12 Chatbot Marketing Mistakes Business Owners Are Making Now
It's no secret that chatbot marketing is one of the hottest technologies in the marketing scene today for business owners as well as entrepreneurs and marketers too.
Marketing automation software providers are quickly growing and have started their own brands from scratch to compete in the market size.
Customer service as well as building customer relationships should be priority number one outside of sales and marketing since in my personal experience, I believe this is what chatbot platforms were created for.
Yet, these are the mistakes most large enterprises and small businesses are making within their marketing strategies and I personally cringe when I engage with one of their conversational marketing bot.
Yes, while digital marketing strategies for chatbots keeps on growing, mistakes will be made along the way unintentionally.., which could result in losing sales and customers in the long run.
This article will show you some of the chatbot mistakes I’ve encountered and what you should avoid at all cost or correct in your computer program for chatbots now.
What Is Chatbot Marketing?
Chatbots have been around for a few years, but they are now becoming more popular than ever. The reason? They provide an efficient and personalized way of communication with customers.
These chatbots can be either computerized or human-operated
..the difference between the two is that computerized bots will be able to process customer requests and respond accordingly without any human input, while human-operated bots will require a person to manage the conversations.
Chatbot Marketing is the new form of marketing that involves using chatbots in order to interact with potential leads and customers.
Chatbots have been shown to be effective, as they provide customers with a personalized experience, which in turn leads them to be more engaged.
Facebook messenger chatbots are where all the bot users go to create engaging ads so their dream customer can interact with: exclusive deals, coupon offers, join a summit, new course membership coming out, join my newsletter, etc...
RANDOM FACT: The first chatbot was created in 1964 by Joseph Weizenbaum, who is also known as the father of artificial intelligence (AI). He created ELIZA as a chatterbot that would imitate conversation with humans.
In no particular order, here are the
12 Chatbot Marketing Mistakes Business Owners Are Making Now
Lack Of Chatbot Marketing Strategy
There is no one way to go about marketing a chatbot. Most small businesses are not successful in their marketing strategies and there are many different approaches.
One of the most common ways to market a chatbot is through social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, and Telegram. One can also use messaging apps or host an event on Facebook Live to bring awareness about your product.
Awareness can be established through a product’s packaging, advertising, and through word-of-mouth. Brand awareness is important because it allows them to expand their market share and increase revenues.
Businesses need brand awareness to grow in the marketplace and attract new customers in order to increase sales and revenue.
Like I mentioned earlier, advertising is the most common way for businesses to promote their products through Facebook, Facebook page or any other platform.
Creating an ad campaign that targets the right demographic can lead to a significant increase in sales and higher profits for the company.
Advertising is not enough on its own, though. There needs to be a clear message with strong visuals that can catch someone’s attention
Not Providing Relevant Information
It is a competitive world on the internet as well as in real life and not providing information relevant to customers will quickly lose them.
Without the customer's trust, they will not give your company their hard earned money.
If your company does not provide the necessary information for your customers, then they will get impatient and may leave without even reading what you have to say and delete your chatbot.
The customer's trust is very important for any success in business.
On the other hand, If a customer does not have the information they need to make an informed decision about a product or service, they will not feel satisfied with their purchase.
This is why providing as much information as possible is important. It provides them with all of the knowledge they need in order to make an informed decision and truly feel happy with their purchase.
Insufficient Knowledge Base About Customer Journey
The customer's journey can be classified into four different stages: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, and Loyalty.
Awareness stage:
In this stage, a potential customer becomes aware of the product or service but does not know much about it. The company needs to try to create awareness for its product by using advertisements or social media campaigns.
Consideration Stage:
This is the stage where the customer is considering their options and looking for information about products or services.
They are trying to decide on what will work best for them and are still open to new information they learn from marketing campaigns or reviews.
In this stage, companies need to provide as much information as possible so that customers can make an informed decision without any confusion.
Purchase Stage:
At this point, the customer has made up their mind and is ready to purchase your product or service.
You’ve been able to show the customer how everyone in the industry is using your thing, how they can personally use your thing and how they can benefit from your thing, in the long run.
Loyalty Stage:
This is where your customer becomes a hot buyer and will purchase anything you place on the market because they have seen results with your previous products and/or services.
They are also most likely to promote your product and or services to other people by word-of-mouth to bring you in, even more customers.
Here is a great blog link to “How To Create Your Customer Journey Map”
Lifeless Bot Personality
Not giving your chatbot any human-like characteristics such as: sounding full of energy, using emojis, cracking up a joke or 2, etc..,
Will make your customer feel like you're abusing the power of artificial intelligence and are hiding your true self behind robots and letting them do everything for you.
Make sure to let your future prospects know at the very beginning of the chatbot conversation that they are talking to a chatbot with a very cool personality and not to a human.
Most visitors will appreciate this gesture and will keep on engaging with your chatbot.
Very Loooooooong Text Messages
Chatbots are a great way for customers to interact with companies without having to wait on hold or go through the hassle of going into the store.
One issue with chatbots is that they can be too long, and customers do not want to commit hours reading through all of the information, it is perceived as "too much work".
