Are you looking for a solution to step up your marketing game? Well, you’re lucky! Using an AI chatbot for your marketing campaigns can help you connect with your customers on a deeper level and create a more personalized experience.
Chatbots are already used by 55% of businesses to generate higher-quality leads and meet their marketing and sales goals. According to another report, 38% of consumers think brands should use chatbots for deals, coupons, and promotions too for a more valuable marketing campaign. Companies always look for different and more interesting ways to do their next marketing campaign than the previous one to engage customers. There are many methods to reach the target audience but using an AI chatbot in the marketing campaign will drive businesses to the next level of advertising and compete with other companies which do not use such technology – using conversational AI. You know that AI chatbots are not only for automation of routine tasks, means to improve customer service and support and be there for the customers 24/7, but they also provide an excellent marketing opportunity for businesses looking to reach new customers and engage the existing ones in a more interactive manner.
In the next а few paragraphs, we will show you why it is important to use an AI chatbot for your next marketing campaign, how to launch one and the steps to follow, also how to use gamification in chatbots for marketing purposes, so keep reading to not miss the opportunity for growth.
Why Use an AI Chatbot for Your Marketing Campaign?
AI chatbots can help you automate your marketing tasks and save your time and resources. They can help you keep track of your customers’ needs and preferences, and they can help you target your marketing messages more effectively. Additionally, chatbots can automatically gather first and zero-party data about your customers that you can use to improve your next marketing campaigns. On top of these general benefits, we shall highlight that technically customers can be sent to a precise chatbot element (information card or a form, or an entire funnel built-in the chatbot) literally from anywhere online and offline, with 1 click or scan, which gives tremendous flexibility and open the gates for creativity in planning campaigns.
According to the 2020 State of Conversational Marketing Report (Drift), 41.3% of consumers use conversational marketing tools for purchases – up from 17.1% since 2019. The trends are here to stay and all the forecasts for the chatbot market’s further growth and development are confirming it.
How to Launch a Marketing Campaign with an AI Chatbot
Launching a new marketing campaign can be more exciting than ever with the help of an AI chatbot. To do a marketing campaign with an AI chatbot, you will first need to determine your target audience and what you hope to achieve with the campaign.
Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you’ll need to create a plan for your marketing campaign with your AI chatbot. This plan should include what kind of messages you want to use, what kind of offers you’ll be promoting, and how you’ll be driving traffic to your chatbot and your website.
You will need afterward to create the content that is both required by your plan and interesting to your target audience. This content can be in the form of social media posts or ads, content inside your AI chatbot, emails, QR codes, printed collateral, or anything else needed to support your campaign online and offline.
When you are ready with the planning and the content, it’s time for execution so keep in mind to mark all main points to not miss any important information that should be included in the campaign.
Here are a few tips to get you started properly:
1. Define your goals.
What are you hoping to achieve with your campaign? More website visitors? More leads? More sales? More engagement? Be as specific as possible so you can easily track progress. How the chatbot will help you achieve your goals, what role it will play, and where in the funnel it will assist you and the customers?
2. Decide on your target audience.
Who do you want to reach with your campaign? Knowing your target audience will help you determine what type of content to include in your chatbot. Do you know if your target audience is familiar with an AI chatbot and how to use it? Do you know what they love using chatbots for, to use this trend in your favor? The chatbot usage shall feel natural and comfortable to your business and its customers.
3. Choose the right metrics.
Once you know your goals, you need to choose the metrics that will best help you measure progress. For example, if you’re hoping to increase website visitors, you’ll want to track things like unique visitors, page views, time on site, and others. Or, you may want to track the number of forms filled by the customers in the chatbot, traffic to the chatbot, the number of time users has seen a promotion card in the chatbot or other.
4. Develop a persona for your chatbot.
Your chatbot should have a personality that reflects your brand. This will help create a deeper and more memorable connection with your target audience. You can learn more on this topic in our Complete Guide to Preparing for an AI Chatbot Project.
