I have bot, now what?
You have a chatbot with or without AI and now what? Once you have designed it and implemented it, the only thing left to be done is to show it to the world! So now is the time to promote and popularize it to your customers and everyone who will use it for them to learn about its existence, have immediate access to it, and start using it!
The business can direct customers from online and offline to the chatbot to start helping them with customer service and support, to keep them attracted to what the business has to offer, and drive them through the marketing and sales funnels. You should keep in mind that the chatbot is not a standalone tool that attracts customers itself – the business that implemented it must direct its customers to it so the chatbot can start its service in favor of the brand. Yes, it welcomes with “Hello, how can I help you?”, but if the business does not direct clients to the chatbot and motivate them to use it and take action in it, the chatbot may not get adopted by its future users.
Launch Your Bot in Style – Best Practices
Designing, training, and testing are successful and now it’s time for the chatbot to start chatting with customers, employees, and business partners. Here are some good practices and ideas to promote the chatbot and make people love it:
Create and Blog Your Chatbot’s Story
You have a ready chatbot, but you have to write a compelling story for it so customers learn about its purpose, what is his story, why you chose that name, avatar, and tone of voice. When creating a chatbot’s story you have to make readers want more of it. Share why you chose the name of your chatbot – because it is a brand representative because customers chose it, or why it has that witty character and funny tone of voice or else, so people feel like it’s part of the team and it is to care of them. From a business point of view, products or services usually have names, because that can affect in a positive way how customers think of the product and their associations, as well as it is a steppingstone for a memorable experience. A great story, a real name, and an avatar for the chatbot can result in customers buying more and become more loyal to the brand because the chatbot would make a less robotic impression, and users will chat longer with it, therefore the brand will have more opportunities to introduce products and services and move customers through the sales funnels in the chatbot. From a different perspective, when you give a name to something you feel more compassionate toward it and can be more emotionally attached.
In a study by McClatchy DC people were asked to choose the best wine that they would buy. All of the offered wines were the same type of wine but with a different name and most of the people chose that with the most exotic and memorable name. What is the importance of the name – a product or service’s name builds a story that affects how customers perceive the value of the product and want it more than others with no names or hard-to-remember ones. Then, make sure you made up the best name for your chatbot, so customers remember it from the very beginning.
The avatar of the chatbot also takes a huge role in its acceptance. It could be an image of a real person, a cartoon, a 3D virtual avatar, or others. The cartoon and 3D virtual avatar would allow the business to create different postures and stories in the chatbot to keep customers entertained and attracted to the bot. When customers get used to the face and the name of the avatar and began associating it with the chatbot and the business instantly, it can be used further online and offline for promoting the chatbot and the business products and services – for example, the avatar and a QR code with CTA (call to action) printed and located next to a product on the shelf in the store to direct customers to more info, instruction, inquiry form, or other action.
The tone of voice of the chatbot is also important as it shall match the brand image and the perception that the brand wants to maintain about itself in customers. It can be professional, funny, or else. The tone of voice shall compliment the avatar and the chosen name. The three together create the whole chatbot persona and make it more memorable and recognizable.
Now is the time to write your chatbot’s amazing story, what have driven you to start this project, and everything that comes to your mind, so customers understand better why you chose to implement it as part of your services. Then the blog post can be shared anywhere online to show it to the business’ followers and help spread the word of the chatbot.
Promote the Chatbot Online
Digital marketing is one of the most used strategies for promoting products and services and reaching more people globally than the more traditional ways of advertising. Your business shall have a digital marketing strategy for your chatbot promotion to stay in the trend.
Start promoting the chatbot by publishing posts, stories, and ads about it on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Viber, Youtube, and any other relevant platform, and organize some educational and viral events like online competitions among the customers to choose the best name of the chatbot or to create an avatar with rewards for the winning customer (this will help with your chatbot story), or use it as a digital business representative at business events to guide visitors and interact with them – that way customers will get to know the chatbot and engage more.
