Mobile Chat Bot Marketing: What’s Coming and How to Be Prepared
Originally appeared on and was cross-posted from the Accomplice.IO company blog. Images have been added to the medium version because I like them.
When you tweet to a brand, do you expect a response from a human being? In the near future, marketers will be able to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to allow customers to chat with their brand in mobile chat applications. These automated conversations will become a major customer engagement marketing channel. We anticipate AI marketing evolving in waves, starting with existing mobile AI and then progressing to automated customer chat experiences. Savvy marketers will need to start preparing now in order to stay ahead of this developing technology.
“Compared to pop-up ads, chatbots are a lot more entertaining and compelling, and [users] might actually want to interact with them. Chatbots could potentially offer entertainment in the future because they’re increasingly becoming more convincing.” –Aaron Paquette, EVP, Media & Entertainment at Vision Critical
Mobile operating system (OS) vendors have introduced the first wave of widely-used consumer bots via their AI clients (e.g. Siri and Cortana). These tools serve as utility interfaces that live on top of search and information databases. Google, Apple, and Microsoft are paving the way for paid content through these services and users may not expect to find advertisements within the OS of their devices.
“Siri is just one indicator of how easily the idea of talking to robots, and the machines talking back, has crept into everyday life.” –Shona Ghosh, Marketing Magazine
The second wave will include existing mobile chat apps. Chat platforms will introduce these tools to marketers in the near future. In this case, the threshold for messaging will be lower given that consumers will connect with the brands voluntarily. We’re seeing chat bots in a marketing capacity already on Tinder (including a mixed response to their SXSW bot prank), and Snapchat currently offers users personal brand engagement opportunities through organic Stories. Facebook recently announced “M” — its chat bot service that will be bolstered by live human support (for now). WhatsApp and other chat tools will likely be next. Much of Twitter’s population is already made up of bots or bot-suggested content, though Twitter hasn’t introduced anything on official channels yet.
Marketers can prepare by working out their goals for these interactions now. Do they want to focus on purely branded engagements, do they want to direct people to web stores or brick-and-mortar locations, or do they have something altogether different in mind? With a goal, they can begin to script out the conversation paths their bots might take, and define the kind of language and voice to be employed. They can vet their ideas on existing channels and chat clients with the help of savvy community managers, testing for conversational cues that lead to outcomes they like and developing a repository of customer conversations to use in programming their future AI tools.
Ultimately, AI will be a tool for community managers rather than a replacement for them. Consider a goal-oriented strategy when crafting your chat marketing approach. What are you trying to learn or gain from these interactions that can support your business?
“For chat bots to be successful, there needs to be an in-depth knowledge of the people they’re chatting with. Community managers… are the folks who devote their days to learning about the people on the other side of the screen…who feel responsible when their community gets the wrong information, or is misled by someone/something else. Chat bots may give community builders more time to do other things, but I think someone who can be a liaison between the people using the product and the people building products — someone who can speak both languages — will always be essential.” –Mary Thengvall, Community Builder and Strategist, @Mary_Grace
To prepare for a live-chat marketing strategy:
- Define brand and business goals for marketing efforts through chat channels
- Script out brand guidelines and preferred responses to expected common questions
- Commit community management resources to existing chat and messaging clients like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Yik Yak, Snapchat, Scout, and other channels
- Compile transcripts of all community manager chats in order to break these down into responses that worked toward brand and business goals, those that didn’t, and common conversation paths
If you liked this and want to recommend it, I’d really appreciate a click on the little heart button. Shares and comments are totally welcome. Would love for someone on the internet to tell me I’m wrong, and then someone else on the internet to tell them they’re wrong, and eventually have a giant debate about how robots are ruining and saving marketing at the same time. Huge credit goes to Jessica Weiss for finding the quotes and editing this article. Also, I am deeply grateful to you folks who read all of this. Thank you so very much.
