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Most of us have had experience with chatbots, either as business leaders or as individual users engaging with them.
In the earliest stages of development, chatbots weren't especially impressive. They were very basic, recognizable, and at times difficult to deal with.
But these days, bots are incredibly effective. It's difficult to differentiate between bots and humans in most contexts. Chatbots are more unique and personalized. And on top of that, they’re suitable for a wider range of applications.
These days, marketers and lead generation specialists are taking an especially close look at chatbots.
But why is this the case? And how can you use chatbots effectively in a modern lead generation strategy?
Chatbots are effective marketing tools because of their ability to broadly automate what would otherwise be intensive manual effort. These bots can be created and trained to simulate a human being in a wide variety of applications, from initial lead qualification to customer service. When deployed effectively, they can strike up conversations and respond to user queries, gather important information from people, and even address their biggest questions and concerns.
Most people are familiar with chatbots in customer service and on websites by now, but they can also function well on social media and in a variety of other channels.
Lead generation unfolds in many forms and across many channels.
So what are the specific ways that chatbots are used in lead generation?
· Superior customer engagement. In most contexts, chatbots can engage with customers in ways that exceed the potential of their human counterparts. This isn't to say that bots are better than humans when it comes to conversation or personability, but bots are much, much more consistent, less prone to error, and are much easier to scale. To handle a million customer queries without creating delays, you might need a million customer service agents – but you’ll only need one sufficiently powerful chatbot.
· Constant availability. Another advantage of chatbots is that they're constantly available. If one of your prospects gets the sudden urge to ask some questions about your product at two in the morning, you won't need to pay a human business development specialist overtime to handle that conversation. You also don't have to force your customer to wait.
· Direct lead qualification. Chatbots have gotten exceptionally skilled at directly qualifying leads. Provided they've been given adequate direction and training, these chatbots can quickly analyze customer intentions, categorize them, and provide you with the necessary data to make effective decisions related to them.
· Personalized marketing opportunities. Automation in customer service and lead generation is nothing new. But chatbots have added an interesting new dimension to this interaction; they can personalize marketing experiences. Modern chatbot interactions give your leads and prospects a much richer, more individualized conversation.
· Customer support and upselling. Chatbots are also useful in providing customer support and even upselling some of your customers. Because this customer service is more personalized, more immediate, and more consistent, it can help you sell more than ever.
· Improved data analytics. Having a network of chatbots in your lead generation strategy also gives you access to superior data analytics. You can gather far more information on far more people and use that data to better shape your lead generation, marketing, and sales approaches.
· Support for flexible growth. One of the greatest advantages of utilizing chatbots is that you can grow much more flexibly. With the right technologies, scaling almost becomes a trivial matter, and it's much easier to handle increasing waves of leads and customers as your influence expands.
With that in mind, there are some limitations associated with chatbots used for lead generation.
· Niches and training. Chatbots aren't always easy to train, especially in complicated or unique niches. Chatbots also need to be trained before you can rely on them. Because of this, you may not have a perfectly competent chatbot to serve your customers out-of-the-box. But if you're willing to put in the time, money, and effort, you can create a chatbot to serve almost any conceivable purpose.
· Lack of personality. Although today's most sophisticated chatbots are somewhat indistinguishable from humans in certain applications, these things still don't have a unique personality. Many prospects and customers will prefer a more authentic, human interaction, and for the time being, chatbots can't provide one.
· Difficulty with complex topics. Even the most advanced chatbots on the market still sometimes struggle with exceedingly complex or deep topics. If a prospect has a sufficiently confusing question, or if they're asking about a sufficiently complicated product, even a well-trained chatbot might not know what to do. But because this is rare, you can always have human agents on standby to step in when necessary.
· Need for high-level direction. Your entire chatbot network is going to be dependent on the high-level direction that you provide them. Without a solid lead generation and sales strategy in place, your chatbots aren't going to generate much new business.
So what tactics can help you use chatbots in your lead generation strategy more effectively?
· Choose the right technologies. First, you need to choose the right technologies and implement them into your business effectively. There are many types of chatbots out there, and you can even choose to develop your own from scratch. Always do your due diligence and make sure that what you're purchasing is going to be a good fit for the organization and your needs.
· Provide ample information and training. The more information and training your chatbots have, the better they're going to be. Make sure they have access to all relevant information, and give them ample feedback to guide them in their development. The more time you spend on cultivating skilled chatbots, the better they're going to serve you.
· Focus on quality over quantity. As is the case with nearly every aspect of your sales and marketing strategies, you need to focus on quality over quantity. It's very nifty that chatbots can handle extremely large volumes of leads and prospects, but if you aren't proactive in cultivating quality leads, it's going to come back to haunt you. Every element and every stage of your approach needs to be focused on generating quality leads.
· Test, test, test. Don't just assume that your chatbots are working the way you intended, or even the way that you trained them. You need to test them, thoroughly and often, to make sure that they're serving your mission.
· Integrate with human-led conversations. Chatbots are amazing for their ability to handle large volumes and serve people consistently, while also saving time. Humans are amazing for their ability to connect personally and think through more complicated matters. Accordingly, your best approach in lead generation is to utilize the best of both worlds.
· Get feedback. Get feedback from your leads, prospects, and customers. It's hard to tell whether your chatbots are improving your brand’s reputation unless you have actual, objective feedback from people who have interacted with them. Use short surveys to gather opinions.
· Scale deliberately. It's tempting to scale quickly and aggressively once you have sufficient automation in place. But if you want to be effective, and retain more customers, you need to scale thoughtfully and deliberately. If you grow too quickly, you might spread your resources too thin or miss critical problems that are holding your strategy back.
Are you interested in utilizing the full power of chatbots in your lead generation strategy?
Are you ready to get more value out of your lead generation investment?
Our team of lead generation and marketing experts is ready to help you at every stage of your journey.
So if you’re ready to start the conversation about small business lead generation, contact us today!
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