In today’s technology-obsessed world, no business can thrive without a strong internet presence. Companies must build effective digital marketing strategies to expand their reach and touch the widest possible audience with their promotional messages. A digital marketing strategy entails making plans to create and raise awareness about your company among your target audience. Treading much beyond the regular promotional plans, digital marketing calls for utilizing online channels such as organic search engine optimization, paid advertisements, social media, and a website, well designed and updated with the latest features like a chatbot.
Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular in the field of digital marketing. Let us first define marketing chatbots strategy before we get into how to use them.
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What are chatbots?
Most of us have already encountered chatbots while surfing the web. These chatbots are fundamentally programs that have been designed to converse with visitors on your website.
These are software (machines that use the software) that accurately simulate human conversation. This dialogue can take the form of voice commands or text messages.
Chatbots do not require humans to operate and can easily handle customers’ digital business. They will scan the database once they have been designed and implemented. They will respond to visitors’ questions based on the information in their database.
The chatbots respond by combining pre-programmed scripts with machine learning algorithms. If they are unable to answer a question, they will direct the user to a human executive.
Chatbots, particularly those built with high-end artificial intelligence, are surfacing as a crucial element of digital marketing. They complete some of the simpler but critical tasks, such as directing visitors to the page that contains the information they seek. They also answer queries regarding the products of your company.
similarly, they can be designed to furnish answers pertaining to your brand. In fact, most smart chatbots designed for digital marketing can convert a website visitor into a lead or even a customer.
Broadly phrasing, these bots are classified into two types: those that follow a set of rules and those that use artificial intelligence.
Rule-based bots
Chatbots that are rule-based can only understand a limited range of choices that they have been programmed with. The conversation will also be according to the rules defined for the bot. It is easier to build a rule based chatbot because they require simple true and false algorithm in order to understand the query of the customer and provide relevant answers.
AI-based chatbots
The chatbots that are built with artificial intelligence as their base contain an artificial brain. These bots are trained using machine-learning algorithms and can understand open-ended questions. They don’t just understand the orders, but also the language. Such bots based on artificial intelligence learn from their interactions with users, and hence they continue to improve. These types of chatbots have made great progress in conversation website automation.
What is chatbot marketing?
Now that we understand what chatbots are, we can see how businesses can use them for marketing. Every aspect of human life is moving toward automation, which is why bots are popping up everywhere, including marketing.
Of course, human contact can help you market and promote your brand, however, bots are a valuable asset in process management and lead generation, making automation and bots a valuable segment in digital marketing.
Bots can help to automate the process of consumer conversation before a human marketing specialist takes over. When Facebook introduced the ability to integrate chatbots with its Messenger feature, the trend of using chatbots for marketing took off.
Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular in marketing strategies, ensuring that your target customers’ questions are answered to a large extent. There are other ways to incorporate marketing chatbots into your digital marketing strategy. Basic processes can be easily automated, and bots can answer simple and common consumer questions. The process of using chatbots for marketing has become so refined that a consumer may place an order based solely on their interaction with a marketing bot.
Tasks that can be automated by chatbots in marketing
Digital marketing chatbots use artificial intelligence to interact with visitors. Users do not have to navigate the entire website looking for the information that they are seeking. Instead, a simple conversation with a marketing bot can give them the information they seek.
The best part of such a marketing chatbot strategy is that the visitor can reach someone whom they can discuss their requirement with, at any time of the day. Such a personalized experience ensures that the visitor will not only come back for more but may make a purchase immediately.
Lead capturing
When an internet user visits your website, you have the opportunity to convert the visitor into a lead. Of course, your website should be good for this, and you can improve the user experience with the help of AI chatbots. The chatbot can engage the visitor in a natural conversation and capture their contact information.
Lead nurturing
After capturing the lead, the next step is to nurture the lead. A marketing chatbot strategy will include sending automated messages to visitors with important information about the product or service in question.
At the same time, a chatbot will inform the customer of any extra features such as sale offers, discounts, and so on.
Remarketing
Some business owners believe that remarketing can appear to customers as stalking. This is not the case if you use well-designed artificial intelligence chatbots. Remarketing, in fact, can be your most effective method of converting visitors into customers.
Remarketing is an excellent way to keep your website’s visitors informed. The chatbot in charge of the remarketing process can send ad messages to visitors while they are visiting other websites, using social media, using other mobile apps, or performing a Google search.
Upselling and cross-selling
Ecommerce is highly competitive, but if you use the right upselling and cross-selling techniques, you can easily outperform your competitors. Customers are usually overjoyed when they discover that more than one of their requirements has been met.
Upselling is a method of selling something extra to a customer who has already made a purchase. Cross-selling is similar, but you will promote the products that go with their purchase.
For instance, if you sell a tie, it is a good idea to give the customer a designer tie clip. This type of upselling and cross-selling can be easily programmed into a chatbot.
Products recommendation
Sometimes customers are unsure of what they should buy to meet their needs. The chatbot will converse with them and recommend the most appropriate product or service for them.
This saves the consumer a lot of time and effort, and they are more likely to become loyal to your brand as a result of your chatbot’s quick and efficient marketing.
Queries FAQs resolving
There are bots designed specifically to answer frequently asked questions from visitors. Nowadays, these chatbots are so well-designed that customers would rather interact with them than with a human.
These bots direct visitors to a specific page or product and answer questions about a company’s products and services. This leaves only complex consumer needs to be addressed by customer service representatives.
What are the advantages of chatbots in marketing?
According to a survey, online visitors to your website are more likely to become customers if they have the opportunity to ask questions and receive answers. This is simple to accomplish with chatbots. In fact, chatbots can handle a large portion of marketing tasks. Indeed, with well-designed bots, you can make a sale after the visitor has chatted with the bot for basic product or service information.
