Chatbot Strategy: 6 Ways to Transform Your Online Marketing With Bots

If there’s one field that’s constantly evolving, it’s the Marketing field. What started as the Barter System over a thousand years ago is now being spearheaded by digitally-enabled innovative tools, a.k.a., chatbots. In fact, according to Chatbot Magazine,”$5 billion will be invested in chatbots by 2021.”

Plus, by the end of 2020, around “80% of entrepreneurs will use chatbots.” Further research by Forbes claims that “Three in five millennials have used chatbots at least once in their lives.”

Needless to say, marketing bots provide businesses the opportunity to scale by using a conversational chat interface. All marketing efforts are automatically carried out by the bot, leaving your valuable human agents to work on other complex issues that require a ‘human touch.’

In our opinion, here are some marketing chatbot best-practices to follow should you venture the bot route:

Keep your chatbot strategy simpler and your conversations simpler. That doesn’t mean that it needs to be boring; you could give your bot an interesting personality and go for humor/wit based on your branding style.
Ensure that you consider “If/Then” scenarios, taking into account all kinds of responses so that no user leaves the platform confused or worse annoyed.
Keep your chatbot interactive and conversational.
Use it as a supplement to human interactions – not as a complete replacement.
Keep testing and analyzing interactions to see where you can enhance the user experience.

Mind you that this isn’t an exhaustive list.

There are many tips and tricks that work differently for different brands. That said, let’s look at the top six tried-and-tested strategies that can work wonders for your marketing efforts.

1. Facebook Messenger Bots for a Killer Drip Campaign

Wish to capture new leads? Want to deliver a targeted and more personalized marketing campaign that doesn’t take weeks to show results?

Why not try using your Marketing Bot for a strategy-led drip campaign?

The first step towards creating an effective drip campaign is to chart out what your conversations will look like in a bot builder – from drafting unique promotional messages to talking about your new offerings, there’s much you can talk about!

Let’s look at a Facebook Messenger Bot ‘Onboarding Drip Campaign’ example to understand this better:

Notice how, in this particular example, the FB messenger bot is onboarding users in a fun and interactive way by using a quiz format.

Based on the insights extracted from the customer’s responses, the bot ‘gets to the point’ and drops the big question:

Next, depending on what the user answers, the bot further engages – and nurtures – them with informative and valuable content and resources that they can leverage:

Key takeaway: Driving an email-led drip campaign is passé; it’s the era of bot marketing. An effective bot drip campaign can feed your bot the essential data required to enable a personalized form of marketing and, by extension, drives customer loyalty and sales in equal measure.

2. Facebook Messenger Ad Campaign for Targeted Marketing

If you’re not ready to dive into a full-fledged drip campaign, we suggest you look towards creating an FB ad campaign to bring in new leads and engage with over 2.6 billion monthly active Facebook users.

That said, the beauty of this style of marketing is that you can engage in a more laser-focused targeting and place ads that ensure maximum reach and success.

While the primary aim of any Facebook ad campaign is to ensure that users click on the ad, that’s just the starting point. Once your new target base is ready, you can ramp up your marketing efforts and lead contacts further down into your marketing funnel, closing in a sale or driving conversions.

Here’s what an excellent ‘Click-to-Messenger ad flow’ looks like:

Matt Schlicht, CEO, and Co-founder of Octane AI, throws light on the importance of Click-to-Messenger ads:

“Click-to-Messenger ads are Facebook ads that take people to pre-scripted conversations with your Facebook page.
These conversations can be about anything, for example, helping the customer find a product, getting to know them, and educating them.”

Handy tip: Here’s how you can get users to click on the ad:

Offer up a coupon code and drive traffic to the website.
Send out freebies such as e-book, webinars and encourage users to sign up using FB Messenger.
Offer 30-day free trials to drive user engagement and let them get familiar with the offering.
Showcase your testimonials.

3. Chatbot Integration into your Website for Seamless Communication & Qualifying Leads

The State of Global Customer Service Report found that 66% of customers try to use self-service first.

As a Marketing professional, you’re aware of how much work it takes to get a website up and running – from addressing user queries and promoting new products to gathering new leads, and so on; the workload is immense.

Why not divide the workload and let the chatbot ‘take over’ some of the routine tasks that don’t require a human helping hand. After all, a bot is available 24×7, is active on weekends and weekdays, never tires, or takes ‘coffee breaks.’

Now, if you’re looking for an inspiring real-life example, here goes:

Pure Nutrition’s live chat service effectively captures potential leads by asking users to fill in basic details such as name, phone number, etc. after which the customer can speak to an Expert.

Key takeaway: Whether its converting high-quality leads who are on the brink of purchasing or troubleshooting for users who’re stuck on your website, a strategically-placed chatbot can come in and save the day.

4. Conduct Research Effectively and Quickly

Growing your Marketing list or targeting prospective users without doing proper research is like shooting an arrow blindfolded.

Unbeknownst to many, marketing bots can help research more accurately and efficiently. Here’s an example of a bot that can be used with Twitter, Facebook, and Slack; and help you identify prospects and analyze leads:

5. Personalize the User Experience

Marketing Dive found that 71% of customers prefer personalized ads.

A lot has been spoken about the importance of personalization in today’s digitally-connected age. Customers love relevant and contextual offers, deals, and information so much so that they’ve come to expect it from big and small brands alike.

In this regard, marketing bots are playing their part well and driving personalization across the board. Let’s look at some stellar real-life examples:

CNN’s bot offers a customized news feed that’s based on what the users choose.

Another example of an in-app chatbot is Babylon’s bot which offers users valuable, detailed, and tailor-made responses:

Another superb example is Domino’s chatbot which enables a positive and convenient user experience and elevates the brand’s image by leaps and bounds:

6. Drive Sales with Marketing Bots

Believe it or not, but brands today are leveraging bots for the sole purpose of selling – without any human intervention. H&M’s bot on the messenger service Kik comes to mind:

In general, the Ecommerce domain has largely benefited from this powerful feature. More use cases include:

Then, of course, in addition to making sales, the chatbot can provide useful information in order to help users to get the right information at the right time.

Here’s an example of an Instagram ad where once the customer clicks on the ad, it automatically opens the Messenger bot. There the user can see a personalized message with tailor-made content to drive engagement and boost sales:

In a Nutshell

Clearly, marketing bots have emerged as a popular form of automation that is helping businesses save time and costs while capturing quality leads and driving sales.

They’re transforming the digital marketing space and helping marketers deliver a truly extraordinary customer experience – all the way. Try these handy strategies and give your business the jump-start it needs.

About the Author

Srushti Shah is an ambitious, passionate and out of the box thinking woman having vast exposure in Digital Marketing. She is working as a Digital Marketer and Content writer at Acquire.

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