Why we were wrong about chatbots and why they’re now one of our favourite tools.
Are you instantly put off by the thought of using a messenger bot in your business marketing?
We were too!
We thought bots were spammy, icky and salesy. We were convinced they couldn’t deliver on what they promised.
Well, we’re here to admit that we were wrong on all counts.
After an intensive deep-dive into messenger bots, we’re sharing what messenger bots (or chatbots) can do and why they are so powerful as a marketing tool. We’ve experienced the benefits of chatbots first-hand and wish we had started using them sooner.
Keep reading if you want to know more about how chatbots are working for our business, and how they can help your business too.
What are Chatbots?
As the name implies, chatbots are a form of computer programming that allows you to pre-program responses to messages on your website, social media pages and more.
Note: Messenger bots refer specifically to Facebook because the bots operate from the Facebook Messenger platform, but they are also considered to be chatbots.
We LOVE messenger bots because they land natively in the user’s Messenger app and feel like a real conversation.
How do chatbots work?
According to Big Data Made Simple:
“A chatbot is programmed to work independently from a human operator. It can answer questions formulated to it in natural language and respond like a real person. It provides responses based on a combination of predefined scripts and machine learning applications.”
On the backend, bots are incredibly complex and technological, and this might lead you to believe that you need a degree in programming before you can use them.
Nope, that’s simply not the case.
Thanks to some amazing developments, there are software tools available that make it jaw-droppingly simple for you to set up chatbots.
Don’t underestimate the power of chatbots to fuel your marketing efforts.
Depending on where you want to lead people, responses can be as simple or complex as you like. You could set up a simple bot in 15 – 20 minutes! That’s less than half the time it takes to watch one episode of your favourite series.
It’s important to consider where you want to send people though, because the responses they make decide what information or options you provide them with next.
Think of chatbots like the branches of a tree. Each response can take people along a different path, depending on how you’ve set up your bot.
The benefits of chatbots for your business
The biggest benefit of chatbots for businesses is that they empower customers or potential customers to get real-time responses to queries 24/7.
In other words, without a human being having to manually respond to every query.
They also help you direct your customers to take specific actions like booking a call with you, checking out your website (YouTube Channel or wherever you want to send traffic).
You can also offer your lead magnet and in doing so, build up your email list.
If you put a bit of your marketing budget behind chatbots, you can build your list way faster than you’d ever think possible.
Why we love chatbots
The biggest mindset shift we had to make about chatbots was the idea that chatbots are merely standard responses to basic questions. Yes, that’s exactly what they are but in reality, they are so much more powerful than that.
Once we did our research (specifically into Chatmatic, our preferred messenger bot tool), we realised that there were so many benefits of chatbots we hadn’t considered. Especially when we realised that we could use it to create conversations with people that felt “real” for the user.
Think about this for a second. Imagine giving your customer tailor-made responses that answer questions, provide value AND encourage them to take your CTA, all automatically without you having to respond personally?
Imagine the amount of time you can save!
Imagine going to sleep at night and waking up the next morning to new leads who are interested in what you sell or an email list that virtually grows itself?
The benefits of chatbots don’t stop there, but they should at the very least convince you to take a closer look at chatbots for your business.
The initial effort of setting up the responses and conversation pathways is well worth the seamless, customised experience of the user who lands on your bot.
Another thing to keep in mind is that very few businesses are using these tools as yet. The market hasn’t realised how versatile these tools are to acquire new leads (and more business). Chances are your competition haven’t even considered using them (yet!).
This is a blue ocean my friends, so the sooner you jump into chatbots, the quicker you can leverage their power for your own business.
The benefits of chatbots that we’re enjoying
We use our chatbots for various conversation flows, including helping people who are enquiring about our online marketing services, we are building our email list, completing surveys, growing our Facebook group (which now has over 2000 members) and we are actively selling our programs and online courses.
We cannot stop raving about the benefits of chatbots, because we experience those benefits ourselves! We would never recommend a tool that we don’t use in our own business.
The possibilities are endless, but you have to adopt the mindset that it’s about creating and sustaining value-driven conversations.
You don’t pitch your product or services on your first message, just like you don’t propose on your first date.
The conversation has to unfold in a natural manner, and that’s what these tools are so brilliantly designed to do.
Example of one of our messenger bot flows (created with Chatmatic)
You decide which response to send to people, based on their answer to a previous question. It’s very intuitive and feels natural to the user, which is one of the best features of messenger bots.
Experience the benefits of chatbots for yourself
If you’re keen to see what a chatbot can do for your marketing efforts, then we’ve got good news for you.
We are excited to announce that we’ll be doing FREE chatbot training for a limited time only starting Monday, 28 December 2020.
You have to be a member of our Facebook group to get access to the free training, so click here to join.
Join us and learn how to set up your messenger bot for FREE. Yes, this means that you’ll get to experience the benefits of chatbots and see how they can help you level-up your marketing.
Note that after the 3-day Build Your Bot Sprint ends, we will be converting it into a paid program. But until then you can get access to our training for free.
Trust us when we say that setting up a messenger bot is so easy, anyone can do it!
Join the 3-day Build Your Bot Sprint, and we’ll show you step-by-step how to set up a messenger bot for your business.
And like us, you’ll probably wish you’d done it sooner!
Join the Facebook group and get the training here.
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