Bridging the gap between sales and marketing
The best thing about chatbots is that they are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They can both generate leads and sell your product or service to website visitors.
As a result, chatbots bridge the gap between sales and marketing. Bots not only promote your company, but also take orders for purchases and guide visitors. Even if your marketing or sales team is not available, chatbots can handle the entire process.
Increased customer engagement
Most internet users prefer an experience in which their questions are answered quickly. As previously stated, chatbots can easily accomplish this by directing the target customer to the necessary information. This in turn encourages the customer to interact with the chatbot more and glean enough information to make a sales decision.
More volume processed with fewer resources
Of course, a single chatbot does the work of a number of human beings when it engages in conversation with multiple website visitors, providing a more personalized customer experience 24X7. This saves valuable resources like the time and money spent on hiring a large sales team.
Virtual sales agent
Chatbots based on artificial intelligence is very effective and play a major role in delivering a perfect marketing message and converting a visitor into a customer. This can be done without the help of a human sales agent. Chatbots are the best option when it comes to convincing a visitor for buying a company’s products or services without sounding a pushover like a mundane sales pitch.
Virtual sales assistant
These days due to tough competition in most fields of business, consumers expect more than just a good product. They look for a more personalized and quality experience when shopping online.
This can be easily done by a chatbot designed on the framework of artificial intelligence. They can answer the questions raised by the visitor and act as a sales assistant. Bots in fact, are sometimes better than human sales assistants. As they don’t get tired of answering repetitive questions which sometimes human assistants find difficult to handle.
At the same time, they will be able to access a vast database and present answers to questions that a normal human assistant may not be able to master. Hence AI chatbots can be programmed to work as virtual sales assistants.
24X7 sales assistant
A machine does not need sleep, so you can program your bot to work 24×7 and provide the required service to the visitors. Here it needs to be mentioned that the bots will not just work as sales assistants for the purchase of a product or service.
Instead, it acts as an after-sales assistant as well, by addressing customer complaints or queries once they have purchased the product.
Are chatbots the future of digital marketing?
The answer is most likely ‘yes,’ because the world of digital marketing has embraced automation to a large extent. The COVID pandemic has also contributed to the rise in the popularity of contactless online shopping.
Consumer demand is driving the increased use of AI-powered chatbots in digital marketing. Consumers want channels that are simple, easy to use, and quick at all times. Marketers are thus employing AI chatbots to provide these channels as well as a personalized experience to users.
Chatbots provide your organization with direct user feedback, which you can use to completely transform the user experience for the better. Such valuable information can also be used to fine-tune your digital marketing strategy to better suit your target audience.
Hence it is clear that more automation of the digital marketing process through chatbots is here to stay and be used by more organizations in the coming time.
Role of live chat in marketing
Live chat is being used by an increasing number of marketers for customers’ digital business. When prospects explore your website, this technology engages them. It also aids in persuading prospective customers to act right away.
If they find this interaction interesting and informative, then they are likely to spend more time on your website. This in turn not only enhances your ranking on search engine pages but also leaves a positive impression on them. Users who have such an experience are more likely to return to your business.
The chatbots designed using AI are engaging and can be linked to a vast database. This ensures that the users get the information they are looking for and that their communication with the bot is seamless. Better user experience means better traffic, better conversions, and better sales.
Still not convinced.
If you are still not convinced by the benefits of AI chatbots, then let us look at some more compelling features of this excellent technology.
Live quotation sending
This is one of the most amazing features of AI digital marketing chatbot strategy. Each consumer has different requirements and well-designed chatbots can calculate and send a tailor-made quotation to the prospective customer.
Meeting scheduling
Meetings are a necessary part of a team to work together. However, with globalization, the team members may be far apart from each other. Video conferencing has already been around long enough. Now there are smart chatbots as well, and they can schedule the meetings keeping in mind each attendee’s availability.
Automated follow-ups
Every digital marketer knows the importance of follow-ups with the people who have shown interest in your website. Chatbots can automate the process of follow-ups according to a pre-decided schedule.
How to create a chatbot for your business?
If you are looking for ways to create chatbots for your business, then you should check the official website of the bot companies like BotSpice. This company has gone a step further and provides workboats which are more advanced technology.
Workbots provide the consumer with natural language processing combined with artificial intelligence and lend a human touch to the conversation with a machine. The best part is that no coding is required to create a chatbot/workbot with BotSpice.
The complete process of creating your very own customized chatbot/workbot is possible in one go on the company website itself. You can opt for help from the company if you face difficulty anywhere during the process. In creating a tailor-made workbot for your digital marketing chatbot strategy. Read the full step-by-step guide for creating a chatbot here: https://www.botspice.com/blogs/how-to-build-a-great-chat-bot-in-few-simple-steps/.
What is the future of marketing with conversational AI and automation?
The future of marketing will see further advancement in automation technology. Just like Botspice provides an advanced version of chatbots in their workbots, we will see ever new features coming up.
Marketing and reaching global audiences 24×7 will become possible for even mid-level and smaller companies.
Conclusion
The implementation of the advanced technology created by BotSpice allows creating tailor-made bots within a minimum time. Users get the benefit of high-end conversation website automation at affordable rates.
You can provide your consumers with a heartening experience with easily solved queries. The better quality of your marketing chatbot strategy will invite more traffic and hence better visibility.
It will also provide a personalized experience to your customers and invite them to spend quality time on your website, improving your SERPs. The visitors can easily be converted to customers and they in turn will leave testimonials and reviews that will encourage other visitors to purchase.
Your business will see exponential growth in sales as well as create a great brand identity for itself. Hence if you wish to have a successful business then it is a good idea to opt for automation with the help of AI chatbots and Botspice is one of the leaders to provide such high-end technology to its consumers.