5. Create engaging content.
Your chatbot’s content should be engaging and informative. It should also be relevant to your target audience and meet their and your company’s needs. It shall be in the same style (all the way to the emojis used) as the company content in social media, emails, and other communication channels to support the branding.
6. Test your chatbot before launching and set up tracking
Make sure to test your chatbot and the created sales and marketing funnel in it before the launch of the campaign. This will help ensure that all elements are functioning properly, the steps are designed to refer to each other smoothly and are optimized, and to make sure your target audience will enjoy their journey.
7. Launch your marketing campaign with your AI chatbot, monitor its performance, and analyze the results
Once you launch your campaign with your AI chatbot, be sure to monitor the performance. The AI chatbot dashboard will provide you with valuable information about your customers’ behavior in the chatbot. This will help you see how it is doing and make changes if necessary. Are you meeting your goals? If not, what can you change to improve your results? For sure, your business will distinguish itself from others so be creative and keep going in that direction.
The Power of Marketing with Gamification via Website AI Chatbot
In a world where marketing is becoming increasingly competitive, it’s important also to find new and innovative solutions to reach your target audience. Gamification is one such opportunity.
What is Gamification?
Gamification is the use of game-like elements in non-game contexts. In other words, it is the process of taking an application or a game and integrating it with technologies, products, and services or other, such as chatbots, software platforms, etc. When it comes to marketing, gamification can be used to motivate participation, increase customer loyalty, engagement, and conversions.
How Can Gamification in a Chatbot be Used in Marketing?
There are many cases gamification in AI chatbot can be used in marketing. Here are a few ideas:
1. Use gamification to increase customer loyalty with an AI chatbot
Customer loyalty is essential for any business. Gamification can be used to increase customer loyalty by rewarding customers. For example, once you have an avatar for your AI chatbot, you can create different emotions and .gif with it and use the avatar’s emotions in marketing campaigns to show customers something exciting and new. Make customers want to chat with the AI chatbot to get something for free or in exchange for an email. Give feedback, win a competition to get a promo code, special offers, and gifts. By doing this you will help customers to become more loyal to your brand with always on demand AI chatbot that will assist them 24/7 and give them special offers to want to buy more of your products and services.
2. Use gamification to increase engagement with an AI chatbot
Engagement is key to any successful marketing campaign. Gamification can be used to increase engagement by making your marketing campaign more interactive and fun. For example, create games in the chatbot that in return for completing them customers will receive promo codes, gift cards, or others. One such game is Treasure Hunt for customers to collect letters or other clues that can be accessed with links on social media posts or by scanning a QR code on the products packages that direct them to the chatbot. Customers must make a word with the gathered letters, or collect a full set of clues, symbols, or else, and register in a form in the chatbot to win their prize.
3. Use gamification to increase conversions with an AI chatbot
Conversions are the ultimate goal of any marketing campaign. Gamification can be used to increase conversions by offering rewards for taking desired actions within the chatbot. For example, you could offer a discount for signing up for your company e-newsletter or making a purchase through the AI chatbot which will be accessed via direct links or QR codes shared online and offline.
4. Use gamification to collect data with an AI chatbot
Data is essential for any successful marketing campaign. Gamification can be used to collect data by offering rewards for completing surveys, quizzes, questionnaires, or providing personal information through the forms in the AI chatbot. Customer shall provide their personal emails, mobile phones, or others to receive something in return in the AI chatbot. By using lead magnets in the chatbot, you will be able to collect customer data and use it for future marketing campaigns and special offers. This data can be also used for better targeting your potential customers and creating more personalized email campaigns to reach them afterward.
5. Use gamification to take your marketing campaign to the next level with an AI chatbot
Links and QR codes to hidden information inside the AI chatbot can be used in more fun ways like QR codes on food packages leading to recipes on what to cook with this product or competition to submit a recipe, or what goes with your products – tips on suitable to your products occasions, how to use them in a combination with other products or something else. You could also offer discounts for customers’ referrals through a direct link registration in a form in the AI chatbot. So, take your marketing campaign with your AI chatbot to the next level by being creative and you will see the results, we bet they will be higher than before.
