Last week I covered the dashboard and explored a few of the features and automation that is provided on the backend of ManyChat.

Today as part the 3rd part to the ManyChat series, I wanted to touch upon the subject of using Facebook ads and collecting different metrics from those campaigns. 

In this blog post, we’re going to take a look at intergrating Facebook ads and data metrics to help drive sales for your business. 

Facebook Ads + ManyChat

One of the key features to ManyChat is the option to work directly with your already existing Facebook ad campaigns by importing them directly into the ManyChat dashboard and even better than that is that you can also create ads right from the ManyChat dashboard. You can set these ads as messages or traffic. 

Messages basically means that you are targeting users that are more likely to message your page, website, or business profile. Traffic is more geared towards those users that will likely make a purchase or they will click on a link to be directed to a specific page. 

Who is your target audience?

Just like any other ad campaign that you’ve ever set up, you can specify the audience that you want to target. You can choose age, sex, location, or interests. If you set up any type of ad campaign then this won’t be anything new to you. If your business is a local gym, then you’ll want to target users with an interest in fitness. 

Video, Images, Text. You choose.

For each campaign  you can choose to use images, videos, or just regular text. Add a title, description, and a call to action button. Once you have it started you can see the preview of the ad all from right inside of the ManyChat dashboard. You don’t have to create our chatbot and then move over to Facebook ads and back again. You can do it all from ManyChat. 

You want metrics? We got metrics

Inside of ManyChat they also provide all of the metrics and data based on either how well or how bad your ads did and if they hit your goals. You can tell how many people saw your ad or how many of them interacted with your chatbot messages. Anytime a button is clicked or even if a purchase was made will all be recorded and tracked. This in in turn will give your business an incredible amount of insight on what campaigns work or which products sell better. 

ManyChat

The Bottom Line

Being able to stay inside one platform to create the chatbot automation and then being able to create ad campaigns along with messaging ad campaigns all from one spot makes this one of the go to spots for chatbots. Saving businesses time and money is always the name of the game and these features from ManyChat do exactly that. This is a great solution for any business that is looking to get its sales to the next level. I highly encourage you to start playing around with ManyChat to see how you can create a profit earning machine. 

Curious to learn more?

Read: What are Chatbots and Do I Need Them?

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Last week I covered the basics of chatbots. What they are good for, why businesses would want to use them, and some of the companies that offer them. This week I want to dive further into the chatbot system offered by ManyChat.

Today I’m going to show you a little bit of the backend of ManyChat’s dashboard and go through a few of the basic automation flows.

In this blog post, we’re going to look at some of the automation flows and setting up a basic flow using ManyChat.

I forgot, what is a chatbot again?

Just as a chatbot recap, an AI chatbot is software that can simulate a user conversation with a natural language through messaging applications, but as we learned last week these can also be set up in a more hybrid way to have preprogrammed responses along with real human interaction.

It’s a mobile-first world and people prefer chatting, 2.52 billion people use chat apps every day with that number expected to reach 3 billion by the end of this year. whether it’s Facebook messenger, Instagram messenger, WhatsApp, Twitter direct messages, telegram, wechat, or snapchat.

Why ManyChat

As I stated last week, I’ve been exploring opportunities with a chatbot system called ManyChat.

ManyChat Helps you chat directly with those people and enables you or your business to drive sales, get more leads, and ultimately allows direct connections to the customer by utilizing these same chat apps that they are already using.

Best of all ManyChat makes it easy enough for anyone to set up and launch in less than a day all while making it free to signup and start today.

The First Step

The first step is to connect your ManyChat account to your Facebook page that you manage. If you’re someone like me, you probably have hundreds of pages that you manage. It’s important to note that you can only connect one ManyChat account to one Facebook page at a time. Once you are connected to your Facebook, then you’ll be able to also connect to other platforms like Instagram. 

ManyChat Dashboard

The ManyChat dashboard is quite easy to navigate through, but is packed with features like adding in contacts, growth tools, live chat, Facebook ads, and automation templates. It’s this dashboard that you’ll spend most of your time in creating your different automation depending on what your goals are. The dashboard also provides help articles and blog articles that go through all of the different ways to utilize the platform. 

ManyChat Noob? Start Here!

There are plently of templates to explore within the dashboard from simple automation conversations to multifaceted complex conversations with your customers or fan base. However they best one that I think is the best one is the simple “Conversation Starters” this section allows you to set up simple questions that you can start out with whenever a user just clicks on the chat bubble. You can it set to show a faq page, show a product page, show your latest work, or simply start a simple conversation to help the user find what they are looking for. 

ManyChat

The Bottom Line

I’ve had an absolute blast learning the ins and outs of this chatbot system and while I don’t know the entire system yet, I do look forward to exploring it more to see how I can best utilize it for my business and also for my client’s businesses as well. 

Try out one or two of the chatbots that I talked about and see if they’ll work for you. Let me know down in the comments if you use a chatbot on your website or mobile app or let me know if you have any additional recommendations?

Curious to learn more?

Read: What are Chatbots and Do I Need Them?

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By now I’m sure you’ve seen some version of a chatbot on a website or mobile app. You know the little chat bubble that hangs out in the bottom right corner of the screen? It might have a little pop-up that says something along the lines of “How can I help you today?” 

Today we’re going to explore these chatbots on what they accomplish and help you figure out if you need one for your site?

In this blog post, I’m going to tell you all about chatbots, the different kinds, where to find them, and whether or not if you need one for your site or app.

What is a Chatbot?

