Selling online is not that different from selling on a physical store, in both circumstances, an understanding of the customers’ needs is required from the first contact to the final purchase.
Its important for online businesses to adapt their selling process to today’s virtual reality.
An effective way to do this is by adopting a multichannel logic and proposing customer service 24 hours a day through a chatbot marketing platform.
Multichannel marketing is nowadays an essential part of any Marketing strategy. Your business needs to be present in all channels where consumers are and communicate with them as quickly and effectively as possible. This is where chats come in.
It would be great if your sales team could walk into the office every day with meetings already booked for them. Not booked by a sales representative that works overnight, but by a bot that runs on your website 24/7.
With Chatbots, your website no longer feels like an empty store, where the only thing to greet shoppers are contact forms. Chats allow you to say “hello” to the people taking time to visit your site, allowing them to start a conversation when it’s most convenient for them.
Chat marketing has experienced a remarkable growth thanks to the boom of chatbots during the last years. It is a fantastic way to connect with your audience but, as with any other tool, it is necessary to use it strategically to obtain results.
#1. THINK OF YOUR BUSINESS GOALS
Chat marketing is a powerful tool, but you need to combine it with other tactics and orient it to your business objectives because chats will not work on their own.
Some brands only use Chat Marketing to generate leads or to show a list of their services, so they do not take advantage of all the possibilities of this channel. Instead of staying in the basics, think about what problems you could solve with your chat.
You can use the chat to distribute your content, to get more subscriptions or to have your users download an ebook.
Additionally, a chat can be used to get spontaneous purchases through tactics like coupons or personalised offers. You can even accept payments within applications such as Facebook Messenger.
#2. CHOOSE YOUR AUDIENCE
Choosing your audience is the most important part of the process. The audience is relevant for all elements of the strategy, from advertising segmentation and conversion tracking to designing relevant conversations based on the actions and interests of your audience.
Understanding your audience is the key for any marketing strategy to succeed, and chats are not an exception.
To create a valuable experience that results in a sale, you must understand who your buyer persona is. After that it will be much easier to design the rest of the client’s journey and make your chat marketing plan consistent with it.
#3. STABLISH YOUR CHAT MARKETING OBJECTIVES
Determine your “SMART” objectives for your chat marketing plan:
- Specific: the objectives must be well defined and focused.
- Measurable: concrete figures will help you stay on track.
- Achievable: the objectives must be realistic in relation to the current situation and the resources available.
- Relevant: the objectives must be based on current market conditions.
- Time-based: the objectives must be defined in time so that we can know if we have achieved them or not.
Once you have your “SMART” objectives defined, the next thing is to make a list of the tasks that you must carry out to achieve them.
For example: Create a sequence of chat messages about your sector for new subscribers, send segmented messages to users with more possibilities to subscribe. Optimise the sequence of messages based on the initial results, etc.
#4. CHOOSE THE RIGHT CHANNELS FOR YOUR CHAT STRATEGY
Once you are clear about your goals, you will have to decide which are the best channels to achieve them.
A new tactic of chat marketing is the Waterfall Conversation, created by ROI expert Matt Plapp. This strategy combines Facebook Messenger, emails and SMS to send segmented messages to users, in order to minimize casualties and increase conversions.
#5. CREATE A PERSONALITY FOR YOUR BOTS
The Chat is an important element of your branding and storytelling, so it needs to reflect the values of your brand in a natural way.
These tips will help you in the process of bringing your chatbots to life:
- Create your own language: Ideally, the experience of using a chatbot is as close as possible to human interaction.
- Use the expressions you would normally use in face-to-face conversations.
- Use creative calls to action. Try not to stick to the “yes” and “no” classics – and make your calls to action different and innovative.
- Don’t forget about humans. Chatbots can be used for solving problems, but in many cases it’s necessary to talk face to face with a customer service representative. Program your bots so that they can pass the user with a human if necessary.
#6. AS ALWAYS, FOLLOW UP. MONITOR AND MEASURE YOUR CHATBOT RESULTS
The best way to optimise your chat marketing is to launch your campaign and see what works and what doesn’t.
We always recommend reviewing results periodically and implementing the information you obtain to make improvements. Monitoring your chat Marketing strategies results will make your chats more effective in 2020.