If you’re looking for a solution to take your marketing to the next level, gamification is worth considering. By adding fun and interactive elements, you can keep users coming back for more while also collecting valuable data or feedback. When a customer engages with a gamified chatbot, they are more likely to use their prize during their shopping because they will feel like they earned their prize.
How Some of Our Clients Have Used Their AI chatbot in Their Marketing Campaigns
How our clients did it and celebrated awesome results? One example is the 5-star hotel Casa di Fiore Spa and Medical which marketed both their hotel’s initial opening and their AI chatbot launch with posts on social media and ads. They even participated in a competition for the best digital projects of ‘2021 as an example of a successful implementation of an AI chatbot. By doing this the hotel promoted its services which the AI chatbot was part of a digital hotel assistant. Casa di Fiore made also a special avatar and a video advert for its AI chatbot, called Miss Fiore, which you can see below. The hotel uses the AI chatbot with different emojis of the avatar, to show the rooms and the other facilities to popularize it and attract guests. This was a 2-in-1 win – a promotion of the opening of the hotel with the promotion of the hotel AI chatbot, which was made on the Umni platform, to increase guests’ interest in both. to help them make a reservation – a new opportunity to drive higher conversions.
Another example is the hotel complex Izgreva – a family hotel with hot spring mineral water pools very popular among local and foreign leisure travelers. To popularize the hotel services, the hotel team publishes posts on their Facebook account regularly and almost every post contains a link to the hotel AI chatbot for more information or reservation. They created a QR code for the keychains of the rooms’ keys and paper materials for guests with QR codes to access the hotel AI assistant and the menu of the restaurant. Therefore, their guests can ask questions and get an answer right away from any place they are.
The hotel uses its AI chatbot to promote its services so potential guests can easily book a reservation and ask questions 24/7 – with 1 link. By actively including the chatbot in its marketing, the hotel got the perfect solution for bookings and increasing the guests’ interest of the hotel facilities, services, and sightseeing, which helped them achieve more savings and secure more bookings from the first 3 months of implementing the chatbot.
One more example is the Beauty Point studio that created a competition for choosing the avatar of their chatbot – this not only popularizes their chatbot but also engaged customers to participate so to have more interest at all in the services of the beauty salon. They created various social media educational campaigns – posts with pictures and videos, articles on their website, and others, involving those customers who actively used the bot and increased the whole interest in the beauty salon services and offers. Now 100 % of customers who want to take advantage of promotion make a reservation through the chatbot and every day there is at least 1 reservation made through the chatbot. They showed impressive results with using their chatbot in their campaigns and continue to win. This is something all businesses want – growth and success. You can achieve even more if you use creativity and benefit from all AI chatbot functionalities in full for further successful development.
How to Measure the Success of Your AI Chatbot Marketing Campaign
It’s no secret that artificial intelligence chatbots are rapidly changing the landscape of marketing. From personalization to first- and zero-party data for predictive analytics and intelligent planning, AI chatbots are providing marketers with powerful new opportunities to drive better results.
The benefits of chatbot conversational marketing are clear. But how can you measure the success of your chatbot marketing campaign? Here are 8 key metrics to track:
1. Engagement
One of the most important things to track when it comes to chatbot marketing is engagement. This metric measures how often users are interacting with your chatbot.
There are a few different statistics to watch with regard to engagement. One is to track desktop users and mobile users. This will give you what your users mostly use and help you create content that is optimized for your webpage and your chatbot widget based on the consumption type. For example, if your customers mostly access your content on their mobile phones, you shall focus on creating marketing materials for your AI chatbot as a leading instrument instead of focusing on your landing pages, and vice versa. Analyzing users’ numbers compared to previous campaigns will be also very important – are they more or they decrease, which will give an idea of whether the engagement rate is higher than before. How many interactions happened on mobile and how many on desktop, when users are more active and have more interactions with the chatbot? How many interactions happen at nighttime (currently on average 35% of the interactions happen after 18:00 and before 8:00 across various industries)?
