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Contrary to popular belief, chatbots are not just for customer service.
Sure, bots are great at answering customers’ questions. But they’re also one of the most slept-on tools for marketing.
When used well, bots serve as a conversion booster for any website — no matter the industry you’re in. By popping up on the right page, at the right time, with the right message, they can turn visitors into leads. Even when you’re being contacted outside of your business hours.
However, most businesses still only use chatbots to just answer questions.
Good news: I’m here to explain how to build a chatbot for marketing
The benefits of chatbot marketing
At 5 PM, the average worker calls it a day. They go home to do everything they weren’t able to do during work. Like online shopping, for instance. A lot of online shopping actually happens at night, while your team isn’t able to reply to messages.
That’s why using a chatbot for marketing is so valuable. They’re always on to gather leads — even outside of opening hours — while taking some pressure off your team during the day. Here’s what bots do to make your marketing job easier:
Engage visitors and collect leads
A bot can collect leads. Use your chatbot to create a little pop-up at the bottom of your customer’s screen. Let your copywriter get as creative as they want with the pop-up text, or simply use “How can I help you?”. Easy does it most of the time.
When a customer decides to interact, the chatbot can ask for some basic information. Like the customer’s name, location, and what product they’re looking for.
With this information, your bot can personalize the next steps for your website visitor. Whether it’s having them sign up for a newsletter, booking a meeting with your sales team, or forwarding them to a relevant product page.
Create conversational shopping experiences
One of the biggest reasons that physical stores are still so popular is because of the experience. Being able to see and touch the products, talk to a store manager, and try on a new outfit. Shopping online also has its benefits, but usually makes for a less vibrant experience.
With a bot, you can improve the online shopping experience. The key is to add a conversational element to it. Simply let the bot ask your customer the questions a store clerk would ask, in order to finally recommend the right product.
Enable shopping on messaging apps
More than ever, the online customer experience is moving to messaging apps. From WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to Instagram and even Telegram. It’s where billions of consumers spend multiple hours of their day, and so should businesses.
Customers reach out to ask support questions, but also to ask expert advice about the business’ products. With a bot, you can keep a large chunk of the buying process on the messaging app.
I’ll illustrate this with an example. If an online clothing store advertises its new collection on Instagram, many people may be interested and click through to the website. But what if the clothing store invited people to simply send a Direct Message to start buying the product? The bot can help them pick the right product, show the available colors and sizes, and next send them the final link to pay for their product.
Real-life examples of effective chatbots
BAS World
Meet BAS World, the biggest truck and trailer dealer in all of Europe. They sell used trucks, vans, semi-trailers, and even firetrucks. Because their customers are spread throughout Europe, their website has been translated into 13 different languages. And on that website, you can also talk to their bot in 13 different languages.
Building a support team can be difficult. Especially when the members of the team have to speak up to 13 languages and keep up with a growing business. For a while, things became so challenging for BAS World that they were struggling to reply to their customers in a timely manner.
Using a bot has made things easier for BAS World. It collects personal information, makes appointments, collects quotation requests, and informs customers about the status of their orders. Customers can talk to the bot via their own live chat, but also via WhatsApp, which is a popular channel throughout Europe.
BAS World’s bot is a full-blown sales agent too. It can lead the customers through the entire buyer’s journey by asking the right questions and presenting multiple-choice answers. Fleur, sales agent at BAS World: "In the past month alone, we have received 57 orders via Trengo's bot. Those are amazing results for us.”
Patron Tequila
Patron Tequila’s bot is has been trained to be a digital bartender. Or as they call them, Bot Tenders. The Bot Tenders ask you questions in order to discover your preferences. So even if you’re not a tequila connoisseur, the bot will get you the right drink.
This is a fast, conversational, and most of all fun way to shop online. It truly adds to the experience, especially if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. Besides, people love to share these types of conversations with friends and family, or even on social media. User-generated content, anyone?
Lego
Lego’s bot brings the offline shopping experience to the digital world. Instead of getting help from a store clerk, the bot serves as your digital shopping assistant. By asking for your kid’s age and interests, it comes up with multiple gift options for you.
What I love about this bot in particular is its creativity. They have nailed the tone of voice and even enabled the bot to send images. Again, it’s something you would share with your friends, or in this case with your kids.
How to build a chatbot with Trengo
If you’re ready to build your own bot, you’re in the right place. You won’t need any coding skills. All you need to do is sign up for a free trial at Trengo.
Pick the right type
We offer two different types of bots: a regular chatbot and a flowbot.
A chatbot simulates a human conversation by replying to open questions. It recognizes these questions by certain keywords and replies with pre-filled answers.
A flowbot also simulates conversations with human visitors. But instead of replying to open questions, it forwards customers to the right team or gives information by asking questions with multiple-choice options. This type of bot is great for collecting leads and creating a conversational buyer’s journey.
Find the right place
First, you have to decide when and where your customer should interact with your bot. You have to ask yourself the following questions:
- On which pages should I put a bot?
- Which pages should I avoid?
- Should we use a pop-up message?
- After how many seconds should the bot be visible?
Don’t overthink these questions. In time, you will learn what works best for your website by experimentation.
Do be aware that chatbots can be quite a distraction
Design the conversation
Next, it’s time to decide what the bot should talk to your customer about. When using a flowbot, the bot controls the conversation by asking multiple-choice questions. You can decide to create different flows for different pages.
On your homepage, you may want to promote your best products. But on the pricing page, you may want your bot to answer FAQs about delivery times and return policies. Make sure the questions your bot asks fit the purpose of each page.
Close off the conversation with a call-to-action. You should consider what action you want your visitor to take. This could be anything from booking a demo to visiting a product page.
Avoid trying to make your bot come off as human. Bots simply can’t be substitutes for human employees. Be honest from the beginning of the conversation, by adding a little disclaimer in the messages. For example: “Hello, I’m the Trengo bot. How can I help you today?”. Your customers will appreciate the transparency more than you trying to fool them.
Start building
You’re now ready to start building your bot! Simply follow the instructions in our Help Center to get going.
Here’s a quick look at the set-up screen:
See? No rocket science.
Test, test, test
Once you have built and launched your bot, you have to monitor its performance. Keep a close eye on how many conversations are being had, and how many leads are being collected.
By paying close attention to how your visitors interact with your bot, you can continuously improve your bot. If there is low interaction, consider improving the opening message. If there is a high drop-off, consider shortening the flow. This should be an ongoing process where you keep iterating until you reach perfection.
Build your own chatbot for marketing
Ready to start building your own bot?
