The world of marketing is changing, and it's changing fast. The way we interact with customers, the way we engage with brands, and the way companies can serve their customers have been revolutionized by a new technology: chatbots.
Chatbots are AI-powered virtual assistants that can converse with humans through text or voice interfaces. They can be programmed to do anything from book flights to order food deliveries, and they're starting to take over everything from customer service to lead generation.
The truth is that chatbots are not only a great way to automate processes, but they also provide a better experience for your customers. They can answer questions about your products or services more quickly than human employees can without ever getting tired!
Plus, unlike human employees, chatbots never make mistakes when following up on leads or creating new opportunities for your business. And because they don't have feelings (yet), they won't get frustrated when a lead doesn't become a customer—they'll just keep trying until they succeed!
Why You Need Chatbot Marketing
Chatbots can be used to create a 24/7 customer service that provides information about products or services requested by customers at any time of day or night. This is especially useful for seasonal demands (e.g., Valentine's Day) or major events such as Black Friday sales.
The cost of hiring live agents for this type of service may seem like too much money for small businesses who are already operating on tight budgets—and most likely it would be if they were providing this type of service across multiple channels such as email support and phone calls from potential customers looking for answers before buying something from their storefront. Modern chatbots allow small business owners like yourself to get the benefits of having dedicated agents(well, almost) without the cost.
How Chatbots Can Grow Your Business
Chatbots can help you generate more leads, boost sales and increase customer satisfaction.
When it comes to generating qualified leads, chatbots can augment your marketing efforts by driving traffic to the proper channels. For example, a chatbot should be able to tell prospects about all the benefits of your product or service and provide them with additional information about how it will solve their problems. If you have a product that requires installation or configuration—a chatbot can help determine whether people have compatible devices/setup before sending them through an entire sales pipeline.
Chatbots are also great at increasing sales by immediately responding when someone is interested in buying something from you (or at least passing along their contact info). This saves time and money because it eliminates the need for phone calls or emails back-and-forth between potential customers who've already expressed interest in what you offer! One of our clients found that using an open-source conversational AI, Rasa increased their conversion rate by 30% over six months, proving what we've known all along: Chatbots work!
Where to Use Chatbot Marketing
Chatbot marketing is a burgeoning field, and it's important to understand where chatbots are best used. Chatbots are ideal for answering quick, straightforward questions users have about your business. For example, if someone wants to learn more about the company and its products, a chatbot can provide that information quickly and easily.
Chatbots can be used on websites, social media platforms (like Facebook Messenger), apps (like Amazon Alexa), or even in person at events like conferences or trade shows—the possibilities are endless! Chatbots are great for answering questions customers might have about your services and products as well as taking orders from them.
A fun way to get started with chatbot marketing is by setting up an automated response system on your website. This is an excellent tool for engaging with prospective customers who are interested but don't know exactly what they want yet—and maybe haven't even made it all the way through your sales funnel!
What Makes a Good Chatbot Strategy?
A good chatbot strategy will solve a problem for your customers. A great chatbot strategy solves a problem that customers didn't even know they had until you told them about it.
Chatbots should be easy to use, with no instructions or learning curve required and a simple interface that makes it easy to ask questions, get answers and do what you need to do right away.
Chatbots should handle unexpected words and phrases gracefully—if someone asks, "How old are you?" instead of "What is your age?" (which happens), the bot shouldn't break down or just say, "I don't understand." Have an approach that tells the user they aren't wrong while still giving them an opportunity to clarify their question so that the bot can understand what they want from it.
It's also essential to let bots learn from past interactions so they can anticipate possible follow-ups based on previous responses—for example: if someone orders a specific category of a product frequently, then eventually, this information should become part of the bot's standard response repertoire without needing anything extra added by its creator(s).
Best Practices for Chatbot Marketing
The best way to know how to use a chatbot is to try, fail and learn from your mistakes. If you’re not afraid of failing, experimenting with new technologies and leveraging them in interesting ways will be much easier.
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make with chatbots is not making them practical enough for people to want them as an extension of their business. A good example of this is GEICO’s “Car Bot” which essentially was just an interactive calculator for car insurance quotes instead of something that would allow consumers to search for coverage on their own or even get basic information about policies like deductibles and premiums.
You should also ensure that whatever data you collect from users through these channels gets appropriately used so it doesn't go to waste or become outdated quickly (which often happens enough). Asking questions like: "Is this person part of our target audience?" And "Does this data point match up with what we know about our audience?" will help ensure everything stays relevant over time rather than becoming obsolete within months because it wasn't used right away after being collected!
Make sure your chatbot is well-written. You want customers to have a positive experience with your chatbot, so make sure its personality is friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful.
Don't overload your chatbot with features or information at first—let it grow organically as people interact with it! For example, if someone asks how much shipping costs on a product, don't give them all of your shipping rates at once—just give them the ground shipping price for now. Then if they want more information later (like express shipping options), give them those next time around!
Focus on the user experience. Don't just create a chatbot because it's the latest thing and everyone else is doing it. Think about what message you want your customers to receive from interacting with your bot—and then make sure that message is delivered clearly and consistently across all channels (including email).
Please don't overdo it! If people keep seeing messages from your bot everywhere, they'll be turned off by it quickly—and maybe even stop trusting what it says. Limit the number of times per day that people see promotional messages from your chatbot so that each message feels fresh when it arrives in their inboxes or feeds.
A good chatbot that has been designed with the proper elements (like personality, humor, etc.) will engage your customers in an emotional way that makes them want to keep coming back for more—and this means that you'll have repeat customers who are likely to share their positive experiences with others as well!
Chatbots are a powerful tool that any marketer can use to improve engagement, retention, and conversions. At the very least, chatbots are a great way to put your company's personality on display for customers and attract leads. From there, you can work with chatbots to help with everything from automated lead capture to answering customer support questions in real-time.