How to Use Chatbots to Transform your Digital Marketing Strategy
If you’re a marketer, you may already know that the availability of chatbots has redefined how customer service is conducted across many industries. This intuitive piece of technology has made it possible for SMEs to compete with larger corporations when it comes to reaching out and servicing their customers.
With messaging platforms becoming more and more popular, the demand for chatbots is also steadily increasing. In fact, according to recent research by Global Market Insights, Inc., the chatbot market is poised to reach $1.34 billion US Dollars by 2024.
But do you know that you can also maximize chatbots to reinforce your digital marketing strategy?
Yes, chatbots are not only useful for restaurant bookings, handling complaints, and answering FAQs. Here are some brilliant ways on how chatbots can fit into your marketing plan.
Lead Generation
I was browsing through a website the other day when I came across a live chat window. I clicked on the pop-up to see whether it will make it easier to find what I was looking for. After the chatbot asked me for my name, this message popped up next:
Just in case we get disconnected, what’s your email? Tap it or type it in below.
For casual users, this request makes a lot of sense because it shows that the company is thoughtful enough to follow up with their concerns. However, as a marketer, I thought that this was a genius way to gather email leads without being too hard sell.
Chatbots can supplement or even replace web forms. While web forms are still effective, many online users associate these forms to being spammed. This is the reason why web forms are often ignored unless there’s an irresistible freebie in exchange. These freebies used for lead generation like books, webinars, videos, etc. often cost companies a lot of money.
On the contrary, asking customer emails in a friendly chat will seem less threatening. According to a digital marketing company, they found that live chat converts 33–50% higher than web forms in generating leads. Plus, it’s a more cost-efficient way to gather email leads.
Boost Your Social Media Business Pages
With social distancing practices being followed all over the world, expect that more and more people will turn to virtual messaging when it comes to interacting with brands and businesses. If you are receiving hundreds or thousands of messages a day, it will be impossible to manually respond to these messages immediately. If you don’t respond instantly to messages, this will affect the response time of your page, which Facebook displays for everyone to see.
Using a chatbot can help you bridge this gap. It’s like having a support team that can cater to several customers simultaneously, 24/7, 365 days a year. This will help increase the response time of your Facebook page. Why is response time important? A potential customer is more likely to choose a business that is “Very Responsive” to messages than one who only “Typically replies within a few days”.
Chatbot company MobileMonkey also claims that compared to other online marketing channels, using its free Facebook Messenger template can make companies gain 80% more open rates for up to seven times higher ROI.
Maintain Your Brand’s Personality
I’m sure you’ve encountered an irate salesperson or phone agent at least once in your life. While this one person does not represent the entire company, that one experience was probably enough to turn you off from using its products or services.
If this happens to your company, you know that one wrong tweet reply or an insensitive WhatsApp response could turn to a PR and marketing nightmare. This is more likely to happen if you have a very lean team and they are overwhelmed with messages.
Using chatbots is a practical way to avoid such scenarios. You can program bots depending on your brand’s tone of voice and personality. You don’t have to worry about going off-script or providing the wrong information. Unlike us humans, chatbots can access an entire database in an instant.
Push Promos and Low-Performing Products
Many businesses are still hesitant to use chatbots because they feel that bots lack a personalized feel. If you’re one of these skeptics, then you’re definitely missing out. Not only can chatbots market your product but they can also sell for you.
Do you know that 67% of US millennials said that they are likely to purchase products and services from brands using a chatbot? Big companies like H&M, Sephora, and eBay are already using chatbots to sell products so customers can purchase directly from the messaging app.
Chatbots are also a great way to notify customers of new promotions and discounts. For example, if you are a clothing company and you receive a message from a potential customer searching for a pair of jeans, you can program your chatbot to turn this into a marketing opportunity and promote your current denim offers.
Maximizing Chatbots for Marketing
Chatbots can be an exceptional tool for your business. Not only can chatbots support your customer service needs, but they can also augment your digital marketing strategy when used appropriately.
How about you? How are you using chatbots for your business and how effective are they in converting leads to sales? Would love to hear your thoughts!
Originally published at https://masterofcode.com on May 15, 2020.
