How to Use Chatbot Marketing to Grow Your Business
Introduction
Chatbots are a type of artificial intelligence that can simulate human conversation. They’ve been around for decades, but in recent years they’ve become more widespread and are used in everything from customer service to marketing.
If you’re not familiar with chatbots, here’s an overview of what they are and how they work.
What is a chatbot?
A chatbot is a computer program that simulates a conversation with human users. This software program uses artificial intelligence to simulate real-world conversation, usually over the internet.
A chatbot’s main purpose is to talk to humans and respond in a way that makes them feel like they’re talking to another person, whether it’s via text or speech.
Chatbots can be used for various purposes: customer service, online learning and education, eCommerce sales and marketing (chatbots are used all over Facebook Messenger).
If you want your business to grow organically through word of mouth then you need bots that engage with people individually on their own terms – not just once but consistently across multiple platforms such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp where millions of people are engaging every day!
Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.
Socrates
How to build a chatbot
You have an excellent idea for a chatbot, but where do you start? You could build your own chatbot from scratch. But if you don’t have time or resources, consider using one of these services instead:
Microsoft Bot Framework
Microsoft Bot Framework is a set of tools and services that can be used to build and deploy chatbots. It provides a way for developers to create chatbots that can communicate with users through a variety of channels, including text, email, Skype, and others.
The framework includes a set of APIs and tools that can be used to build chatbots that can understand natural language, process user requests, and respond appropriately. It also includes a web-based interface called the “Bot Framework Portal” that can be used to manage and monitor chatbots.
The Microsoft Bot Framework is designed to be flexible and scalable, so that it can be used to build chatbots for a wide range of applications, including customer service, e-commerce, and more. It is also intended to be easy to use so that developers with a range of skill levels can build chatbots using the framework.
IBM Watson Assistant
IBM has created a development kit to make it easier to build AI-powered bots in different languages by providing pre-trained models that offer common knowledge and capabilities like speech recognition, natural language understanding (NLU), interactive dialogues between users and applications/AI systems for various tasks like customer service automation etc., as well as APIs with cognitive services such as machine translation integration into apps via API calls so developers can focus on their core business logic rather than reinventing wheels each time when building similar products over again!
Benefits of using a chatbot
A chatbot can help you accomplish a number of things, including:
Convenience
Chatbots are convenient for your customers and make life easier for them by providing quick answers to their questions.
Cost
Chatbots are generally cheaper to implement than other customer service solutions because they don’t require humans to answer questions or complete tasks on the backend (which means no salaries, benefits or training costs).
Increased engagement and conversion rates
A 2016 report from Forrester Research found that companies using chatbots have seen an average increase in sales of 27%. That same study also found that users who interacted with these bots spent about six minutes longer per session than those who didn’t interact with a bot at all—and roughly half of them went on to book an appointment or make another purchase from the company!
Common types of chatbots
There are many different kinds of chatbots, but they can all be classified into three main categories:
- A simple bot is a basic program that answers questions in a conversational way. It can only respond to specific requests, and it doesn’t understand the language very well. For example, if someone asks the bot “What’s the weather?” it might respond with an answer like “It’s currently 73 degrees.”
- An advanced bot has similar functions as a simple one, but it also has some other features including personalization and customization. This means you can set up your own responses for each question asked by a user. For instance, if someone asks “What time is dinner?”, you can customize the answer based on their preferences and previous interactions with you (for example: “Dinner starts at 5 pm tonight”). This type of bot is especially useful for sales because it allows people to easily make purchases within moments through multiple channels (e-commerce sites).
- An intelligent agent is like having your own assistant working 24/7 who knows everything about your business! That means when someone asks an intelligent agent anything from where they should go eat tonight to how much services cost or even what news there is today.
When to consider using a chatbot in your marketing campaigns
Chatbots can be used to engage with customers, answer their questions, and provide them with information about products and services.
There are several ways that businesses can use chatbots for marketing:
- Customer service: Chatbots can be used to provide customer support, such as answering frequently asked questions or helping customers with orders.
- Lead generation: Chatbots can be used to collect information from potential customers, such as their contact details or the products they are interested in.
- Personalization: Chatbots can be used to provide personalized recommendations to customers based on their past interactions and preferences.
- Content marketing: Chatbots can be used to deliver content, such as articles or videos, to customers in a conversational format.
- Promotions: Chatbots can be used to promote special offers and discounts to customers.
To be effective, chatbot marketing campaigns should be carefully planned and targeted to the right audience. It is also important to continuously monitor and optimize the chatbot’s performance to ensure it is providing value to customers.
Conclusion
It’s clear that chatbots are here to stay. They offer a unique way to engage customers and boost sales, while also helping you keep costs down by automating repetitive tasks.
As with any new technology, there are some pitfalls to avoid when implementing this type of tool in your business. But if you do your research and carefully consider how it fits into your marketing strategy, then adopting a chatbot could be well worth the investment.