From all social media posts and ads with a shared link to the chatbot, you can direct customers to the chatbot for signing up for a newsletter, fill inquiry form, make a reservation, or sign-up to get something free (lead magnets) like a free trial, promo codes, white paper, free guides and many other. This will help you to create in customers a habit of using the chatbot. You can also direct them with links to the chatbot in emails, SMS, articles and blog posts, Google Ads and other paid advertising online such as Youtube ads and others. For example, create a marketing campaign – get to know our chatbot – chat with our chatbot, to get a promo code for purchasing our top products – that way customers will chat with it to get the code and the business will learn what they asked, and how, which will help analyzing customer behavior easier to provide better products and services later. A good example is the AI chatbot of the 5-star hotel Casa di Fiore SPA and Medical, made on Umni’s platform – the hotel created an avatar for its chatbot, gave a name – Miss Fiore, publish a blog post about Her, and made a video ad how to get to Miss Fiore and use it, so their customers got to know Miss Fiore and were attracted to use the AI chatbot. The sweet Miss Fiore makes customers love Her, want to chat, and in the end make a reservation.
If your business has a live chat or is using Messengers of any type, they can also redirect to a chatbot when all agents are busy or not available (for example at night, when 35% of the customers search for assistance and information) to not miss any opportunity. Both live and chatbot communication will be used to satisfy customers’ needs. In this way, users will get to know the new way of online communication with the business, which happens immediately and is 24/7, and it is very interactive if the chatbot has conversational AI. Such chatbot can be made on Umni’s platform for automating customer communication and many other functionalities.
Pop-ups also can be used to lead customers to the chatbot – when they decide to leave the website, a pop-up is activated and the mouse over the website closer button will encourage them to download something through the bot, get a promo code, discount, sign-up to a newsletter or else so take any chance to get customers to use it.
Influencer Marketing is so popular today, so use it to promote your chatbot – a famous person that has an influence upon many of his/her followers will help to promote the chatbot, use giveaways, and encourage people to use it, chat, and engage. Why not, to want to have their own chatbot too – for personal or business needs, ask them to place a link to your chatbot from the influencer’s one. They can play a crucial role across social media or speaking at events. Ensure these people are aware of your chatbot and its functionalities and encourage them to use and review it and share opinions about their experience.
Evergreen and Viral Elements – think about how to make the chatbot as viral as you wish it to be, so people talk about it and popularize it on their own, therefore, use the best promotion possible: the word of mouth. Such examples to make content in the chatbot evergreen and viral is to use it for giving users useful information every day, funny tips and tricks, fortune cookies, lead magnets, forecasts, horoscopes, finance calculators, or other – everything related to the business that will make people return every day to check. Due to the convenience and the positive experience, customers will love to use the technology, and it will benefit brand awareness, development, and growth. There is a famous marketing strategy – a rule of thumb that is used by sellers and marketers to make a product or service stick. The rule of thumb makes things easier to remember and helps simplify complex decisions in a way that’s easier to follow and stick to. The challenge here is to create one around the chatbot by connecting it to another product, habit, or action so customers when thinking of a certain action, they will make an association with the chatbot.
Promote the Chatbot Offline
Promoting offline cannot be excluded even it may not reach so many people as digital marketing, but it has many advantages too. The business can provide access through a QR code with a link to their brand new chatbot (and a particular website page that will open with the precise element in the chatbot – an information carousel or a form) on promotional materials or other offline objects such as packaging of products, labels on products, price tags, flyers, billboards, t-shirts, mugs, keychains, business cards, or other materials and giveaways. For example, Hotel Complex Izgreva promotes their AI chatbot, made on the Umni platform, with a QR code on a flier and on the keychains on the keys to the hotel rooms so customers can have access to it anywhere they are.
Here are some ideas for promoting the chatbot offline. Add to the chatbot a gamification element with QR codes – a summer family game: the parents with kids have to collect letters in the garden of a hotel (in the park, or other safe location) by scanning the QR codes they find – the chatbot will open a letter for each scanned code. When all letters will be collected, the family will need to create a word from them, then the parents will scan another QR code to go back to the chatbot to sign-up for a reward if their word is the correct one.
Promote the chatbot through QR-code access by creating different games, questionnaires, competitions, and other ways that lead to the chatbot as the place for action and add in the chatbot the regards such as promo codes, discounts, etc free guides, and other gifts.
Another example is to use it in stores or other facilities when people do not want to wait in queues to ask a question, they can ask in the chatbot accessing it with a QR code. You do not want your customers to be unsatisfied with your products and services, right? Lead them to the chatbot – both customers and the business will benefit from it!
