4 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing Campaign with an Intuitive Chatbot

Chatbots are transforming the way customers interact with - and experience - a company's a product/service. The customer experience today is characterized by speed, accuracy, and efficiency, to say the least - all three of which are specialties of chatbot technology.

In addition to delivering an exceptional customer experience, marketers also need to think about driving traffic to the website's landing page, collecting lead information, establishing in place a contextual nurturing sequence, and following up with customers from time-to-time. Here's where email marketing works like a charm.

For the longest time, email marketing was every marketer's go-to hack to reach out to and connect with customers one-on-one.

However, with the advancement of artificial technologies, chatbots are being used in sync with email marketing to deliver personalized experiences to customers at scale. Let's look at what the data tells us:

• "By 2020, over 80% of businesses are expected to have some sort of chatbot automation implemented." (Outgrow)


• "96% of businesses believe chatbots are here to stay." (Mindbrowser)


• "$4.5 Billion is expected to be invested in enterprise intelligent assistants by 2021." (Opus Research)

Needless to say, the growing importance of chatbots, in addition to the well-established email marketing strategy, indicates that the two automated technologies are becoming synonymous and mutually inclusive entities. So, you need to leverage the two to optimize your ROI and enhance your customer experience, one mail at a time. Let's understand how.

For any business to scale and succeed, lead generation and qualification are key. If you don't have qualified leads, you might as well shut shop. That said, getting quality leads is no joke. Here's where chatbots truly shine. Instead of asking customers to fill up lengthy and boring contact forms, a customer service chatbot can be used to capture vital customer information in real-time:

This ensures that the onboarding process is quick, fun, and interactive. Once the bot stores the information in your CRM or email autoresponder, you can send customized emails to users based on their preferences, buying history, likes, etc.

Moreover, when it comes to lead nurturing, using AI, you can train chatgpt on own data and chatbots can interact with your customers in a conversational manner and educate them about upcoming offers, deals, discounts, new launches, among others:

This effort can be augmented by sending across relevant emails to potential leads to help them convert. All in all, they help humanize and personalize experience through and through.

Implementing chatbots on social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. has emerged as somewhat of a trend by big and small brands alike. One of the reasons why this concept is trending is because chatbots help address customer queries or solve customer issues without them having to leave the messaging app or switch communication channels. This makes the conversation seamless and friction-free. Typically, Facebook Messenger ads get triggered when customers click on ads on Facebook.

So the real question then becomes how you can integrate this strategy into your marketing mix and avoid common email marketing mistakes Simple. You can use Facebook Messenger chatbots to get new leads to sign up for an email list or help customers place orders without letting them leave the app:

During the conversation, the bot can be configured to ask relevant questions to gain insights about your audience such as areas of interest, email address, contact number, shopping habits, type of content preferred in the email newsletter (if the customer wishes to subscribe to the email list), etc. This critical data is then transferred to a centralized email database that your CX, Marketing, and Sales teams can access and create customized marketing emails to enhance user satisfaction and build brand loyalty.

As mentioned earlier, chatbots help engage users by answering queries or asking the right questions as Sephora's chatbot does:

More importantly, they collect real-time user data in the process. This data can then be used to segment your ideal customers, and target compartmentalized sections of the audience, making the marketing collateral more specific and value-driven (for the user). You could segment users based on a variety of factors such as signup source, demographics, personas, sales funnel stage, website behavior, cart abandonment, purchase experience, among others. A data-driven email marketing campaign can boost user satisfaction and, in turn, revenues. Here's an example of a personalized email by Sephora that targets a user who abandoned their cart:

Goes without saying that without the right information at-hand (as collected by the chatbot), brands cannot send relevant emails to potential leads and 'nudge' them to complete the purchase.

If you are an e-commerce brand or have an online store of any sort, implementing a chatbot at checkout is considered to be a best-practice. Let's say that one of your customers has added a product to the cart. However, they're unable to make a payment and keep getting a technical error. In such a case, chatbots can be used to offer proactive support by responding to customer questions. Alternatively, chatbots can also auto-save customer information (such as address) to make the checkout process quick and seamless:

Once the customer completes the purchase, you can send personalized emails to follow-up and take your CX game to the next level. These emails could detail wide-ranging topics such as purchase details, shipping information, etc. Plus, every element in the email - from the content and call to action to the visuals and creatives - are designed, keeping the user's needs, wants, and preferences in mind. Be sure to include your contact detail, including your social media contacts, address, and the number for your business cloud phone system. The idea is to connect with users and keep them informed about their purchase in addition to throwing light on seasonal sales, special offers, and loyalty programs.

At any point in time, offering an end-to-end customized service is what differentiates the good brands from the great ones. This is why you should leverage the benefits of automated technology to accelerate the CX, build a fantastic rapport with your customer, and foster positive word-of-mouth publicity.

Over the years, chatbots have become more mainstream in digital communication, with email marketing being no exception. So if you wish to deliver exceptional multi-channel customer support, you need to make use of email marketing and chatbot technology together. To wrap up, here's how chatbots can supplement your email marketing campaign:

• Help in lead generation and qualification


• Assist in building a rich email subscription list


• Capture, store, and analyze a treasure trove of user data and help segment users based on real-time, updated information


• Can be used on the checkout page to assist customers and be used for rolling out personalized emails post-purchase

Here's the long and short of it: When paired with email marketing, chatbots can boost conversions, enhance user satisfaction, and build brand loyalty - a win-win for all. What do you think?