplace for that, but it's a very
noisy inbox these days and ourheads are filled with a lot of,
(09:23):
you know, a lot of, lot ofnoise.
And we're really, at the end ofthe day, we're looking for
someone's attention.
And the best way to get it isnot by flashing imagery, Adam,
but by just trying to beconversational, just to break
through in a very simple, whatwe do now is text-based email.
Okay.
It's casual, it'sconversational.
(09:43):
Literally it isn't formal.
And what I mean just to say,well how do you do that?
What does that exactly mean?
Well, the easiest way to sort ofsay from a copywriting
perspective to just keep in yourmind as a marketer is to say, am
I writing this sentence with amassive people in mind or my
writing this sentence with oneperson in mind?
(10:03):
And you always want to do theone person in mind that they,
you know why, Oh you use thatword instead of us or, or you
know, whatever the words mightbe.
That sort of imply a group.
You want to just pick thatperson, you know you're talking
to that sit there reading youremail and talk to them directly.
That's the easiest way to getinto a conversational mode
(10:25):
quickly.
You want to double space yourlines and what some of the
shifts we made is, I mean ouremails are maybe 150 words,
maybe, maybe 200, probably not.
Um, and not inundate the wordswith anything like uh, links or,
or sometimes you could do ananimated GIF in there if it's
topical or if it's humorous.
(10:46):
But at the end of the day, thisone email is asking for one call
to action, not multiple one.
And that link is at the bottomof the copy.
The copy sure can beconversational, but it also
needs to be compelling, right?
If you're not familiar with howto copyright for marketing or
the flow of how something likethat, a sales letter, so to
speak, needs to be, you know,the formula of that.
(11:08):
That's something to look intoand then ask for that call to
action at the bottom.
And then the other thing we wantto do Zach and think about is
where in the funnel do we wantthis email to lie, right?
Is it at the top of the salesfunnel where we're just building
awareness and we want them toclick through to a blog post and
sort of gain their trust as anauthority?
Or are we asking for a sale?
Right?
(11:28):
And sometimes you can have acampaign of these emails that
might sort of walk peoplethrough the funnel, right
through their inbox.
It also could walk them throughthe funnel on your website.
So those are some of the things,just anecdotally that, that
we're doing and seeing otherpeople doing, recommending that
people do in their, in theiremails.
Zach Wilson (11:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean it's all it.
And I think too, there's, Idon't know, from my perspective,
the burden, uh, marketing shouldreally be about, uh, high burden
versus low burden.
But the burden of, uh, puttingtogether, uh, you know, well
(12:12):
formed emails that look, lookright on every single device and
all that.
Like, I mean, a lot of thesoftware takes care of that now.
But you still end up runningthrough all these tests and you
know, making sure all yourspacing, all that.
I mean now I feel like I feel, Ifeel like it's just like kind of
write a couple paragraphs, sendout, you know, some sort of,
(12:34):
some sort of content, uh, likeyou said or message and, and go
in our, I know our frequency of,uh, email marketing has, has
increased over the last fewmonths as a result of that.
So, um, that's also, that's alsoone upside is there's less,
hopefully less time, uh,invested in having to do that,
(12:55):
that email marketing as well.
Chris Bonney (12:57):
That's a very good point.
No, it's a legitimate point too.
And if you are only asking forone call, I think what the
mentality can be is we're goingto send out this big blast.
Let's accumulate all this stuff.
Let's get every departmentaccounted for in every box and
we're going to send this one bigemail.
Let's see what people click.
So yeah, I mean just send 40emails, but just keep them short
(13:20):
and brief and compelling.
So that's a shift.
I mean that's something to getused to and try to get used to.
And that's hard for people, Ithink.
Zach Wilson (13:27):
Yeah.
Big time.
Big time.
How, so?
Where, where are there areasthat we're seeing?
Uh, we're seeing this play outwith, uh, uh, our clients.
Chris Bonney (13:38):
Yeah, no, that's a , that's a great question.
Um, you know, the Americanmarketing association, the
Chicago chapter, who, you know,we do a lot of work with and
they're pretty big and they'remarketers, so they know what
they're doing.