Other ways of promoting the chatbot: podcasts, radio and TV ads, case studies…
Nowadays, people use any kind of advertising if it is working, and it gets them access to many potential and current customers. Promoting in podcasts is one of them. Many people use this media to learn about popular topics or just for fun. Find a podcast that your customers listen to and make an arrangement for having a topic about technology, conversational AI, and chatbots, where your chatbot will be the example and the hero of the podcast.
Radio may not sound so popular today, but people are listening to their favorite radio stations while drinking their coffee early in the morning or driving to work, they listen to the news and popular talk show, the weather prognoses, and other useful information. You can use this media the same way as the podcast to promote the chatbot, attract interest and talk about it by its name. An interesting story about a chatbot with a human name will make people remember it, especially when it is related to a brand they follow or are interested in and they could search for it out of curiosity and see what is this tool that helps people to find what they need. Motivate them doing it – make it fun, make it a digital treasure hunt – tell on the radio a sentence people can ask your chatbot in order to get to some secret.
Another way of promoting the chatbot is by using TV – in a show, in the news, or as an ad, to show the chatbot to a more general audience that is not so targeted as in social media, but it is an additional way to make people remember the chatbot. Make sure the chatbot is related to an emotional story to make people feel more compassionate to the chatbot and remember it. It will also make them feel chatbot more humanlike, not a robot.
Case studies and testimonials are mostly used to show customers how other customers are using the business product or service, their problems, solutions, and their results and feedback. Your business can use them to show your clients how other clients interacted successfully with your chatbot, how useful it was for them, and how it helps in general.
Another way is to make guides, videos, and tutorials – on how to use the chatbot, how others use it, what is the customer journey and all its benefits to be sure that users will know what to do in the chatbot for having a useful positive and memorable experience.
Bot to Bot Connection
One of the most interesting and beneficial for the business ways of promoting a chatbot is to connect it to another chatbot – of the business or other businesses’ chatbots (cross-referral) and that way customers who already are using the technology and are used to it, will have 1-click access to online communication with the brand. Such example is the hotel complex Izgreva that have an AI chatbot on their website, made on Umni’s platform, but the hotel also has a Facebook Messenger chatbot that redirects all customers to the main chatbot on the website. The buttons in the Messenger chatbot content link to precise information or form in the AI chatbot on the website, therefore although customers switch from one chatbot to another, the conversation with the brand continues as they are guided to the information or action they look for. For the hotel, they automate further their communication and make sure all digital paths lead to the website and to the AI chatbot on it – the one that has it all.
This is just one sample of how a business use 2 chatbots that are linked to the website as the center of the digital presence of the business and the place for customers to take an action: make a reservation for a room, request any other service, or ask a question – directly, in one place, no matter where the customer was originally – on the business website, in its social media accounts, or offline with access to the main chatbot via QR code.
Chatbot – with SEO-optimized landing page
The chatbot can be on the business website, but you can create its own landing page that will be SEO-optimized, so it appears in organic search results and rank highly. You must use those keywords that are relevant to the business and show what are the topics the chatbot has answers to, so when people search for a specific keyword, the landing page with the chatbot will be listed as an option for them to help with useful information.
Keep in mind that if the chatbot is only placed on a separate landing page, it will not help driving traffic to the business’ website. Place it also on the website to do its job. When you want to test new products and services, use a separate landing page with the same chatbot to engage with the new target group.
Make Everyone Want to Chat – The Chatbot as Part of The Team
To sum up there are so many ways of promoting your brand new chatbot to make it part of the business digital ecosystem. Customers will love it when the business provides information on how to use the chatbot and how it helps in an interesting and attractive manner. The best marketing strategy is to have such strategy when implementing a chatbot and to not separate customers and the chatbot – make them interact, and help them stay in touch!
If you still do not have a chatbot to take advantage of shared tips and tricks, start planning your unique chatbot to become your digital employee and provide a new level of amazing customer experience. You can learn more about the steps to take in our complete guide for planning an AI chatbot project in our blog. If you are in search of a partner in the chatbot crime, look no further with the help of our no-code Umni’s platform. Contact us now to have a 14-day free trial period to test your ideas!