How to implement an effective chatbot program – TechCrunch
Traditionally, sales and marketing teams have relied on tactics like lead capture forms, landing and generic web pages, and follow-up outreach to connect with and convert prospects to sales. This onerous process requires an average of eight touches to secure even a meeting or other conversion.
How can marketers speed this process up and drive growth? Chatbots and conversational marketing offer one avenue with a lot of potential.
Chatbots are quickly becoming an integral part of marketing strategies as brands prioritize personalization and orchestrate multi-channel experiences. Companies that sync digital ad campaigns to chat playbooks can engage leads with a high level of intent and at every stage of the funnel.
Take, for example, CRM software provider CRMNEXT. When the company paired conversational marketing (chat) with ABM, marketing’s influence on the sales pipeline increased from 45% to 92%. It also realized 1,900% ROI, an 80% increase in close rate, and a jump from 18% to 53% of marketing qualified leads to sales acceptance leads.
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The ‘magic’ of ads+chat
What makes conversational marketing chatbots effective is their ability to incorporate data connected to an ABM platform into how their playbooks engage buyers, interact and personalize based upon their segment, cohort, intent and interest.
But first, chatbots must be crafted with intention. Situational awareness is important, as is a design offering a seamless customer experience that needs as few clicks as possible.
Companies that sync digital ad campaigns to chat playbooks can engage leads with a high level of intent and at every stage of the funnel.
In the B2B world, 75% of a chatbot’s function is to qualify leads. People seek instant gratification; they don’t want forms. By using marketing bots and conversational marketing effectively, you can offer a more pleasant and helpful experience to visitors, and protect reps from becoming inundated with routine responses by automating qualification on the front end.
Your chatbot should include a playbook that can:
- Intelligently gather data from site visitors.
- Trigger sales automation processes with both prospects and current customers.
- Qualify inbound traffic in real time.
- Build account lists.
The intuitive bot playbook
While chatbots are designed to make lives easier, most operate in either one of two paradigms: linear or visual (like a flow chart). While each has its place, independently, they leave much to be desired.
Playbooks that use both visual bot and linear bot builders, and dynamically sync them, enable marketing and sales to craft the right journey, creating more relevant, valuable experiences for prospects and customers. It also enables usability for go-to-market teams as they continue optimizing the experience to drive results.
