We talk a lot about Conversational Engagement here at PropFuel, and I want to let you in on a secret—Conversational Engagement at its core isn’t necessarily a new concept. We understand the importance of conversation when cultivating relationships, because we do it every day with our friends, families and colleagues.
What is new, though, is the idea that marketers and membership executives can have these conversations at scale. The challenge in embracing Conversational Engagement is figuring out how to take a concept that works well when you have one person—or 10 people—to talk to, and make it work with 1,000 or 10,000 or 50,000 people. As is increasingly the case in today’s world, the solution can be found in technology.
By using automation and AI (artificial intelligence), you can lead people through a process that feels like a conversation (Ask-Capture-Ask), but does not require anyone on your team to actually carry out the interaction. You set up the automated experience, and your members can have that two-way interaction sitting on their couch with their smartphone.
I like to say that I immediately fell for PropFuel because it was the tool I’d been searching for in my eight years as an association executive. You can read more about that in my “love letter” to PropFuel here, where I talk about constantly frankensteining systems to get at what PropFuel does so easily. I wanted to give my members a way to tell me what they needed so I could point them to the exact benefits, services and events at that exact moment they needed them.
PropFuel, and Conversational Engagement on a larger scale, is about more than a new way to send emails to people; it’s about taking the traditional communication methods we’ve been using and perfecting in person since the origin of speech and applying them to email. It puts your members and their needs at the center of the interaction, lessening broadcast email overload, re-connecting to previously disengaged members and uncovering changing member expectations and needs.
You can read this excerpt as well as other Association Marketing practices that focus on two-way, individualized digital communications in the Conversational Engagement eBook. Download it here.
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