Strengthen Your B2B Marketing with Chatbots
Estimated Read Time: 4 minutes
Intended Audience: B2B Business Owners, SaaS-Based Organization Owners, Microsoft Partners
Do you remember growing up watching movies that were shot in the future, where humans and robots roamed the earth together in (what was supposed to be) harmony? Only, the robots ended up turning against the humans and taking over the world?
Today is the future, and we are sort of living with robots. This time, however, there is no threat of world domination… yet. Just kidding.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved tenfold in the last few years, and chatbots are only a faint splash on a huge wave of progress. Chatbots are already being used by many organizations around the world to help people complete tasks, such as booking doctor appointments, calling taxi’s. ride share services, sending money electronically, checking in for flights and much more.
What is a Chatbot?
Before we dive in, let’s take a step back and talk about what a chatbot is. Chatbots are defined as computer programs designed to stimulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.
How Fast are Messaging Apps and The Chatbot Market Growing?
The number of people using messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, has skyrocketed in recent years. Facebook Messenger alone has over 1.3 billion users per month.
With messenger app usage on the rise, there is a higher demand for chatbots that mimic human conversations and can solve tasks like the ones outlined above. These numbers will only increase as the messenger apps and chatbot market continues to grow. In fact, 58% of websites that use chatbots are for B2B companies.
So why is this important for a B2B owner? Because utilizing chatbots can not only benefit your marketing, it can also improve it. Here’s how:
1. Strengthen your Brand and Brand Personality
Chatbots can help B2B marketers strengthen their brand identity and infuse personality into the brand. A perfect example of this is the chatbot CoverGirl created a few years ago. The brand created a chatbot version of Kalani Hilliker, a popular young dancer and model who appeals heavily to teens and millennials. Named KalaniBot, it mimics the real Kalani’s public personality and offers answers to questions, shares makeup tips and product information and provides users with discounts or special promos. KalaniBot was such a success that over 50% of customers who chatted to the bot received a coupon, and the bot itself exceeded 90% in positive responses.
Why is this relevant to B2B owners? Although CoverGirl is a B2C market, the strategies the company used can be applied to your B2B organization. Every industry has influencers; CoverGirl found someone that meant a lot to their target audience and generated a chatbot based on that person. Using an influencer in your industry, like a renowned Microsoft MVP, or technology thought-leader, and creating a personality-driven chatbot around them can help build your brand and create positive word of mouth.
2. Enhance your Social Media Presence and Engagement
3. Engage, Inform and Entertain Website Visitors
A website is the biggest B2B marketing asset, and chatbots are an excellent way to not only maintain, but improve this asset. You can use chatbots to increase engagement on your site, improve the user experience and keep users on the site for longer. For example, chatbots can help web visitors find what they are looking for quicker than a site-wide search bar, as well as answer more specific questions that can’t be found through search.
Another major benefit of having a chatbot on your website is it can answer customer inquiries outside of normal business hours. We live in a world where people demand access to information at all times. Since people are becoming less available during traditional working hours, it’s difficult to communicate with businesses. Chatbots can answer questions instantly whether or not a customer service representative is available.
4. Improve Customer Service/Reduce Customer Wait Times
Nothing tarnishes your corporate image like poor customer service. Delivering great customer service can be time consuming and expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. Chatbots allow you to automate parts of, if not the whole, customer service process. They can answer customer inquiries quickly, inexpensively and consistently. In addition, chatbots can handle a high volume of similar requests with similar responses – perfect for dealing with FAQs. Organizations that use chatbots have reported reduced service times by five times, and operating costs as much as 66%. For inquiries a chatbot can’t solve, it can escalate it to a human customer service representative.
5. Leverage Feedback and Sentiment to Improve B2B Marketing Content
Chatbots can positively impact your B2B marketing by leveraging feedback to personalize your messaging. For example, chatbots can provide metrics such as engagement levels, chat length, mentions, and track chats that result in conversion or sales. From these chats, you can pull essential information about users who showed interest in your brand and use it to create more targeted campaigns and content. It’s all about personalizing and tailoring your marketing content to better suit the potential customers.
An effective, yet simple, example of this is having a chatbot on your website that asks, “did you find what you are looking for?”. Using the information from these chats enables you to make necessary changes to your information architecture to ensure important content is easily found.
6. Personalize the Customer Experience with Your Brand
Make AI a Part of Your B2B Marketing Strategy
While AI and chatbots continue to evolve, B2B marketing will only get stronger and more efficient. People around the world are already relying on chatbots to complete day-to-day tasks, such as booking appointments. As businesses learn more about the technology, they are realizing what a huge asset the technology can be, especially for sales and marketing.
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