Various marketing tools are available nowadays, and using chatbots in digital marketing is among them.
While not a relatively new technology, AI chatbots are becoming an essential instrument for digital marketing campaigns. Here’s how.
How Is AI Used in Marketing?
Before diving into the various benefits and applications of chatbots in digital marketing, let us first explore the technology behind chatbots – AI or Artificial Intelligence.
There are many ways wherein marketing makes use of AI, primarily to automate marketing functions.
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- Predictive analysis – around 52% of small businesses use AI to gain insights about their customers, which they use for strategic marketing.
- Personalized channel experiences – 22% of marketers experiment with using AI to provide a personalized experience for the customer journey.
- Conversational AI for customer service – when it comes to managing the customers, 25.2% of CMOs in the US use AI to aid their marketing.
- Multichannel customer engagement – providing more avenues to engage with customers, 45% of retailers are already implementing or planning to use AI to combine it with their marketing.
Looking at some of the ways marketers are using AI, they are geared towards providing a better way of knowing and reaching out to customers.
While AI has several applications, one of its formidable uses is through the development of chatbots.
In itself, an AI-powered chatbot is a robust tool that will complement various uses for marketing, particularly in today’s digital world.
What Are Chatbots Used For?
Several industries use chatbots for a lot of many different purposes. It is a vital automation tool that helps various businesses, such as for the following applications:
- Appointment booking
- Organizing customer data
- Virtual assistant
- Real-time interactions
- Process orders
According to Business Insider Intelligence, retail consumers will be spending up to $142 billion worth of transactions through the use of chatbots by 2024. The massive amount of business that chatbots can bring to a company’s revenue makes it a powerful tool, which is why marketers use them.
Every business is competing to gain the attention of consumers. In the immense competition in the digital space, chatbots in digital marketing activities provide several benefits.
From gaining customer insights to completing the transaction, chatbots effectively revolutionize the way you market your business online.
How Do You Use Chatbots For Digital Marketing?
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Generating and Qualifying Leads
Through the use of chatbots, you can easily attract new leads to your business.
There are several ways that a chatbot can generate leads for your business, among them through the following.
- Customer surveys
- Ask questions
- Through answering a quiz
- As a substitute to forms
- Segregate the audience
Whenever a potential customer engages with a chatbot, you can either have them answer a survey, ask about their interests, engage in a quiz, or book a demo like this route optimization software is doing, and so much more.
The automated messaging platform also helps filter out the leads. Thus, it is easier to identify who among those who sent out a message will convert.
You will get a clearer picture of your leads, making them a valuable resource to target in your digital marketing campaigns.
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Managing Your Team
Another tip on using chatbots effectively is to organize your team. How does that help in digital marketing? You might ask.
Take, for instance, planning your social media posting. A chatbot can automatically schedule the tasks for the team. Assisting the scheduling and other relevant tasks helps you build a solid content plan for social media.
The performance of your team plays a large role in the success of a digital marketing campaign.
A chatbot enables ongoing communication and even assists in automating tasks once a team member inputs a message.
These can create continuity on how your team manages your campaigns, producing consistent and favorable results on how you market your business online.
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Provide Answers to FAQs
Are you tired of answering repetitive questions? Let chatbot do the talking instead.
Customers prefer to have immediate replies once they ask a question about your business. Automating this process eliminates the need to check for messages when a chatbot can answer simple inquiries.
The use of AI-powered chatbots can answer up to 80% of questions that users commonly ask. Among them can be specific details about your business such as:
- Store hours
- Location or branches
- Promotions
- Payment options
- Cancellation and returns policy
While a separate website page can list down the FAQs, nothing beats providing a personalized experience when customers send a message. They do not have to scout all over your pages to find the answers as they can instantly use the chatbot.
The fast and accurate response to the frequently asked questions about your business will complement your digital marketing campaigns, providing a prompt reply to every customer.
Additionally, you can set up digital marketing campaigns targeting answers to common questions where a chatbot will automatically give them an appropriate response. It is an effective and smart move to make your business appear the moment customers are asking for the exact product or service you provide.
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Customer Engagement
The typical function of chatbots is to use it as an extension of your customer service department.
According to Gartner, 47% of organizations will use chatbots or virtual customer assistants to handle their customers.
Your customer can engage with your chatbot when they need any of the following activities:
- Customer inquiries
- Request billing information
- Booking an appointment
Without personally attending to each query, a chatbot can automatically respond to the needs of your customers. You can even take it further with customized chatbots tailor-made for the specific type of customer or interaction they require.
Using chatbots as a virtual assistant provides 24/7 customer service. Compared to having customer service staff on standby for inquiries, chatbots can readily attend whenever and wherever the customer is.
Customers who have seen your business online or already have exposure to some of your digital ads are more likely to convert with a chatbot that handles their orders right away.
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Research and Data Purposes
Even in the early buying stage of customer inquiries, a chatbot can already provide essential data.
A chatbot can reveal information that will be relevant to your digital marketing campaigns, such as:
- The specific time when customers are inquiring
- Merchandise items that customers ask
- Commonly asked product categories or variations
- Rate of canceled orders or refunds
All these data and more will be important when you plan the next moves in your online campaigns. You can easily refer to the research that a chatbot automatically provides, giving you a better picture of which areas in your digital marketing needs improvement.
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Exploring Customer Demographics
Gaining insights about your customers is easy through a chatbot. You can fetch data about the social profile of your customers.
When a customer messages to inquire about your business, you can have them fill up a datasheet or refer to their public profiles. Right away, you can collect information about your customers.
An AI-powered chatbot can either ask the customers the following details or automatically gather them from their publicly available profiles.
- Information such as age and gender
- Their location
- Details about their interests
These demographics data are a vital tool for a more targeted digital marketing campaign. Instead of broadly advertising your business online, you know your specific target market.
Thus, the Return on Ad Spend, time, and effort to create your digital campaign results in more conversions. As well, you reduce unnecessary expenses and actions.
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Market Your Products on Social Media
Marketing automation is possible through a chatbot. It makes it easier to display available products right within the conversation if you link them to your online store.
In Facebook Messenger, for instance, there is already an option to advertise your product or company. Through a built-in chatbot, you can automatically send a message and complete the transaction of a customer.
Powered by AI, the back-and-forth messaging of two major social media platforms provides an engaging way to market products.
Facebook Developer Bots – if you prefer to have a more personalized customer engagement experience, Facebook rolls out chatbot options to integrate into your Facebook page through its developer platform.
Twitter Creative Canvas – the social chatbot that Twitter has is robust enough. It can provide recommendations customized for the specific customer who sends a Twitter DM.
These are only two examples of social media platforms where a chatbot essentially turns into an integral part of digital marketing, creating a better and faster way of communicating to your business.
Why Do Companies Use Chatbots?
Investing in a chatbot solution automates some aspects of the customer service operation of a business. Also, digital marketing is an area where chatbots have an immense opportunity to grow your business.
Aside from using chatbots in digital marketing, there are other aspects of your online campaigns, which you will also need to work on, such as graphic design.
To handle the graphics on your digital campaigns, you can hire freelancers or, as an alternative, have design firms such as Delesign take on the job.
Combining AI-powered chatbots with captivating graphics design will transform your digital marketing strategy into a highly engaging and converting campaign, making the chatbot and marketing investment worthwhile.