Uh, and we'll put up on thescreen right now a screenshot of
one of their pages.
That's the call to action is tojoin the organization.
(13:58):
Okay.
So, um, what you'll hear as Iread this is they're making the
allure, uh, we know Chicago andyou know, Chicago, right?
And let's just, you know, weshould probably, uh, bring our
unique perspective and ourhistory together and what we
know into this heritage of whatit means to be a Chicago in and,
(14:20):
and they're going to say thingsthat only someone from Chicago
knows.
And that's a perfect example ofwhat this conversational thing,
this approach looks like.
So we'll put it up on the screenright now and let me read it to
you.
Uh, as we look at it, uh, forthose that are just listening,
uh, it says in a big boldheadline, join the Chicago
(14:41):
marketing community.
Then the sub headline, the cityof big shoulders, the second
city, the windy city, and thenin the textbook youth, it says
from, from Subsaharan summers toSub-Zero winters, from the
magnificent mile to the bustlingburbs steeped in creativity and
tenacity.
(15:02):
Our complex history brings aunique perspective to marketers
in the great city of Chicago.
And then it has a joint AMAChicago button, uh, for the
single call to action on thatpledge just below it.
It's not talking about memberbenefits, right?
It's not talking about, Hey, youget a discount if you join.
It's emotionally connecting withyou in a casual way and saying,
(15:24):
Hey, we're brothers and sistersin the city of Chicago.
Let's come together as marketersand be a part of our tribe.
That's how I, that's how I readthat copy as well.
At least.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I really love that.
As an example, you know thatthat's, that's, that's a, that's
a big one.
Um, our, our other, uh, clientswho are in the conversational
(15:48):
media space, who is nativemessage, and we'll make sure we
put their link in the commentsbelow in YouTube, in any worlds
we post this, uh, but you knowwhat we propose to them, which
is a unique perspective as wellas, as, as, as opposed to having
five, six, seven nav buttons ontheir website.
We knew there were kind of twovisitors to their site.
(16:09):
At the end of the day, therewere people that wanted to learn
and there were people thatwanted to buy basically.
So you want to learn about thisnew conversational media world,
great.
Go to this realm.
There's one button and it opensup to a mega nav and learn about
it.
Now you're ready to buy.
Okay, well why should you buyfrom native message?
That's the other button.
And it opens up to make an adwith all those sort of selling
(16:30):
and buying kind ofconversations.
So they know right where in thefunnel they are on their nav
bar.
Right?
Um, and they know where in theprocess someone is trying to
maybe convert with them and theycan track that through
analytics.
And we did that by just keepingit very simple and
understanding.
At the end of the day, there'stwo people, not people too
intentions of, of the brand willcome into your site.
(16:52):
Really at the end of the day,they, they know all about it and
they're ready to buy or theydon't really know when they want
to learn.
Zach Wilson (16:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's some, uh, there's beensome really interesting things
happen, uh, excuse me, happening, um, on their site, uh,
specifically, uh, with that, youknow, they're, um, yeah, uh,
just as an example there, uh, toexpound on that, their, uh,
session duration since makingsome of those changes and those
(17:23):
things are up.
Um, 83%, uh, they're page numberof pages, uh, visitors are
visiting per session up 50%.
Um, the sessions in general,this is not a Testament to
conversational, uh, elements,but the sessions are up, uh,
over 15%.
(17:43):
So, you know, some of thosebehavioral change, uh, that are
cascading again from theperspective, uh, too, uh, like
you said, the site structure andhow people, uh, journey through
the site and those can have abig impact because, uh,
ultimately the longer somebody's, you know, ideally what we want
(18:06):
to do is we want to try and getsomebody to the exact page
through marketing or a searchthat they, we want them to go
to.
And that answers their question.
Uh, obviously that isn't alwaysthe case, but we, uh, beyond
that, we want to provide themeasy ways to, uh, extend their
(18:31):
journey and navigate to otherplaces of the site.
So, you know, that's a, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, those are,
those are great things.
