Conversational technology has arrived: chatbots for marketing
You may have noticed them popping up on your various screens. Helpful, friendly, anonymous friends that have answers to all your questions (sometimes, before you even ask) at their digital fingertips. They’re fast becoming the impeccable butlers to our online/brand experience (kind of like a younger, cooler Jeeves). Welcome to the age of the Chatbot.
Chatbots are a powerful artificial intelligence tool for improving communication with customers via mobile messaging. Brands use them to engage with audience in a dynamic, fun and valuable ways, using common platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack and text. Whilst consumers are experiencing email and free download fatigue, messenger marketing is a great way to connect with your audience. The main benefits being:
They meet the customer where they are (in the app environment)
They offer instant help, saving customers time
They allow you to automate and scale conversations with ease
In marketing terms, chatbots connect with customers much higher up the decision-making funnel. In a lot of sectors brands don’t make a connection with a customer until they are ready to enquire or even make a purchase. Chatbots can start a conversation much earlier, helping customers by providing answers to initial questions they may have, or inspiring them when they’re in the consideration phase.
They complement your existing marketing channels, and are a strategic way to start a conversation with a much wider audience than usual. And brands that adopt this new tool quickly will gain First Mover Advance (FMA) — where the earlier you adopt a new marketing tool, the more chance you have of reaping its benefits.
The numbers talk
We’re seeing strong and positive results from this relatively new medium, such as 88% open rates, 80% engagement rates, 56% CTRs and lead conversion rates of more than 90%. Which brings us to the other big benefit of chatbots — the rich data and insights it unlocks, which can then be used in targeted advertising and direct marketing.
Rather than just an email address, engagement with a Facebook Messenger chatbot will provide the user’s full name, time zone, gender and profile picture as an entry point (this data story then builds with each step in the chatbot ‘conversation’)
Facebook gives the ability to tag each segment based on their preferences (similar to the segmentation you can do to your email list), and then serve retargeted ads to those tagged users, encouraging them to book an inspection etc.
Chatbot data has already revealed some pretty persuasive numbers^:
40% of millennials engage with bots on a daily basis
35% of consumers want to see more companies using chatbots
69% of consumers prefer to use chatbots for the speed at which they can help communicate with a brand
80% of consumers who have engaged with a chatbot report it as a positive customer experience
How do they work?
Whereas AI chatbots are more sophisticated, simple chatbots spot keywords in a customer’s question and respond with a pre-determined answer. When you consider that 69% of customers want quick answers to simple questions, you can see how useful chatbots can be with their instant responses that make customers feel important (plus boost your brand’s reputation).
Because chatbots offer warm, real-time, one-to-one conversations, customers feel valued and heard. Which is a very different experience to trawling through a clucky FAQ page, or gritting your teeth through that delightful ‘on hold’ muzak.
The other, obvious, benefit of chatbots is that they can handle a high volume of queries at once — meaning you spend less money on support costs and more time on customer experience. A study conducted by Business Insider showed chatbots can reduce customer service costs up to 29–46%, depending on the business.
In short, it’s a pretty good time to consider whether chatbots could work for your brand. Across industries from fashion to footy, health to home water use (we love Sydney Water’s ‘Water Wise Coach’), they are proving a smart marketing tool for brands wanting to implement, increase and improve audience engagement.
We’re talking all things Chatbot marketing Tuesday, 29 September at 10am with guest speaker Aoife O’Connell, Founder and Chief Chatbot builder at Yarnly AI. Register here to join our free virtual drop-in, ‘Chatbot Marketing – the future of social media’
^Source https://blog.verloop.io/100-best-chatbot-statistics-2020/#trends