How To Use Chatbots in Content Marketing
Messaging apps are growing faster than social media networks. This new evolution in how users consume content means chatbots and voice assistants are on the agenda for brands who want to engage audiences natively in messaging platforms. Personalizing communication at scale will be the way brands stand out with content marketing through conversational interfaces.
Bots can help users buy flowers, book a holiday, find Instagrammable cafes, and enjoy e-commerce across categories like education, health, fashion, and beauty. But providing valuable content through conversation is another side to chatbots. Bots deliver content distribution at scale, with natural, personalized interactions. Messaging apps are the perfect medium for storytelling, and they are surpassing social networks in size as well as growth.
Content through conversation
For brands, the growth of chatbots means they have the opportunity to use content marketing strategies through chatbots, and pull customers with a story. Think: branded storytelling at scale.
Content marketing is about delivering value to customers consistently, to engage, educate or entertain. Branded content and experiences strengthen customer relationships and improve brand value. For marketers trying to establish a strong and engaging brand voice online — chatbots are the most cost effective solution for an immersive brand experience.
As an extension of a content marketing or social media strategy, bots allow brands to talk directly to customers while gathering insights and data along the way. Marketing involves tailoring messages to the right audience. Messaging allows brands to tailor a personality, conversation, and entire interaction to suit their target audience for the best engagement and retention.
Niche brands are no stranger to developing brand experiences that are highly personalized to communicate best with their audiences. Email news service theSkimm uses a “best friend element” that makes the news digestible for a female millennial audience. Speaking to Sophia Amoruso on Girlboss Radio, founders Danielle Weisberg & Carly Zakin described their product’s ‘voice’ as an intentional attempt to create a personality that would best suit their users.
Use chatbots to translate a brand voice into a conversation and deliver stories, exclusive content, games, and even campaigns through messaging platforms.
How do you measure conversations?
Successful content marketing through bots is still in its infancy. As brands discover the true potential of messaging and realize this technology is already in the hands of their customers, there will be a major shift. Bots are a natural progression from social media, which forced brands to improve their online conversations to keep up with the ever-changing platforms and demands of millennial users.
For brands questioning ROI, bot analytics solutions like Botanalytics, Dashbot, and Facebook’s own Messenger analytics dashboard can measure engagement, find bottlenecks in the conversation, and even broadcast messages. Conversion points should be designed into the conversation flow of a bot for the best analysis of user drop-off. Bots offer many points of conversion — only limited by creative ability.
Originally published at blog.botlist.co on June 16, 2017.