The, you know, there, uh, justto expand on that, the bounce
rate is down, uh, almost 20% aswell since the new site.
So the, a lot of, a lot of thesethings in terms of, you know,
people getting to the site, themessaging, uh, the conversation
(18:55):
that's happening on the site,that style, uh, of, of, of
design, the style ofconversation, style, messaging,
those all, um, those all add up.
They, uh, they add up, uh, in,in big ways.
So, um, so yeah, so that's a,that's super, uh, super exciting
I think.
Chris Bonney (19:15):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Agreed.
And they also have a blog andwe've also created landing pages
for them.
So is that, can you know, what'syour sort of 32nd take on?
I have a topic I want to tellthe world about how do I decide
if it's a blog post or it's alanding page?
What, what helps me distinguishwhat I'm trying to do there
(19:36):
between the two?
Zach Wilson (19:38):
Um, yeah, that's a good question.
Uh, so I think the, the, thelanding pages are better geared
towards, uh, uh, specificsegments.
Uh, that's, that's a way that wesort of separate them out.
You know, if there's a, ifthere's a segment or if there's,
uh, a story of sorts that you'retrying to, Mmm, well, you're
(20:03):
trying to flush out whether withvisuals or, or not whatnot.
The landing page just ingeneral, can short less copy,
more visuals.
Um, big, big, uh, big bulletpoints.
Uh, as you journey down thepage, blog a little bit more,
um, uh, editorial informational,uh, they, you know, they always,
(20:28):
it's always good to have avisual AIDS with that or video
AIDS with that and things likethat.
But, you know, you've got,you've got something that's, I
mean, it's almost like writingup, writing a book, right?
Like, it's, you've got a thesis,you've got a topic that's
becomes very topical.
I'm sure it can be editorial.
(20:48):
I mean, for, for people that arein like the B2B, B to C space,
uh, like us and a lot of ourclients, uh, it's gotta be
typically, if you're doing a, ifyou're doing content marketing,
it's gotta be pretty long tail.
Uh, so we usually go from avolume perspective.
We'll, you know, we'll, we'llsort of go for a bunch of long
(21:11):
tail keywords that all relateyeah.
To, um, a more, uh, pie in thesky keyword.
For example.
You know, if we're talking aboutconversational marketing, right,
Google conversational marketing,you're, it's going to be pretty
hard to win that.
Well, like you said earlier onbecause of some of the players
(21:33):
in that namely drifts, they'vecoined that, what was that like
three years ago or somethinglike that.
And they dominate that prettyheavily.
But, you know, how can you makea footprint there?
Well, you try and find sometangential, uh, tangential space
in there to play, um,conversational media,
conversational commerce, uh,conversational web, uh, and all
(21:55):
these sort of derivatives thatrelate to, uh, that you can play
with to find, uh, to findopportunities and, and in search
to have some visibility.
So, Mmm, we've shot, we've,we've seen some really good
results with that.
I mean, that's really cursoryexplanation of the methodology,
but that, that's, that's seems,seems to be working pretty well
(22:17):
for us.
Chris Bonney (22:19):
Yeah, no, agreed.
It all makes a ton of sense.
Um, so what else can we talkabout here?
Um, we did talk a little bitabout con how we convert and the
way we convert, uh, by keeping asingle, uh, call to action in an
(22:41):
email.
I think as we saw with the AMAexample on that page, again,
they're, they, they know whatthe intent of that page is and
that's uh, to keep people tojoin.
Um, I think the intent of a blogpost is, is it can, it can be a
conversion mechanism andsometimes is to maybe, uh, get
(23:01):
someone to give you their emailaddress cause they found you
through an organic search,right?
So that's an action they cantake that moves them down.
The funnel.
Landing pages tend to be alittle more focused and
optimized, uh, to, uh, you know,a little farther down the funnel
with a single call to action.
Um, sometimes it's not as muchabout information as about
(23:22):
selling.
Is that a fair thing to say?
The distinction between a blogpost disorder for sure.
Is, is informational and thelanding pages a little more
compelling?
