When you hear the words conversational marketing, what do you think of? Is it a chatbot? What is conversational marketing really, just another trend?  A marketing leader at the forefront of conversational marketing, and the VP of Marketing at Qualified.com, Maura Rivera, asks the audience to open their eyes and see conversational marketing as so much more than just bots. Are you not buying it? Have your opinions challenged and check it out!   Takeaways: Conversational marketing will expedite the process of marketing passing leads to sales. In the past, leads went to the website, filled out a form, and then they waited. The sales team had to follow up and marketing was left trying to make sure that sales connected with that lead. With conversational marketing, it’s instantaneous. The last mile refers to when qualified visitors get to the website and now they need to get across the finish line to conversion and enter the sales cycle. Conversational marketing helps to get these qualified visitors across the finish line. The five-minute rule - You are 100x more likely to get engagement from someone if you get back to them within five minutes of them engaging with your marketing materials, versus if you get back to them an hour later. Businesses make a huge effort to drive traffic to their website, why not be there to answer a visitor’s questions? Bots are great for gathering more qualifying data on website visitors and booking meetings with the sales team while the sales team is away, but it should not be the sole focus of conversational marketing. A qualified lead differs for each company according to their ideal customer profile, but for example, it might be the VP of a company that is looking at a business’ pricing page. A sales rep would want to talk to this visitor. To personalize your conversational marketing experience you provide to target accounts, ask yourself, how can our business engage with these targeted accounts when they come to our website? Forms still have a role. They are great when visitors want to download a piece of content and register for an event or webinar. Prioritize your time, if you are doing everything you are not doing anything. What do you want to accomplish this month? What will make the biggest difference in terms of converting your target accounts? Keep your hero message about your business on the homepage simple. If visitors go to your website and cannot figure out what your business does, it is a missed opportunity. If they are not your direct target, they could be a referral or an influencer. Take the opportunity to learn about every element of marketing and also the elements outside of marketing. Surround yourself with smart people and never stop learning.   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/mauramrivera LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maura-rivera-43b13414/ Qualified: https://www.qualified.com/ Qualified & Pardot: https://www.qualified.com/pardot   Busted Myths: Conversational marketing is all about chatbots. - Conversational marketing is so much more than chatbots, that is just a piece. What it is really about is having real-time conversations with human sales reps, with visitors on a website that are ready and wanting to communicate.   Shout Outs 31:28 - Nate Skinner