There are a few different kinds of chatbots, so let’s talk about the AI Chatbot first. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) Chatbot is software that can simulate a user conversation with a natural language through a messaging application. Typically this kind of chatbot has been programed with hundreds to thousands of responses to commonly asked questions.

For example, your favorite restaurant may have a chatbot to help answer questions like what’s on the menu for today or what time does the restaurant closes and even can take your reservation all directly from the one chatbot.

These AI chatbots can be very convincing in that it can make the user think they are talking to a real person when in fact it’s all just preprogrammed responses. I saw one AI chatbot that other day that was named “Susan” with an avatar picture of a middle aged woman., but after about 10 minutes I quickly realized that “Susan” was in fact a robot and not a real person, but It did have me fooled for a hot minute because you don’t associate the name Susan with a robot, you associate the name Susan with a middle-aged woman.

On the opposite side of that are chatbots that are actually real-life humans. A lot of car dealerships for example will have a dedicated online sales representative whose, the sole job is to attend to the online chat and was always ready to help answer any questions that a prospective buyer might have. After the user leaves, the sales rep would also gather any information from the user to follow up to help land the sale.

Tidio

Why are Chatbots Popular?

The main benefits and the argument for chatbots is that it helps give the user or website visitor the answers to their questions they need within seconds and with AI Chatbots they can deliver those answers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and by engaging with your customer at any time. 

When is the best time to make a sale? As soon as possible and with chatbots they can really help with customer engagement in order to help the customer decide to make the purchase. 

Benefits Include:

• Deliver Faster Chat Support
• Cut Down on Support Costs
• Offer Proactive Customer Service
• Helps with collecting data and customer leads

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

The Bad Side of Chatbots

In regards to AI chatbots, they can only provide the support or answers to questions that they are programmed to answer. So while they “chat” they can’t “think” If the user asks a question that the chatbot hasn’t been programmed to answer then the chatbot won’t be able to comprehend the question thus leaving the customer frustrated.

There are other companies that have used AI chatbots but claimed that it’s a live chat or that it’s a live person, but customers can usually tell right away if it’s a robot and doesn’t appreciate the facade. This is a sure-fire way to eliminate any brand loyalty or trust in that company.

Other chatbot bubbles can just be straight-up annoying with constant bubbles that pop up asking if you need help or assistance. It’s like walking into a department store and being bombarded by 5 sales reps every 2 seconds when you’re just there to browse around in peace and quiet.

Not to mention that some chatbots can get in the way of the actual content that you are trying to look at on a site especially on mobile when the screen real estate is a lot more limited.

Join.Chat

Where Do You Find These Chatbots?

It really just depends on what type of chatbots you’re looking for, but here are a few to look into.

Join.Chat is a WhatsApp WordPress chat plugin that gives you the option to activate a chatbot to answer FAQ’s related to your business or product. $24 for one website, $48 for the three websites, or $149 for unlimited number of websites. 

Collect.chat WordPress chatbot is great for service based businesses. It allows you to choose a template to allow visitors to set up appointments by providing a calendar feature that will also connect to your Google Calendar. They have a free plan of up to 50 responses a month. A Lite Plan for $24/month or a Plus Plan for $99/month. 

Tidio features a clean interface and an easy to integrate into any WordPress website. They offer the choice between setting it up for live chat with you or one of your team members or you can also choose their virtual ai chat with access of up to 20+ templates that you can build upon. They offer a free plan for 100 unique visits, $39/month, and a $15/month (Billed per operator) 

Drift is your more robust chatbot that offers a fully scalable chatbot sales and marketing solution. Featuring personalized customer experiences that you can implement across all channels. Pricing for Drift is not accessible, but you can go here to learn more about their different plans.

Those are just 4 of the many chatbot plugins and companies that offer them. Just remember that not all chatbots are created equal and they really range among all price levels. 

ManyChat

Which Chatbot Do I Use? 

I saved the best for last for a reason!

You’ve decided that you don’t want a robot talking to your potential customers, but you also don’t want to be logged into your website or the backend of your chat platform 24 hours a day. What do you then? Is there a happy medium that can solve this? Well, you’re in luck because there is!

Introducing ManyChat!

ManyChat is what I’m currently using here on my website. It allows me to have a chatbot or chat like feature on my site that I can directly connect to my direct messages on Instagram, Facebook, and also directly to my text messages on my phone.

This allows me to increase my engagement with website visitors and help to generate more leads by providing instant or near-instant support. Since I’m already checking my DM’s (Direct Messages) throughout the majority of the day and night ManyChat helps direct my website visitors to my DM’s.

I don’t need to code anything and I also have the option to program it if I want with responses as well all with a drag n’ drop interface. ManyChat also allows me to capture information in order to send out coupons, discounts, promotions, newsletters and even booking confirmations.

If you use Google Sheets, MailChimp, Hubspot or any of those other tools, you’ll be happy to know that they can be easily integrated with ManyChat.

The best part of ManyChat is that it’s free for the basic features and engagement for up to 1,000 contacts, which is perfect for my small business. If you plan on more than 1,000 contacts their pro version starts at only $15/month! This price then scales from there depending on the number of contacts.

ManyChat

The Bottom Line

Love them or hate them, Chatbots are here to stay. I highly recommend doing your own research on the different kinds of chatbots that are being offered and if they will either help convert sales or if they will scare potential customers away. It’s a delicate balance, but I can say from experience that I’ve had a lot more personal interactions with my website visitors than otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to.

Try out one or two of the chatbots that I talked about and see if they’ll work for you. Let me know down in the comments if you use a chatbot on your website or mobile app or let me know if you have any additional recommendations? 

Curious to learn more?

Read: Landing Page: Back to Basics

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