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10 Facebook Messenger Chatbot Marketing Expert Tips The best ways to include chatbots into your marketing mix.

By Murray Newlands Edited by Dan Bova

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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With billions of daily users, it is no wonder Facebook's chatbots are captivating the tech world. They have now been recognized as a powerful marketing tool among companies of all kinds, across the globe. But, what is the best way to include chatbots into your marketing mix? Despite this still being a learning curve for many, I've put together a list of 10 Facebook Messenger chatbot marketing tips so that you can get a head start with this new trend.

Related: Enterprise Chatbots Platforms and the Future of Work

Adapt your chatbot according to customer feedback.

Use a chatbot builder which enables you to change and update your bot easily. Reach out for feedback from your customers, especially in the early stages of your bots launch. Incorporate this feedback at the end of each chat, giving your customers the option as to whether or not they'd like to participate. Use this feedback to generate smarter, more personalized notifications. Chatbot growth is an exciting challenge that many organizations are currently going through. By following the tips above you will be able to act as a leader in the field of bot development while maintaining a happy relationship with your audience.

Related: Top 10 Best Chatbot Platform Tools to Build Chatbots for Your Business

Leverage existing customers

Promoting your product or services across multiple channels is a lot easier and less time consuming than building a completely new audience. By already using platforms such as Facebook you will be able to automatically send notifications and updates, via your bot, to your existing customers.

Focus on interaction most meaningful to your customers

The best chatbots are those that fulfill the need for your customer to engage with your brand. Do not waste your resources adding chatbots everywhere you can. Choose the most valuable platform, where the most important and regular questions are asked. This will not only allow you to better serve your customers but also gather more valuable data.

Related: Enterprise Chatbots and the Conversational Commerce Revolutionizing Business

Promote your chatbot in the right places.

If you are a startup, you may not already have millions of followers. Simply advertizing your bot on Facebook will be like finding a needle in a haystack, you need to get creative! Promote your Messenger chatbot in unexpected, unusual, and specific places. Think about industry specific advertising channels, where the most relevant audience will most likely visit, and what will really grab their attention.

Related: How to Create a Facebook Messenger Chatbot For Free Without Coding

Educate customers about your chatbot.

Don't just tell your audience you have a bot, tell them what your bot is. In your promotional materials, you should answer these questions:
  • What is my chatbot's name?
  • What is it's purpose?
  • When is it available?
  • What are its functionalities?
  • What are its capabilities?
  • Where can it be found?

Focus on engagement.

Chatbots interact with customers on a private and conversational level. You have probably already invested time and money into making your brand what you want it to be. You have also already set the tone for your brand. This tone needs to shine through into your chatbot. Because chatbots use the same tools as consumers do to converse with friends, you need to make the experience engaging. Although you should always maintain a level of caution and a human eye on these conversations, using emojis, jokes, and various forms of media will make your customer's experience more fun, rewarding, personal, and leave them returning in the future.

Related: The How-To: Using Chatbots As A Tool For Customer Service

Personalize the conversation.

Personalizing a chatbot is still a real challenge. Yes, you can program it to recognize a person's name from it's Facebook profile, but making sure it knows when to talk and when to stay quiet can still be tricky. You need to make sure you send each user relevant, timely, news about your products or services. You also need to program your bot to recognize when customers are asking questions. By programming your bot correctly, you will be able to push information to each individual that is specific to him or her.

Limit how many options your chatbot offers.

Keep it simple! You don't need your bot to mention every product you have available and every color it comes in. Limit the number of options your chatbot offers to clients to maximize engagement and/or sales. Consider the following to make your customer's experience with your chatbot glitch free:
  • Use buttons
  • Use automatic transitions instead of user actions where possible
  • Limit any options to a maximum of three

Combine artificial intelligence with human intelligence.

You can't expect your bot to be perfect. Despite the mound of technology available today, your bot will sometimes make mistakes, or not know the answer to certain questions. Be sure to have a team ready to pick up on these mistakes so that your customer's experience is not tainted.

Related: Chat Bots Charm Ratan Tata, Another AI Startup Clinches Funds

Use the highest level of security.

Your chatbot will, at some point in time, handle valuable and sensitive information. Your customer trusts you and expects you to keep that information safe. Be sure to have authentication and authorization mechanisms in place to keep that information safe and put your customer's mind at ease.
Murray Newlands

Entrepreneur, business advisor and online-marketing professional

Murray Newlands is an entrepreneur, investor, business advisor and speaker. He is the founder of ChattyPeople.com chatbot builder tool and Sighted.com. Read his blog MurrayNewlands.com.

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