Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

Originally Posted On: https://clevermessenger.com/improving-conversions-with-chatbots/

 

Did you ever think about improving your conversions with chatbots? You didn’t!? Well, then listen up! See, you may have invested BIG in all your digital marketing tools. And you may even have invested in setting up a beautiful business site… but – in the end – nothing seems to be working. You may also be getting a lot of traffic to the site, kudos! Perhaps this is thanks to the best SEO strategy and tools that you may have deployed? But, again, also this is not enough to get you the required sales.

See, the point is that all the effort you put in may not convert into sales. Especially if you don’t look into converting every opportunity, you get into a potential purchase or a customer.

But how do you go about achieving that? 

Well, “conversion” is essentially the key to a successful marketing campaign. It is, in fact, the bread and butter of the digital marketing world. Every strategy, every plan, and every tool is useless if they don’t translate into conversions.

To improve conversions, digital marketers use various Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) methods. And one such way that is getting popular is the use of chatbots. So in this piece called “Improving Conversions with Chatbots”, you will find out how chatbots can be used to improve the CRO, and with it, the conversions.

Let us begin by finding out more about conversion and CRO:

Conversion & Conversion Rate Optimization

A conversion takes place when a visitor who visits your website decides to take any action. Any action that is (hopefully) going to get you a successful sale. These actions include activities such as filling out a survey or feedback form. Or reading newsletters, leaving their email address, and many more! All these actions would eventually lead to the prospect buying the product from you. So you could say… The process of conversion begins long before a prospect even comes to your website. It actually starts from the time the intended buyer first views your product ads online. Or when he finds your website in the search results of a search engine.

Through all the channels and strategies that you have deployed when the intended prospect/buyer/visitor finally lands to your website… the conversion workflow starts.

This includes:

• The entire process of landing on your website.
• Navigating through the product pages
• All the way to navigate to the final checkout page

At Clever Messenger, we call a conversion a “successful conversion” when a sale has been made. But, from a more prominent business point of view, a successful conversion may also mean any other intended action… or a set of steps you successfully made your visitor take. That’s what makes improving conversion using chatbots fun too… because chatbot KPI metrics, in the general sense, are not static, you can easily deploy chatbots for your conversion goals!

So, With “Conversion” Explained… What Is The “Conversion Rate”?

Well… Let’s say you have around 20,000 visitors a month. And about 1000 of them end up buying your product, your conversion rate for the month is 2%. That is too low a conversion rate if you have deployed all other tools to get the right numbers. This 2% is your conversion rate, and to increase your sales volumes, this conversion rate needs to go up. Sure, you could always generate more traffic… But, it’s far more lucrative to increase your conversions!

“So, what do you think can be done to increase this rate of conversion?”

Well, CRO is the tweaks a (digital) marketer would do to achieve higher Conversion Rates. This could mean anything that can range from changing the web-forms styles, revamping the designs of the web page, and of course… the use and deployment of chatbots.

“But how can you go about Improving Conversions with Chatbots?” 

Good question! To answer this, let’s first discover how the bots fit into the different stages of a funnel.

Stages Of Sales Funnel With Chatbots

To understand how bots can make a difference, let’s look at the funnel stages and how bots can be helpful:

Stage I: Awareness

This is the first time a visitor visits your website to be more aware of your products and about your business. This is usually the time when they are not yet sure of what they are exactly looking for. And they’re still looking around to form an idea. This is the top of the funnel for you. This is the first interaction with a prospect, and you cannot just let this moment go! A chatbot can help in grabbing the attention of the visitor here! Ask some questions, answer the questions they have. And let them go feeling nice about the website and your product! So that when they come back again maybe they’re ready to buy the product! Or at least they’re interested.

Stage II: Interest

Okay, now, from the first interaction, the chatbot may have gathered some information. Info such a phone number or an email from the prospects. Your bot can now start feeding in relevant information to generate some interest. I.E., tell them the benefits of the products that you have and how your products can make their lives better. This phase is where your bot can focus on their problems. More importantly, answer all relevant questions around solving the problems with your products. Your bot can do this part with extreme perfection. But, don’t get confused. This is still the stage when you are gathering data about your prospect. You’re, most likely, not yet making a sale in this stage.

Stage III: Evaluation

By now, many of your prospects are already familiar with your product updates. And they keep tabs on what you are sending them. They follow your blogs and keep returning on your site for more relevant content. This is where your bot can now come into the picture. It can play an educational role by informing and educating them more about your offers! Plus sending other relevant content as soon as they open a piece of content to read. Some people already pick up your product at this stage.

Stage IV: Commitment

Now, suppose your prospect went through all the stages smoothly. And has finally made up his mind and decided to sign up for your product. By adding a bot at this point, you gather some crucial information. You generate data on what made them decide to take their first step in buying your product. This information is going to give you some very useful insights into what’s working and what’s not! And this can help you change your strategies and plans accordingly.

