Building Human-Centric Bots that Drive Conversions Using Drift

We all know that chat is booming. In fact, it's so popular that it's now used in every aspect of our lives - from ordering food to banking. But, when it comes to the traditional B2B buying experience, things are a little different. The buying process is often slow and cumbersome, with a lot of friction along the way. This is where conversational marketing and conversational sales comes in.

We need to remove friction and bring back the human element to the website. We do this through a customer-centric and dialogue-driven approach.

Last week, we hosted a webinar with Drift on how to build human-centric bots that drive conversions. Here's what we learned...

The traditional B2B buying experience is broken

As marketers, we're looking to drive visitors to our website. But this alone isn't enough. Why? 81% of visitors don't fill out digital forms. Today's visitors are skeptical - they see forms from website to website and are wary of entering their information. They know what it means.

We need to create a seamless, human experience that doesn't rely on forms and traditional methods of engagement.

75% of buyers prefer digital self-serve and remote human interactions. Website visitors prefer to engage in self-serve methods to gain foundational knowledge and are looking to engage with a human on their own time. This method is unobtrusive and fluid.

And, when it comes to having one bad experience, 59% of buyers will refrain from doing business with your company.

This is where conversational marketing and sales fits in.

Conversational marketing and conversational sales

We need to remove friction and bring back the human element to the website. We can achieve this using chatbots and live chat widgets. 

What does this look like?

Conversational marketing is the process of using chatbots to have conversations with potential or current customers on behalf of a company.

It’s a way to bring the human element back into digital interactions and create more personalised experiences for website visitors.

When done right, conversational marketing can:

• Engage website visitors
• Target potential buyers
• Accelerate deal cycles
• Grow customer value
• Transform customer engagement.
  
  

The future of marketing and sales is conversational

Why?

Because when you think about it, conversations are how we as humans interact with each other on a daily basis.

We have conversations with our friends, our families, and even strangers all the time. 

It’s only natural then that businesses should use conversation as a way to connect with their customers and create more human-centric experiences.

5 Chatbot playbooks that help you get started

Engage all bot

Engage, understand, recommend. Catch all visitors across your site and enter them into a marketing nurture path, sales high intent path or support path for existing customers.

This bot acts as the concierge of your website.

Pricing page bot

This bot seeks to answer questions from high-intent visitors.

The bot engages with visitors on your pricing page and uses questions and answers to help direct them to the right plan for their business. You should be offering product information to people who are looking for it and offering direct access to your sales team via live chat or booking a call through a meeting link.

Skip the form bot

This bot should be placed on pages where a contact or download form appears. This is a valuable way of capturing visitor information when they may have originally turned away.

Paid traffic converter

Continue the paid experience. You have created a specific campaign that drives visitors to your website. They shouldn't be treated the same as your other visitors. Continue their experience by leveraging messaging that aligns with the reason the advertisement originally caught their eye.

Account-based marketing bot

ABM conversational marketing is the VIP treatment. Call out your target accounts by using reverse IP lookup and fastlane them directly to the account owner by skipping qualification.