Keep tracking these numbers from campaign to campaign to be able to analyze them for further development of your marketing strategies.
2. Conversion Rate
Another key metric to track is the conversion rate. This measures the percentage of users who complete the desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, filling out a form, or something else.
To calculate the conversion rate, track the number of people who clicked a link or scanned a QR code (online and offline) that lead to the chatbot and how many of them completed the desired action for the month you are running the campaign. This way, you will know the effectiveness of your campaign and you will be able to assess what happens outside the chatbot if what you offer motivates users to enter the chatbot to perform a given action, leave their data, and how easy it is for them. Track statistics after each change in the campaign funnel outside of the chatbot and/or inside the chatbot to discover the most successful user path.
3. User Retention Rate
Another important metric to track is user retention rate. This measures how often users return to interact with your chatbot.
To calculate the retention rate, you shall take the number of users who return to interact with your chatbot within a specific time frame (monthly, annually) from the chatbot statistics and divide it by the total number of unique users and multiply by 100. This will give you a percentage of users who are returning to interact with your chatbot.
4. Net Promoter Score
Another metric you may want to track is the net promoter score (NPS). This measures the level of customer satisfaction, or how likely users are to recommend your chatbot to family, friends, and others.
To calculate NPS, you have to take the % of users who rated your chatbot as a 9 or 10 (promoters) on a scale of 1 to 10 and subtract from it the % of users who rated you lower (detractors). Here is a simple formula to calculate it: NPS = % promoters – % detractors. For example, if 70% of users were Promoters and 10% were Detractors, your Net Promoter is a score of 60.
5. Click-through Rate
This measures how often users are clicking on links to your chatbot. A higher click-through rate means that your chatbot marketing campaign is effective at driving users to your website and your chatbot. You can use trackable links and QR codes to measure this metric.
6. Social media engagement
This measures how often users are interacting with your chatbot by accessing it through links in social media posts and ads. A higher social media engagement rate means that your chatbot is creating a lot of buzz on your social media accounts by users accessing it with direct links or QR codes mentioned in your social media campaigns that you can track and analyze.
7. Brand awareness
This measures how familiar users are with your brand. Tracking the direct traffic to your website, the total number of unique clients who’ve seen or engaged with your chatbot marketing campaign over a specific period, and the growth of the total number of users in your AI chatbot will give you information on your brand awareness growth. You also must compare the data to previous campaigns to see the difference if the chatbot helped with higher number of visitors/users because of its interactive interface.
8. Overall ROI
Finally, this measures the overall return on investment of your chatbot marketing campaign. A higher ROI means that your chatbot is delivering a good return on your investment. How to calculate it with the simplest formula (keep in mind it gives round numbers and it is only approximately) You have to take the sales growth from the marketing campaign, subtract the marketing costs, and then divide by the marketing cost.
(Sales Growth – Marketing Cost) / Marketing Cost = ROI
So, if sales grew by $1,000 and the marketing campaign cost $200, then the simple ROI is 800%.
According to Accenture, 57% of businesses agree that conversational chatbots can deliver a large return on investment for minimal effort. Just by considering an AI chatbot marketing strategy, you have already started earning.
By tracking all these metrics, you’ll be able to get a better understanding of how your chatbot marketing campaign is performing and make necessary adjustments to improve the results of your next marketing campaigns.
Start your marketing campaigns in style
Have you already decided to create your next marketing campaign with/within an AI chatbot?
We are sure that you are enlightened now as to how many opportunities for reaching your company’s marketing goals are there with AI chatbot participation in your campaigns. Now is the time to start to reach them.
If you need more ideas on how to promote your chatbot, here are the many tips and tricks on the topic. You can always contact us for a Demo and personal consultation exactly for your business to start your marketing campaigns effectively and in style!