Zach Wilson (23:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
I would say that's a great,that's a great distinction for
sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
The, um, but I think the, youknow, the, the, you know, to
wrap, to wrap all this up in anice pretty bow, if you're
(23:52):
looking, you know, if you'relooking for one, one take away
from all of this, it's okay thatthis the, the, the, the, the
conversational, uh, uh, engagingin conversational media and on
conversational web.
You've got all of thesedifferent ways you can play on
it.
Uh, conversational ads,conversational, um, AI,
(24:16):
conversational commerce, um, uh,conversational, uh, chat bots as
we don't really like to callthem, but that's what they are.
Um, and conversational marketingand all of these things.
You know, what you're ultimatelytrying to achieve is, is it's
two things.
(24:36):
One, you're trying to create atighter connection with your
customer.
And two, you're trying to create[inaudible] as a lot of these
companies are tuned, trying todo, uh, less friction for your
customers.
And if you're, you're in the Bto B space or B to C space and
you're, you're, no, you're notplaying and true conversational
software, chatbots ads, um, exconversational AI, and you're
(25:01):
just trying to get into theconversational web at, you know,
step one as we're talking aboutit and changing your, um, your
email style, changing yourmessaging, your style, what
should you look for?
Well, you know, at one thingthat we looked for was more
engagement, more, more, moreopens, more click throughs, more
(25:23):
um, uh, uh, more conversions onour, on our website.
Uh, whether it's a landing pageof blog posts, some sort of
form, but those are the thingsthat, that's, that's ultimately
your goal, right?
Like you're trying to, in termsof making, creating this
conversation and changing thelandscape and how you
(25:43):
communicate with your customersor converse with your customers.
You're ultimately, and whatwe're ultimately all trying to
do is, is trying to create amore, a higher conversion rate.
Chris Bonney (25:55):
Yeah, no, I agree.
I think that's what this isabout.
Why should you takeconversational web and
conversational marketingseriously?
And why, why make the shift?
That's exactly right.
We ultimately, yeah, we'relooking for a conversion of some
kind.
If it's an new, you know,whatever it is.
Uh, we are, and we know thatthis is the way, and I think
(26:16):
what people can take away fromthis too is keep an eye out for
this now.
Cause it is a nuance, but theminute you start seeing, Oh,
that's really formal and that'snot really taking the
conversational tenants into,into, you know, account and look
at this over here, this is, andit, and it feels a little more
emotionally connected.
I think that's one of the fiveto that.
Maybe we'll make it a six one tohave sort of an emotional
(26:36):
connection focused on thatemotional connection.
That's sort of like maybe ournew number six because I think,
you know, it's a good one.
It's an after effect of it, butI think it is a big part of,
it's a big part of all marketingbut, but I think that is an
aspect that you kind of, youkind of do get drawn in
emotionally.
So, yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
So, so that's, yeah, that's agood wrap up, I think.
(26:59):
Um, this was a good session,Zach.
I don't know if you haveanything else you want to share
before we wrap up and saygoodbye today.
Get more conversions.
Let's all do that.
We can do some too.
Yeah.
Excellent.
All right, so thanks everybodyfor listening to this, uh,
podcast today of web marketinginsights from Gulo, Zach Wilson
(27:20):
and myself.
Thank you very much forlistening.
If you're on YouTube, feel freeto leave a comment or subscribe
in the bottom.
If you're listening throughiTunes or anything else, please
feel free to rate or I'll leavea comment as well.
We'd love to hear from you andstay tuned for our next web
marketing insights, podcastscoming soon.
Okay.
Thanks Zach.
Take care.
(27:41):
Alright, bye.
Bye.
Hi everybody.
Thanks for checking out thepodcast today.
Uh, go to Gulo solutions.com tolearn more about us.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Also, if you can hit subscribeon our channel here on YouTube,
that would be great as well.
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Come hang with Amy Poehler. Each week on her podcast, she'll welcome celebrities and fun people to her studio. They'll share stories about their careers, mutual friends, shared enthusiasms, and most importantly, what's been making them laugh. This podcast is not about trying to make you better or giving advice. Amy just wants to have a good time.