There’s been a TON of hype over chatbots lately.
How it’s ideal for lead generation, retargeting, customer service, and more.
Some people are still confused on what they are and how they can actually help grow your business.
So by the end of this post… I want to teach you (1) what a chatbot is (2) why it’s important (3) how you can use it for your business (4) how to build your own chatbot for free with no coding required.
Ok let’s get started.
What is a chatbot?
A chatbot is simply software that communicates with your customer inside messaging apps like Facebook Messenger.
I’m not talking about AI or Machine Learning. Think of chatbots like email marketing, but through messaging apps.
Why should I care?
Marketing is all about (a) finding your target audience and (b) communicating how your product or service can solve their problem.
Which is why companies need to market through these messaging apps.
Why? People LOVE using Messaging apps and they prefer to use it to communicate with people we love.
We iMessage our significant other. Facebook Messenger with our friends. Slack with our team.
So let’s market to people where they currently are.
We did a bot experiment at Mixergy and the results blew us away. Our open rates were over 80%!!! Our click rates were over 50%!
To back this post up with some data, Facebook Messenger alone has 1.2 billion monthly active users. Not just 1.2 billion users. These are 1.2 billion MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS.
To give you more data, there are more users on the top 4 messaging apps than the top 4 social network users
Businesses need to open their eyes and market to all these users on messaging apps!
How you can use it for your business
This is nothing special to people who have been marketing for a long time.
This is like starting an email list when email became a thing. Or starting a podcast ten years ago. People’s behaviors are just changing and we need to adapt.
Getting a subscriber on Facebook Messenger is much easier than an email subscriber because of the reduced friction.
LEAD GENERATION => COMMENTS: You can set up your chatbot so that when someone comments on your Facebook Page’s post, they get a message directly from your chatbot.
RETARGETING => ADS: You can retarget people who left your site on Facebook with a Messenger ad and give them a 10% discount on their order.
SALES => LIVE CHAT: You can lead people through a nurturing sequence and when they click a certain button towards the end of the sequence, your chatbot can notify you so that you can jump into the live chat and close the sale. Imagine a chatbot QUALIFYING YOUR LEADS and you coming in as the inside sales team coming into the conversation at the perfect time.
Tam's Take
You might wonder what this might look like in action. We did a bunch of research on the best businesses using chatbots, took screenshots of everything they did, and showed their processes in our latest piece. Click the button below and I’ll send you the 5 most popular chatbot use cases we have seen so far.
What are some real-world examples?
Professional Bloggers: A paleo expert can drip messages and teach people how to eat healthier, then offer their course or coaching program.
Product: An athletic company can segment their audience, send tailored running tips, and customize their product recommendations to sell the perfect running shoes.
Service: A business can teach why copywriting is so important and at the end of the sequence, offer their copywriting services to them.
Think of Messenger as a new way to reach your audience. What would you do if you could text your customers directly?
Businesses should take advantage of this opportunity before the chatbot market gets saturated and your competitors get to this channel first.
Tam's Take
One person who does this really well is bestselling author, Michael Hyatt, who generated over $4,000 from his first ever chatbot campaign. Click the button below and I’ll send you exactly what he did with his chatbot to produce a successful launch.
How to build your own chatbot
I created a free tutorial on how to set up your chatbot here.
There are a ton of platforms out there and we reviewed the most popular ones here. I personally love ManyChat because it is (a) free (b) doesn’t require any coding (c) super user-friendly.
What’s more important than the platform you choose is your ambition to actually go out and build your first chatbot! Good luck. Check out the rest of the blog for more advanced tips, strategies, and case studies.