Chatbots: The future of marketing is already here

What is a chatbot and how is it used in marketing?

In a business context, a chatbot is a software application used by online businesses for chat conversations with their audience. The conversation process is actually an automated communication that usually employs a conversational AI (Artificial Intelligence) to ensure a personalized customer experience.

Chatbots can be used in a marketing strategy for getting people interested in your product or service through human-like communication. A chatbot helps a business stay connected with clients, streamline service processes, and improve profitability.

In a Nielsen study results showed that:

• 63% of users said their messaging with companies has developed over the last two years
• 61% of users like to get personalized messages from businesses
• 67% of users expect to message organizations even more over the next two years

Check out these interesting chatbot statistics

• Chatbots will produce over $8 billion in global savings by 2022. 
• The Global chatbot market will be priced at $1.3 billion in 2024. 
• The global chatbot market value was at $703 million in 2016. 
• By 2020, 80% of enterprises will look to use chatbots. 
• 50% of online searches used voice assistants in 2020, up from 20% in 2017.
• C-level executives start 41% of online chat conversations with businesses. 
• Chatbots are used by 24% of enterprises, 15% of mid-sized companies, and 16% of small businesses.
• USA, India, Germany, the UK, and Brazil are the top 5 Chatbot using countries. 
• Chatbot market growth will accelerate even more in the 2016-2023 period. 
• 56% of companies say conversational bots are driving disruption in their industry, and 43% report their competitors are already implementing the technology. 

Why use chatbots for marketing?

Chatbots strengthen businesses’ connection with prospects and clients in messaging apps like Facebook Messenger or Viber. Messenger has over 1.3 billion active monthly users, so it is a great place to start the communication action.

Creating meaningful connections and keeping track of candidates and consumers is critical for customer acquisition and retention. With a chatbot solution, you can manage customer relationships in one simple dashboard that can show you chat history, user public profiles, collected data, and more. But more importantly, you give people added value in a place they already are — and that is powerful.

How can your business use a chatbot in its marketing strategy?

Chatbots can help your business effortlessly push customers through your sales funnel. Here are some ways to fit them into your marketing strategy:

Personalize the customer experience

Knowing your customer’s names and using them when you interact with them can completely upgrade your conversation. Chatbots integrate with social media, gathering data about every single person with whom they communicate.

When a user has a customer care question, the chatbot can answer it correctly and then take the conversation a step further by offering personalized shopping advice based on the customer’s purchase history and preferences.

Engage consumers

Engage with your clients, and also retain them with chatbots. Unlike other methods of marketing, they keep your consumers interested for longer. Let’s say, for example, you want to catch your audience’s attention with a video. While this video may be extremely engaging, once it ends, it does not have much more to offer.

You can put in action a chatbot to catch your audience’s attention and learn from its interaction with the users, allowing it to send relevant information regarding your brand, products, and services. Basically, the chatbot can up-sell and cross-sell in a personalized, conversational, and engaging way.

Be relevant

Customers do not like to be bombarded with emails, text messages, and other notifications every time something happens regarding your business, products, or services. Because chatbots can capture and analyze data, they are also able to send personalized notifications through social media that are relevant to each and every user.

Analyze client feedback and data

A chatbot can analyze feedback it gathers from users, giving you more information about what your audience truly wants. From there, you can remodel your marketing strategy to become more focused on your customer’s needs and increase sales and profit.

Empower your brand image

Usually, brands only communicate with their audience once a consumer has reached them first. When chatbots automatically send a welcome notification when a person arrives on your website or social media profile, makes your business look more proactive, improving your brand’s reputation, and can even increase interactions, having a positive effect on your sales numbers, too.

24/7/365 communication

Chatbots do not sleep, they can be available for your audience and customers 24/7 all year long. Aside from saving you money when employing them for routine customer care procedures, chatbots will help you keep your social media presence clean and effective.

What’s next for your business?

Now you are ready to embrace the future and include chatbots as an AI powerhouse into your digital marketing strategy to drive the amazing results that go with it. The speedy service offered by chatbots is exactly what people crave in the era of instant satisfaction. Rather than letting customer concerns or potential sales fall by the wayside, social chatbots can pick up the slack and keep your business “open” around the clock.

Don’t forget to check how you can combine your chatbot strategy with your email communications and create truly unique messages for your audience!