A chatbot is simply software that communicates with your customer inside messaging apps like Facebook Messenger. Think of chatbots like email marketing, but through messaging apps.

Why should I care?

Marketing is all about finding your target audience and communicating how your product or service can solve their problem. People love messaging apps — they use iMessage with their significant other, Facebook Messenger with friends, Slack with their team. So market to people where they already are.

At Mixergy, Bot Academy ran a bot experiment and the results were staggering: open rates over 80% and click rates over 50%. Facebook Messenger alone has 1.2 billion monthly active users. There are more users on the top 4 messaging apps than the top 4 social networks combined.

How you can use it for your business

LEAD GENERATION via Comments: Set up your chatbot so that when someone comments on your Facebook Page post, they get a direct message from your chatbot.

RETARGETING via Ads: Retarget people who left your site on Facebook with a Messenger ad and give them a discount on their order.

SALES via Live Chat: Lead people through a nurturing sequence, and when they click a certain button, your chatbot notifies you so you can jump into live chat and close the sale. Your chatbot qualifies leads and you step in at the perfect time.

Real-world examples

Professional Bloggers: A paleo expert can drip messages teaching people how to eat healthier, then offer a course or coaching program.

Product: An athletic company can segment their audience, send tailored running tips, and customize product recommendations to sell the perfect running shoes.

Service: A business can teach why copywriting is important and offer their copywriting services at the end of the sequence.

How to build your own chatbot

There are many platforms out there. 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.