February 2018 -

How to effectively market your Messenger Bot

Chatbots have been around for a while now and there have been hits and misses since its inception. We’ve cracked the mysteries on what makes a bot successful and the tips to create a perfect bot. And since brands have realized the true potential of bots, they all have incorporated it in some aspect of their business.

Unfortunately, the crowding of bots on the internet have made it difficult for every single chatbot to stand out. This brings us to marketing. How can a business effectively promote their messenger bot and not let it get lost in the crowd?

Well, we’ve got just the right tips to ensure all your existing and potential customers are aware of this feature.

Increase the visibility of your bot

The first step to promote your bot is identification. All your development efforts are baseless if users cannot easily discover your bot. There are different steps to go about this.

Create messenger QR codes and place them at your store, events, office or even upload them online on your social media handles and website. This will allow the user to quickly scan the code and get in touch with your business
Add a “Message Us” button on your Facebook page
Place a “Message” button on your website too. The facebook message plug-in can be embedded onto the website and it can help direct the user to your messenger bot if they have any queries. It also helps push all your efforts to one uniform location
Give your bot an identity and a username so people can easily type in the name of your chatbot and locate it

It’s all about the content

Now that we’ve covered visibility and brought the user to your chatbot, it is important that the bot engages and assists the user effectively as possible. To achieve this, it is important to understand the reasons behind creating a chatbot and what makes your chatbot unique.

It is imperative to convey information about your bot, its latest updates and features to ensure top of the mind recall and also to maintain the interest of your audience. This will also provide room for user reviews and feedback to help fine tune your bot’s performance. Your bot can be made more fun and interesting by incorporating GIFs, audio and video files.But do note that your updates about the bot do not become spammy for the users.

With the right balance of the above mentioned tips, you are surely on the right path to Chatbot success!

Why Do Fashion And Beauty Brands Bet On Chatbots?

Despite criticism from companies that have failed to integrate Bots into their marketing strategy, the fashion and beauty industries are still adept at Chatbot. More and more brands adopt them in their marketing strategy.

The question is whether this investment in Bots is paying off, and if so, why?

This article tells us why Chatbots are a popular and essential tool for ready-to-wear and beauty brands.

Try before you buy

Many brands have launched their Chatbot in the hope that one day users will naturally interact with them (especially on Facebook). Unfortunately, more than one example proves that it was not enough to encourage customers to create a real relationship with the company. They have failed to create added value for their customers.

For ready-to-wear and beauty brands, it’s different. Indeed, Chatbots can solve the number 1 obstacle of e-commerce: try the product before buying it. This is particularly problematic for cosmetic brands. Customers can not, for example, test the color of their foundation before ordering it.

By incorporating AR in ChatBots, brands are now able to find the right shade of lipstick or foundation just from a photo.

Estee Lauder is using this new technology to perfection. The brand makes it possible to test the different shades of lipstick virtually. The customers have the same service as in the store, but at home. This option encourages consumers to go to the act of purchase.

A stylist online

For ready-to-wear brands, the ability to “try before you buy” is limited. Even with the ARs, trying on clothes virtually remains difficult. However, fashion companies have found a system to attract consumers: personalized advice on style.

This means that brands can combine basic customer service with personalized recommendations. This process aims to reproduce the experience that the consumer would live in the store.

There are of course limits to this ChatBot. The success of this technology depends largely on its progress. The best brands will be those that will come to customize the tips. To illustrate this, we can take Levi’s, which asks users questions about their size, preferred model, the fit they want, and so on. to suggest the jeans that will fit them perfectly.

Another undeniable advantage of the brand is that it uses True Fit technology. It is designed to increase the chances of providing the perfect model to customers. This tool can significantly reduce the return rate.

In addition to providing useful tips, the Chatbot saves the user time, thus avoiding the need to browse the site for hours, without finding the product that suits him.

The question we can ask is: is it really important that the bot clearly has nothing human? Not really – indeed, users do not dwell on this point if the Bot brings a real added value.

Better integration

One of the biggest obstacles to Chatbots success is that many consumers do not know they exist. Many brands have failed in promoting their robots. Users discover these ChatBots when they try to communicate with the company.

However, recently, Facebook has launched a new plug-in that allows businesses to integrate Messenger into their own websites. This allows users to interact with Chatbot on mobile, desktop and tablet devices.

So, will other brands (other than ready-to-wear and beauty) start investing in Chatbots? Certainly. With the advantages mentioned above such as the integration and customization of the RA, it is clear that some industries have every interest in investing in this tool.

How can Chatbots help in E-Commerce?

It is no surprise that the internet and social media have taken over every aspect of life and everything is available to the user at the comfort of their homes. The number of users making purchasing from an e-commerce store has been steadily increasing over the years. Almost 80% of online purchases is made from a mobile device. So the online stores must ensure that they provide a seamless shopping experience to their customers.

This is where the chatbots would be of great help to them. The best part is that, chatbots do not require you to install a specific app, it is inbuilt within the principal store app or within the social media channel.

How can chatbots help boost e-commerce businesses

Build buzz

Chatbots are perfect to build a buzz around latest products, offers, discounts and sales. They help communicate such information to users on social. This is an ideal way to get the word out there without appearing spammy. Users would appreciate the personalized touch. This would encourage them to at least visit the website.

Instant customer service

Customers want instant answers to their questions, especially when it comes to addressing grievances and purchase queries. But the customer service team cannot be available 24×7. In this case, incorporating chatbots ensures that these queries are addressed instantly. This enables the user to have a smooth online shopping experience.

Personalization

Over and above the usual benefits, one of the biggest pros of incorporating a chatbot is personalization. Customers want to feel like the brand understands them and their needs. This aspect is key to brand loyalty. With AI, it is now possible for bots to grow and learn from every interaction. This empowers the bots to provide personalized solutions to the users based on their interests/purchase behaviour & previous interactions.

Case Study : Clean & Clear partners with KRDS Singapore to launch skin expert Chatbot for teens

Clean & Clear is a prominent skin-care company that is known for their affordable line of dermatology products. Its products are available in 46 countries and cater mainly to young women.

The brand wanted to establish themselves as the go to skin expert for teens. They wanted to leverage the digital medium to help achieve their goal in an innovative manner. We set out to find a way to reach the teens in a platform they love to use, Facebook!

This led to the creation of Kimi, a friendly chatbots for teens. She was like a big sister who could answer any skin related issue but also knew how to have fun. She was someone that every teenager could relate to and connect with. Kim was introduced as a chatbot on Facebook Messenger.

How does it work?

Here’s how Kimi managed to capture the hearts of over 30,000 teens.

Kimi asks the user a few questions to understand the skin type, skin problems and the age group. Post this assessment, she lets the user pick the issues he/she is facing, like pimples, oilyness,dull or dry skin. Once the user has chosen a skin problem, Kimi immediately offers useful tips and solutions to overcome this issue.

But it does not end there. She even recommends the right C&C products that’ll help tackle different problems and also offered vouchers to the users.

But all work and no play would make Kimi a dull bot. So, she was also configured with some cool features. Selfie Soundtrack is a feature where where the user’s selfie is analyzed to determine their current mood (happy, sad, angry) using Google Vision API. Once the mood was determined, Kimi picks and plays a song according to the user’s mood using the Spotify API.

The chatbot campaign was immensely successful and resulted in 30,000 user interactions. Out of these, around 25,000 users have opted for ongoing skin care tips. The bot was able to offer 20,000 promo codes, of which, 11,000 were redeemed by users.

The bot can be accessed through Messenger.