Chatbot solutions should be short and sweet, concise in its answers, and it should not require a lot of dialogue or lots of scrolling down on a website.
This will help appease frustrated customers and let them know that their time is important too.
Not Using The Live Feature To Boost User Experience
Yes, we all love automation
...it makes our lives easier but there will come a time where we need to step out of our comfort zone and start engaging with our visitors either on real time through chatbot live chat or when our bots are stuck answering a future prospect question or concern.
It’s vital to exercise this method because no one wants to lose a valuable customer or a valuable sale that can be easily obtained.
This is one of the best methods to build customer loyalty through a chatbot.
Not Lead Nurturing After Customer Engagement
Lead nurturing is a process of sending your prospects a series of emails over time in order to build trust and grow a relationship with your product and eventually convert them into buyers.
Lead nurturing is not just about selling; it’s about building relationships. And that relationship can go on to lead to sales down the line, or lead to referrals.
Not Updating Your Conversational Marketing Chatbot
As the pace of business changes, technology is adapting to meet the needs of the modern consumer.
Chatbots offer a new way for companies to reach their audiences and provide an automated customer service experience. But with that convenience comes a need to stay on top of software updates.
When developing a chatbot, one of the most important components is to provide it with current information about the company, new products and special deals.
If this information is not updated or changed, that can lead to problems in the conversation between the user and the AI.
If a company does not update their chatbot periodically, their customer service will be more difficult.
People will have difficulty understanding what they are saying because it’s too outdated. It’s also harder for them to buy something because if they don't know about new products or specials then they may miss out on those offers.
This means that without updating their content there are two major disadvantages: less customers and more difficult customer service.
Not Having A Chatbot Set Up For Your Website Visitors
Every entrepreneur, marketer and even small business must have a website or a sales funnel and a chatbot integrated if a visitor wishes to ask questions they couldn’t find on your main page.
Now more than ever, customers want answers to their questions when it’s not found on a page and here is where the chatbot can help provide more information to arrive one step closer to closing the deal.
You’ll also have the advantage to acquire the visitor through lead generation and follow up with the prospect through Facebook retargeting if you have a Facebook pixel set up in your website.
Avoiding Customer Queries
Some business owners think that they can simply avoid customer queries without any repercussions. However, this is not the case. If a customer has an issue with your product, they will probably post their complaint on social media.
This can be terrible for your business because people will flock to your page and see all of the negative reviews and complaints that other customers have posted.
A lot of people think that they don't need to respond to customers who are complaining about their product or service.
But if you ignore these issues, it's possible for them to snowball into something much more damaging in the future, which is why it's important to address complaints when they happen and provide a satisfactory solution as soon as possible.
If you're in the customer service industry it can be hard to avoid fielding questions from current customers if things are slow or if it just doesn't seem worth taking on the task of answering that one query.
But like I mentioned, ignoring your customers can have long-term consequences to your business or brand.
Not Keeping a Chatbot Builder Flow’s Simple
When I got started as a chatbot user, I used to believe that in order to generate leads and sales, one was required to cram all the features into a bot to make it look a top notch chatbot.
This was all the contrary, massive drop in subscribers from my messenger bot which led to a massive loss in sales.
The less images, videos, audio files, gifs and all the other juicy stuff in between it has, the faster the loading times are going to be to keep the conversation flowing with your visitors' dialogue.
Using Facebook Messenger Chatbots The Wrong Way
Texting has become one of the most common ways for people to communicate. It is a way for us to express our thoughts and feelings, as well as a way to reach out when we are feeling down.
For business owners who use Facebook Messenger, they should have an understanding of how text messaging can be used effectively and improperly.
It is important to understand that it is possible for your business's messages on Facebook Messenger to be misunderstood, especially if you include jokes or sarcasm in the message.
It is also possible that your message may offend someone, or irritate them in some way, even if you never intended this result.
As mentioned above, this could lead to people unsubscribing from your messenger bot which could lead to less sales on the long run.
Not Taking Advantage Of Pre-Made Useful Chatbot Templates
Pre-made chatbot templates for your business can be a great time-saver.
They will allow you to spend less time on building different types of chatbots-flow you may be struggling with and focus on the message and offer you want to deliver with the rest of your prospects.
They are ready-to-go with all the information needed. They offer structure and a set of guidelines on how to go about writing the content.
Even business owners with little-to-no writing experience can use pre-made templates as well.
Conclusion
Chatbot Marketing can be very rewarding: helping customers overcome their problems with your unique solution as well as increasing your profitability along the way.
However, not fixing these errors and mistakes mentioned above, could lead to losing millions of sales, new customers and even repeat customers as well.
As they say “customers are the lifeblood of every business” and without them, no business could keep on operating and this is why it is necessary to serve the prospect with the highest level of integrity to keep our business active.
Avoid these simple mistakes to increase the fatness of your wallet or if you are doing them, correct the mistakes and within 30 days of doing so, you’ll see better metrics in your KPIs.
By the way, here is a link to check out chatmatic were they offer a 14 day free trial, were you can learn more in-depth the "insides and outsides" of how to maximize the power of a chatbot to get you more leads and close more sales.