After changing the customer service industry, chatbots are now lending their power to the marketing world.
Take for instance Mailchimp. The popular all-in-one marketing platform that uses artificial intelligent (AI) chatbots to help businesses send newsletters to their customers, saw a 21.33% average email open rate across all industries in 2020. In comparison, the ideal media email open rate should be between 15-25%. Another example is Facebook Messenger, a platform relying exclusively on chatbots, which can deliver 80% open rates.
Aside from driving better engagement, including chatbots in your digital marketing strategy can help your business save time and money while minimizing human errors. The best part? There’s zero coding knowledge required. Here are several fool-proof ways to make bots part of your marketing strategy:
1. Drive excitement for holiday giveaways through personal outreach
Chatbots are a great ally when it comes to boosting engagement for giveaway campaigns. Some companies allow their Facebook followers to enter giveaways in exchange for personal information like email, phone and a one-time notification (OTN) permission. A Facebook feature, the OTN lets brands send one follow-up message within a 24-hour contact window with a user’s permission.
This is when the magic happens. Up until now, companies would ask users for a share on their accounts. Every share would represent another entry. Recently, brands have seen engagement levels skyrocketing by asking instead for shares on Facebook Messenger with users’ families and friends.
This means that the outreach effort of a subscriber is more meaningful and effective when it is personalized. As simple as it is, the method is proven to be a fast way to organically grow your email list and educate prospects on new products.
2. Enhance your influencer marketing strategy with human-like bots
Chat campaigns are a good way to surprise prospects and offer them the chance to have a conversation with their favorite influencer. Once you’ve partnered with influencers that best resonate with your brand, you’ll need to create bots that match their personality. To bring their robotic creations to life, designers often have to draw their inspiration from the influencer’s social media accounts, YouTube channel or website. Here are some existing celebrity bots for Facebook Messenger.
While bots should mirror influencers’ personality and tone, you also need to add your brand’s unique touch to ensure they align with your marketing strategy. From there, you get to control every interaction, while piggybacking on the influencers’ notoriety and following.
You can use the bots to make users more open to certain products, notify them about important ads or tell them about special discounts and promotions. By offering personalized suggestions and sharing photos or videos with users, these influencer bots are an effective way to change up your conversion strategy.
3. Streamline research efforts using marketing bots
Finding ideal prospects, conducting keyword research identifying top-performing content in your industry, or understanding how you stack up against the competition is a full-time job.
Enter marketing chatbots. Designed specifically for research, chatbots like GrowthBot can easily integrate with other messaging apps, social media platforms and marketing systems like Slack, Twitter and Google Analytics to complete the marketing research legwork for you.
According to a 2019 Chatbot Trends Report by Intercom, chatbots can increase sales by an average of 67%, with collecting information and qualifying leads being one of their main sales uses. A HubSpot Labs product, GrowthBot can become a handy assistant for your sales and marketing teams, whether you’re running a large corporation or a start-up. Here’s a comprehensive video explaining how to use the bot for competitor research, website analytics reporting and a few customer relationship management (CRM) activities.
4. Turn visitors into shoppers through inline bots
At Americaneagle.com, we have a team of copywriters and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists to help clients monetize their content. A quick way to keep readers on the page and motivate them to take further action is through inline bots.
Unlike pop-ups, these chatbots are non-intrusive. Placed inside the content, they gently encourage readers to connect with them, creating an opportunity for conversion. They can even direct the conversation to the right staff member. Some actions inline bots can prompt users to take include:
- Booking sales demos
- Securing appointments
- Downloading white papers
- Purchase the product they are reading about
- Clicking on more relevant content that better answers their questions
- Signing-up for a newsletter
From real estate and insurance, to banking, healthcare and law, any industry can benefit from incorporating this type of bot into their homepages, blogs and other content assets.
Inline bots are more successful in turning visitors into buyers because they don’t interrupt a users’ reading experience. Some companies report their clients gained 32% more leads and saw interaction rates climb to 30% by using inline bots.
5. Help customers overcome option paralysis with chatbots — just like big brands do
If your company sells a large volume of products and in multiple categories, there’s a good chance that customers fee slightly overwhelmed at times. Chatbots can help narrow down customer focus by showcasing visual product demos to the right audiences.
Nordstrom started using its KiK chatbot a couple of years ago, to increase holiday shopping for its vast selection.
The bot asks users a series of questions before presenting them with a list of gift items and step-by-step product demos. Queries revolve around the gift recipient’s lifestyle choices such as “Where would you find this person on the weekends?” with suggested answers like “going to Comic-Con,” “hosting a party,” “making a playlist” or “heading out of town.” Nordstrom also offers shoppers the option to type in their own message and connect with a customer care specialist.
It’s been almost half a decade since buyers have declared their preference for chatbots over human customer service reps, so why not bank on this trend to close more deals, with less effort?
Chatbot marketing is still a relatively new concept, but trailblazers from all industries have proven its effectiveness. At Americaneagle.com, we have a Digital Marketing team well-versed in managing chat and social media for clients like you. Browse our services, as well as some of our most successful projects, and contact us to start expanding your online presence.
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