Having a small business is a lot of work, and it can be expensive.
But there are ways to make it easier!
Using chatbots can help your small business save time and money so you can focus on growth.
Keep reading for my list of 7 small business chatbot marketing tactics that you can use to make your workweek easier!
1. Generate Leads
One of the best and most important uses of chatbots is to generate leads for your business.
The first step of this small business chatbot marketing tactic is to get customers to interact with your chatbot. But how do you do that?
First, try using Facebook click-to-Messenger ads. These look like your typical Facebook timeline ad, but instead of the call to action button directing the user to a website, it directs them straight to a Facebook Messenger chat with your chatbot!
Then, all you have to do is get the user to respond to the bot once. If the user responds, you will be able to follow up with a sponsored message; the one message Facebook allows businesses to send within 24 hours of a user’s last response.
One last small business chatbot marketing tactic to use to generate leads is by using a comment guard.
A comment guard is a chatbot that you can attach to a Facebook post. Anyone who comments on the Facebook post will immediately receive a message from your chatbot.
Using a post that will get engagement — for example, a contest, a webinar sign-up, or a discount — means that you will gain more contacts. If you get the user to provide their email before giving them what they’re looking for, then you can also build your email list!
2. Customer FAQ
Small businesses might not have the funds to hire a ton of staff.
But customers still need care, and often that care is answering common questions!
This small business chatbot marketing tactic allows your small business to be available 24/7 for customer questions.
Chatbots are great for answering FAQs from customers.
You can set up your bot to recognize certain words and trigger responses.
For example, “hours” can trigger your bot’s dialogue that tells a customer your store hours and “pricing” can trigger your bot’s dialogue that directs a customer to your product’s pricing table.
This will help your small business save money on staff and save time on answering the same questions over and over.
3. Increase Engagement
Using chatbots for your small business will help you increase engagement by giving customers an easy way to interact with your business.
Chatbots don’t have to only serve a business purpose, either, such as answering FAQs or making sales — they can just be for fun!
A lot of businesses make their chatbots into a sort of game that gives customers a fun thing to interact with, which increases engagement and interest in the business.
In addition, it’s important to personalize your business’s chatbot. Giving the chatbot personality makes it more unique and more interesting to interact with!
Use your chatbot to engage customers with ways of learning more in a nurturing and educational conversation, as is exemplified through the MobileMonkey bot.
4. Automate Sales
Here’s another way to save money using chatbots: set up your chatbot to be a salesbot!
Hiring salespeople cost money.
Small businesses might not have the funds to employ a lot — or any — salespeople to push products and make sales.
And without sales, businesses can fail.
This small business chatbot marketing tactic allows you to have salespeople online 24/7 — because all your salespeople are one chatbot!
Chatbots can push sales by making product searches easier.
All a customer has to do is tell the bot what they’re looking for, and the bot will pull up the product. Then the customer selects what they want and the sale begins!
5. Simplify Payments
Sometimes, the payment can be the most difficult and stressful part of the product purchasing experience.
When a customer has to go from webpage to webpage entering their personal payment information, it can be hard for them to keep track and make sure everything is correct. It also takes a lot of time.
Chatbots simplify the payment process by doing everything from within the chat window. No more will your customers have to navigate through multiple webpages in order to purchase your product.
Instead, the chatbot will direct them through a dialogue that stays within one chat window and is quick and easy!
6. Influence Purchases
Chatbots are great tools for suggestion.
Sometimes, a customer doesn’t know exactly what they want. But with this small business chatbot marketing tactic, you can prevent losing customers to challenging site navigation and the product learning curve.
Just create a leading dialogue in which the chatbot asks the customer questions such as how much they’re willing to spend, what or who the product is for, or what category product they are searching for.
Then, the chatbot can use their answers to come up with a menu of options.
This small business chatbot marketing tactic prevents customers from aimlessly browsing your website, as well as customer churn while inspiring more sales!
7. Easier Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programs are easier with chatbot automation.
Using a chatbot loyalty program is a small business chatbot marketing tactic that makes onboarding new members easier and simplifies the process of using customer accounts and getting loyalty rewards.
All you have to do is include a QR code or a type-in code that customers can use to sign up and then start receiving awards. These are incredibly simple to create by using your chatbot’s Messenger URL in a QR code generator. Simply post the code in your shop or store, and customers can use their mobile phones to scan the code to start gathering loyalty points.
What’s Your Small Business Chatbot Marketing Tactic of Choice?
There’s a number of great ways to utilize chatbots to push your small business’s marketing to the next level.
Chatbots automate a lot of tasks that take up time and money from a business that is just getting started and trying to grow. That’s why these small business chatbot marketing tactics are the key to turning your small business into a unicorn.
About the Author: Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey, the World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform and free chatbot builder. He’s also the founder of WordStream, Inc., the leading provider of Google Ads, Facebook Ads and keyword tools used by over a million marketers worldwide. The company employs over three hundred people and manages billions of dollars of ad spend on behalf of tens of thousands of customers. WordStream was acquired by Gannett for $150 million. Larry is ranked the #8 most popular author on Medium. He’s a contributor to CNBC and Inc. Magazine. Key interests include Chatbot Marketing, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, entrepreneurship and startups. He received Marketer of the Year awards from Search Engine Land, US Search Awards, and PPC Hero.
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