Chatbots are in the middle of a huge comeback. Remember those funny bots on AOL Messenger? Yeah, they’re way better now. They are so good that marketers started using them, and that’s a sign that a trend is here to stay.
How? What? Where do I go to find these?
Don’t panic, you don’t have to go frantically searching Google for chatbot hacks. I’m going to discuss every single one of them right here in this post.
Let’s dive in.
Why chatbots?
Chatbots are automated messages that sometimes use AI (artificial intelligence). They provide a completely different experience than the regular communication that we typically expect to receive from a business.
They are more personal than email, more targeted than Twitter, and have the ability to showcase your personality way more effectively than any other marketing channel.
Chatbots can also complete tasks that take normal humans hours to do like fetching data, finding outliers, and doing research.
The most popular platform for chatbots is Facebook Messenger, not only because of the hundreds of millions of users that use Messenger every day but also because it’s so versatile.
Here are a few things awesome strategies that can help you significantly grow your business using a Messenger chatbot.
The cool marketing activities you can do with chatbots
1. Create a chat subscription list with a Messenger chatbot
The core of your marketing efforts should be focused on growing your email list. This is the lifeline of your business, right?
Turns out we have all been using a less effective marketing channel and losing out on tons of conversions. Marketers that use chatbots are seeing 80% open rates and 50% click-through rates on their chatbot messages. This is about 5x more effective than email.
Many chatbot platforms offer a feature where every single person that interacts with your Messenger bot gets saved into your chat subscriber list. Here are the advantages of using a chat subscription list:
- Chat messages look more informal
- Content blasts are shorter and easier to engage with on chat
- Significantly higher open and click-through rates
Josh Fechter, a leading marketer and growth hacker, uses his chatbot subscription list to send out content. He has a list of chat subscribers that has reached over 5,000. Every week he sends a quick message that’s so much easier to read than an email.
And I open it every single time.
But don’t worry, you don’t have to stop using email marketing. You can combine the two marketing strategies into a powerful and lethal combo.
2. Create pop-up notifications and lead magnets using chatbots
Email is not going away anytime soon. So until it does, we can actually combine two marketing channels, email and chatbots, into one awesome looking popup.
Andrew Warner uses this strategy for his Bot Academy. His pop-ups have two parts. The first part prompts the user to enter an email address.
Once the user puts in their email the page displays the second part of the pop-up which prompts the user to chat on Messenger, like so:
Before you freak out, Andrew is not becoming a yoga instructor, this is just an example he created to show the effectiveness of the strategy.
What’s the best part?
Even if the person puts their email in and expects all communication to come through there, they choose to click on the ‘Send to Messenger’ button (just out of curiosity), which gets them added to Andrew’s chat subscriber list.
This means that they will get every single one of his wacky chat messages.
Pop-ups are only one way to get subscribers.
I tried this out a few months ago and the results were truly incredible. I don’t have a personal website so in order to create my own email list and actually get subscribers, I would have to develop a site, buy a domain and start hustling like crazy.
I wrote a really cool article called “The Ultimate Content Strategy”. It was epic. I interviewed the Director of Content Marketing at Capterra for this and got some really incredible insights about how to grow your blog from 4,000 views to 5 million views.
But I had no list and no website. Who was I going to send this to? My mom?
This is where I decided to try out a chatbot.
I wrote a LinkedIn post with a link to my chatbot landing page: https://manychat.com/l2/BenBrandGuru
Once people clicked on the link it would display a landing page with a “Send to Messenger” button that led them straight to my chatbot. Every user that would click would be added to my chat subscriber list.
I received 29 subscribers just from one post.
Don’t worry my mom commented on the LinkedIn post too.
The real success was in the conversion rates — 22.8% of the people that saw the landing page signed up to my chatbot list. That’s a higher conversion rate than of any email I have ever sent!
That’s an amazing result. If I can get that response on every post I write, I bet I could probably launch a new product or service just using chatbots... Oh, wait.
3. Launch your product using a chatbot
That’s right! Marketers are launching their products using chatbots left and right. It’s actually a great strategy. If you think about it, chatbots provide:
- Incredible conversion rates
- Easy way to add people to subscriber list
- A more engaged community
Just a few months ago I saw this in action.
Josh Fechter was launching his book called the “Bamf Bible”, which is an encyclopedia of growth hacks from some of the leading marketers and founders in the startup community.
He launched his book primarily using his chatbot subscriber list. He was using viral posts on LinkedIn and Quora to drive traffic to his chatbot landing pages, which prompted people to connect with him via Facebook Messenger.
What’s the result?
He was able to get over 4,000 new subscribers, get the most upvotes any book has gotten on ProductHunt, and get a bunch of quality leads to his marketing and growth agency.
Ok, so you’re probably completely bought in by now and are thinking: Who do I pay on Fiverr to build me a chatbot?
Actually, making a chatbot is way easier than it sounds.
Quick guide on how do to build your first chatbot
If you want something basic, you can use one of many chatbot platforms that help you build your own bots like Chatfuel or Manychat. You can do everything that I discussed in this article using one of these platforms.
If you want something more advanced, you could use a template for chatbots. One example is the company called Chatobook, which builds templates for restaurants. It gives customers the ability to book a table straight from the phone and the restaurant to track all the reservations, revenue, and so forth. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you are in the restaurant business.
For more chatbot templates check out this awesome selection from Chatbot’s Life. One of the most comprehensive chatbot template sites is BotMakers, where you can find literally everything from an auto dealership bot to a festival bot.
Other cool things you can do with chatbots
What if you don’t intend to build a chatbot for your business and just want to have some fun? Here are some of the cool things you can do with chatbots as a consumer:
Order food: Use BellyHungry to search for your favorite dish and it will find the closest restaurant that serves that dish for you.
Find music: Use AirWave to discover new music from artists around the world (powered by SoundCloud).
Avoid traffic: Use LeaveBot to avoid traffic through chat.
Find cheap flights: Travel on a budget with NomadBot, which helps you find all the cheapest flights and the most affordable destinations.
Sharpen your mind: Use QuizMaster and get endless quizzes and questions. Perfect if you’re bored or if you need to make up a drinking game on the spot.
Learn about cryptocurrency: Use CryptoGirl to navigate the world of cryptocurrency and keep your crypto coins safe.
For the most comprehensive list of chatbots check out BotList.
Recap
Chatbots are not only really cool but super effective when it comes to marketing your product. Use chatbots instead of or alongside email pop-ups to build your own list of chat subscribers. Create landing pages and chatbot pop-ups that take the user to Messenger and send your weekly content in a chat message to get an 80% open rate and a 50% click-through rate.
And above all, use chatbots to have some fun. Try out a few Messenger chatbots and let us know what you think!
