HOW TO LEVERAGE CHATBOTS FOR MARKETING AND SALES?

1. HOW TO LEVERAGE CHATBOTS FOR MARKETING AND SALES? Having a conversation with a computer may need to appear like a fantasy even a couple of years ago. But now, most folks already use chatbots for a spread of tasks. For example, as end-users, we ask the virtual assistant on our smartphone to find a local restaurant and then provide instructions. Or, we use an online banking chatbot to get help with a loan application. As an administrator in a business organization, you may be asked to create a chatbot for sales to support your sales department. The human sales department may want to give information 24-hour access to information about their benefits and make it easier to navigate, all without having to speak to someone in person. Alternatively, your sales team may want a sales chatbot to initially address the requirements of potential customers, by providing sales materials/demos or by pairing leads with the right salesperson. How a chatbot can help you guide customers through the sales funnel? The sales funnel, the process that consumers go through when making buying decisions, has played an essential part in marketing and sales for quite some time. While the basic tenets of the funnel have remained close to the same, many of the tactics marketers use to move their prospects have changed. For many of today's companies, artificial intelligence and automation play an important role in this movement. Web-based technologies allow companies to collect huge amounts of data about potential and current customers, so much so that it would take a long time for human analysts to analyze it. Artificial intelligence, on the opposite hand, can add up this data and use it to predict what actions customers might absorb the longer term. This gives marketers and marketers more information on what they need to move a lead through the sales funnel. A common way for companies to collect customer data is through conversation chatbots. These customer service representatives and virtual vendors communicate with people through instant messages and help get them started in the sales process. Where companies implement chatbots? Although most chatbots for sales exist on their company’s website, some of them also work through popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and Twitter. If this is the situation, a social media user can determine the bot while browsing a social site, especially if they or a friend like the business page. However, in most cases, someone will come to a website into one of these different pathways, and then they will get a chatbot. Typically, the bot will wait a bit for the customer to get familiar with the site, and then it will pop up and ask them a basic question like they need help finding something. These bots could even be customized based on how the visitor entered the site or what landing page they are on.

2. The importance of creating relationships! Establishing a relationship is crucial to move potential customers through the sales funnel. Bots do this by initiating a conversation, engaging the visitor with the brand. This is powerful, even if they are only talking to a computer program at first. Manually accessing all visitors to your website can be time-consuming and some companies may not have the resources to do so. Using these automated programs allows you to connect with every potential customer. You could use a bot to communicate with five people or 500 people, and the cost would not be higher. You only need to make the initial investment to train and implement the sales chatbot.