Stage V: Sales

So, finally, your prospect is ready to buy your product. He liked the trial you’ve given and decides to sign up for the subscription. He already knows you as a company and a brand that he can trust, and so he will keep returning. Adding a bot at this stage to record his feedback and user experience can help you go a long way. For example, it can help you in creating strategies that not only can win more than just sales for you… It can help you learn what you need to do to keep them. An NPS survey would be good after a few weeks of being a customer.

Okay. You now have a general overview of how at every stage of a funnel improving conversions using chatbots is possible. Let’s find out how you can actually use your bot to increase conversion rates.

Ways Of Improving Conversions With Chatbots

You may have built and deployed the best chatbot ever. But, that is not going to be enough if you do not know how to use them to get the most conversions. Effective use of bots is the true way of unleashing their true potential. Looking to make more sales and increase your conversion rates? Then make use of these 10 ways that can help you optimize your conversions and () your sales:

1. Personalized Conversations With Your Audiences

Every person visiting your website is unique. And not every visitor comes to your website through the same sales channels. Depending on the sales channel they came from… you can personalize the chat experiences of the prospects with your bot. By providing them with a more personalized experience, it would not feel they’re talking to a bot.

2. Embed Your Chatbots On Blogs And Pages

Your website visitors may browse through all your blogs and other website content. You can place your bot in some of your blog’s pages. So, whenever a visitor reads the post/article, the bot can provide relevant help and/or content. This would ensure that you’re able to understand your prospect’s thought process. And as a result, it helps in perfecting your strategies.

3. Place Your Bot To Interview Your Sales Prospect

Suppose your prospect, or lead, is browsing through the various pages and products. You can program your bot to ask questions and collect subtle pieces of info at various stages. This way, your bot can direct your prospect to match pages that make the sale for you! Tip: make sure these pages have the pain points and benefits written out.

4. Connect Your Chatbot With The Sales Team

Hit the iron when it is hot is a popular saying, and that is applicable in the sales world as well. You can deploy a chatbot on say a sales page to understand a prospect’s intention and need. As soon as a prospect is interested in buying the product, your bot can connect them to the sales team. This would increase the chances of having a “successful conversion” immediately.

5. Generate More Web Traffic

More traffic will come from existing traffic if you use your bot the right way. I don’t have to tell you most visitors usually have a small attention span, right? Your bot should do something interesting to grab their attention… before they move on to something else. You can make your bot interactive. Do this by asking for suggestions or make the prospect take part in small polls. This way, they can get the product they are looking for. The idea is to keep your website visitors engaged. Ideally, get them to tell your bot what they are looking for.

6. Include Local Languages

Your website would be visible to everyone, including the people outside of the U.S. As such, it may be a good idea to program your bot to interact with the clients in the local languages. You can deploy these chatbots to set their languages as per the countries. The chat transcripts can then be later translated to understand their requirements. This increases your chances of getting sales. And it’s better than if you had only an English speaking chatbot for everyone… for obvious reasons.

7. Integrate The Chatbots In Your Sales Funnel

We saw how chatbots can be used at various stages in the sales funnel. Without bots, it is impossible to use all the conversational data that’s collected for improving conversions. So, ensure that no matter at what stage of the sales funnel the prospect is in, and no matter what he is doing on your website… a chatbot is there to get some information through and pass it on. Knowledge is power!

8. Use Chatbots In Bettering Your Offerings And Webpages

Using a bot, along with analytics, can help you collect a lot of data on how your current tools are performing. It also makes clear what you can do about improving the tools. I.E., your bot can help in improving your website offers, your products, services, and even your “sales strat”! And of course, they can help you with all the inputs for redesign and redevelopment.

9. Use Various Conversational Styles

Some customers may like the person they chat with on a website to be formal and answer the key questions, and that’s it. While some others may like a more friendly and informal type of response from anybody that they may be chatting with. Experimenting with various conversational styles can help you get the best conversion rates. The use of A.I. can really help in this aspect.

10. Use Chatbots To Automate Sales

You can deploy a bot to automate your sales campaigns and help the customers to book their services, requests, and even read out content to them. Think of all the aspects that you can automate for your customers, and your customers would love it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can say that chatbots are rather a necessary aspect of modern-day businesses. And if you want to increase your conversion rates… improving your conversions with chatbots should be one of your first thoughts. A chatbot can be seamlessly used in all stages of your sales funnel. Plus, they can be deployed anywhere you want… and to optimize your conversion rates, you must know the effective use of these chatbots.

And remember, the higher the conversion rates, the higher your sales volumes. As a result, all this zeroes down to your chatbots. Use this piece to get an idea about using and deploying chatbots effectively in your sales channels.