How will chatbots impact our business life?
I was recently invited to talk to a small, local event. As part of the event, I was asked to talk about the work I do at ubisend and share some of my thoughts on the future of the ‘business chatbot’.
Here is a selection of the cool things we discussed. I hope you find it insightful!
Are chatbots still viable in 2019 (and beyond)?
The chatbot hype that started in 2015–2016 has finally turned into real traction. Over the last three years, we almost followed the Gartner Hype Cycle to a tee.
The very first email you send to a new email subscriber is prime real-estate.
At this very moment, your subscriber is at their most engaged in your content. They know exactly who you are, what you provide, and why they’ve just given you their details.
It’s an opportunity you cannot miss. It’s also a great opportunity for some testing and tweaking.
Below is an extremely simple experiment you can run. I hope it inspires you!
Experiment name
ZTG006 — Activation — Email — Increase engagement from a welcome email
Objective
To increase engagement of my ‘welcome to my newsletter’ email. Current statistics show…
£££
Hey, do you know a clever way we could use chatbots in sales?
Allow me to blow your mind: to make… sales.
Wow. Revolutionary.
Just kidding, of course
In this post, I want to cover two clever ways I’ve seen companies use chatbots in sales.
These work particularly well with ecommerce websites or companies that sell ‘instant’ products (like ebooks, online training, etc.). However, the principle really works for any business. In fact, one of my biggest clients has used these and they sell intricate financial services.
1. The checkout power-up
Upselling is the Holy Grail of all salesman.
It obviously makes sense, as it’s literally additional revenue…
(and an Unexpected Lesson)
Now, most of you are probably wondering…
What is this weirdo talking about? Google+? Is he serious?
That’s right, friends, Google+.
Back in early 2016, I briefly ran a Google+ experiment. I wanted to raise some awareness on a network I never (ever) use, thinking it would make sense to at least try to grow an audience.
It was my first stab at this network, so I went for the easiest experiment I could think of and ran with it.
I learned some interesting things back then. And now, two years later, I got an unexpected lesson.
Let’s get started.
Experiment name
…
Yay or Nay?
Shopify is, arguably, the easiest platform to get an online store up and running. It’s certainly the most popular, with over 600,000 active stores. It’s intuitive, easy to use, has beautiful UI.
And now, they also have chatbots.
Chatbots on the Shopify app store
The Shopify app store is one of the key reasons they are doing so well.
Whatever your business does, you will find an app to help you — from design to marketing and sales.
It’s no surprise you will now also find chatbot apps in there.
The irony of this post is not lost on us
Things take time.
Sometimes, they take a long time.
Sometimes, time flies by so much you realise it’s been 8 months since you’ve worked on your side hustle.
Sometimes, you realise the irony of having made no progress on a side hustle aimed at people who don’t make any progress on their side hustle.
I guess you could say we know our audience.
Apologies and no dwelling
Alright, let’s get this out of the way then.
About 8 months ago, Joe and I had our last meeting around meedle (back then we still called it ‘Zero to Grow’). …
Growing an email list is a priority for almost any marketer. Even though email marketing is effectively crashing down in flames, collecting emails is still valuable. If anything, a list of targeted emails allows you to build an audience baseline on most advertising platforms.
However you plan on using them, first things first: collecting these dang emails. Below, I report on an experiment I ran a couple months ago on the blog section of a website. It’s worth noting this blog already had decent monthly traffic (c. 10K/mo, if I remember correctly).
I had been running a slide-in popup at…
Now the time of the week you’ve all been waiting for, it’s the week in numbers.
Every now and then, I get into an amazing email correspondence.
I try to always add a question to my emails. Even a silly email like the typical ‘thank you for subscribing to our email list’ contains a question, a call-to-action, something that will help me learn more from the people who join me.
Most people ignore the question. A few respond.
Today, I received an email from Tina (Tina Eaton). This is hot off the press. I swiftly asked her if I could mention her name and our exchange, which she agreed.
My question is simple:
You know your…
Alex Debecker
Founder and CGO of @ubisend. We are the leading AI-driven chatbots building company. I write about #chatbots, #growthhacking and #marketing. Come say hi!
