Chatbot for Lead Generation
For most businesses in today's market, the process of closing a sale begins with a quality lead. This is why your sales team is always busy looking to get as many leads as they can. The internet has given every business the power to effectively promote itself, which in turn has increased the competition for every lead. As such, it is no longer enough to spend money on bringing traffic to your website when what you really need is to fill your sales funnel and ensure quality leads for your sales team.
This is where a lead generation chatbot comes in. This chatbot engages visitors on your website 24/7, gets their attention, starts a conversation, answers their questions, and converts them into sales leads. A well-designed chatbot for lead generation can do a lot for your business – from strengthening your web presence to improving your website’s functionality and converting more quality sales leads.
What is a Lead Generation Chatbot?
A lead generation chatbot is a conversation tool that specializes in drawing the attention of your website’s visitors. This chatbot answers questions round the clock, helps your visitors navigate your website, and guides them through your sales funnel to convert them into leads for your sales team.
Visitors can use their own words to ask the chatbot a question and instantly get an answer without the need for a human operator. The chatbot’s ability to converse with visitors puts it in a great position to find new customers. It gets the names, phone numbers and email address of leads and sends you these details so you can follow up and close the sale. The best chatbot for lead generation can respond to all presales questions and even learn from visitors to help you improve or add more answers.
Why are Lead Generation Chatbots So Good at Converting?
From SEO to ad campaigns, all your online marketing efforts seek to increase your website’s traffic, as well as convert new visitors into sales leads. Conventionally, businesses have used various online tools for this purpose – contact forms on websites, call-to-action buttons, pop-ups, landing pages, and so on.
The problem is that while websites are very good at storing and presenting information, they aren’t all that great at converting. Pop-ups are old-fashioned and people no longer tend to read them – many close them automatically before even reading them. In fact, 90% of visitors leave your websites and landing pages without taking any action. These visitors came from traffic you paid for and cost you a lot of money.
This is why a lead generation chatbot is so useful at this stage. Visitors who come to your website and landing pages are already interested in your product or service. Once they are on your website, they tend to look for useful information that will help them make a decision. A friendly chatbot is an excellent tool for engaging them with relevant messages that match their needs, helping them focus on what they are looking for, and converting them into sales leads.
As a prominent floating element on top of your website, the chatbot gets your visitors' attention within the first few seconds of their arrival. Once it has their attention, it uses a “message match” to reflect their reason for visiting your website. Now the chatbot is in a great position to start a conversation and convert the visitor by answering their questions and driving them forward to meet your lead generation goals.
Let’s understand this better through some examples of real conversations between a visitor and a lead generation chatbot:
Example 1: Lead generation chatbot for university admissions
Chatbot: "Hello! Welcome to our university website. How may I help you?"
Visitor: "Hi, I am interested in MBA programs."
Chatbot: "Our university offers Master of Business Administration degree programs that develop management and leadership responsibilities through strategy, marketing and finance. What would you like to know about our MBA course?"
Visitor: "What are the entry requirements for the MBA program?"
Chatbot: "To apply for our MBA course you must satisfy at least one of the following criteria:
completed bachelor's degree, completed honors degree, graduate certificate or graduate diploma, or minimum of five years of managerial or professional work.”
Visitor: "Do you offer fee help for new students?"
Chatbot: "For information on admissions and financial aid, I recommend that you speak with one of our advisors. Please type your phone number and an advisor will get back to you."
Visitor: "123-456-789"
Chatbot: “Thank you, I have saved your phone number. What is your name?"
Visitor: "David Davidson"
Chatbot: "For us to provide you with the best offers, please type your email address."
Visitor: "david@yourwebsite.com"
Chatbot: "Thank you. One of our advisors will contact you as soon as possible."
Example 2: Lead generation chatbot for a travel agency
Chatbot: "Hello! Welcome to our travel agency. How may I help you?"
Visitor: "I am looking for a family trip for the summer."
Chatbot: "We’ll be happy to help you plan your family vacation. Our agency specializes in designing fun-filled getaways to Greece, Germany, Italy and Portugal. Which destination do you find most attractive?"
Visitors: "What packages do you have for a vacation in Greece?"
Chatbot: "We have many different travel packages to Greece, including the mainland and Greek islands. Would you like one of our representatives to call you with our latest deals and offers for traveling to Greece?"
Visitor: "Yes"
Chatbot: "Please type your phone number and one of our representatives will get back to you."
Visitor: "123-456-789"
Chatbot: Thank you, I have saved your phone number. What is your name?"
Visitors: "James Jameson"
Chatbot: "For us to provide you with the best offers, can you please tell me what dates you are looking for?"
Visitors: "Mid-July to Mid-August"
Chatbot: "How many people will be travelling?"
Visitor: "2 adults and 2 kids"
Chatbot: "Thank you. One of our representatives will contact you as soon as possible."
If you look at the campaigns you run and the traffic they bring to your website or landing pages, you can see that a lot of money goes into attracting potential customers. And you can also see that most of these potential customers disappear without being converted into leads.
Adding a lead generation chatbot to your website changes things dramatically. Statistics show that 50% of people who start a conversation with the chatbot convert into sales leads. In other words, every second visitor who talks to your chatbot leaves you their contact details! Lead generation chatbots show up to 4x increase in conversions to sales leads.
Top 5 Features in a Successful Lead Generation Chatbot
There are many factors that affect the number and quality of conversions you get from your lead generation chatbot. But we’ll keep it simple and focus on the top 5 chatbot features that will help you convert up to 4x more leads!
1. Chatbot Triggers and Introduction
The chatbot introduction is basically the first few sentences that your chatbot uses to start a conversation. This introduction helps your chatbot engage with your website’s visitors, welcome them and reflect their needs.
The chatbot introduction is how your chatbot stands out from other pop-ups or advertisement banners on your website that we already know don't work. These few sentences capture your visitors' attention and get them to understand that help is available whenever they have questions or doubts while using your website. A good introduction that welcomes visitors and correctly reflects their needs is key to achieving your chatbot's goals for conversion and customer support.
2. Mobile Chatbot
Most internet users today browse the web from their mobile phones. It’s very likely that your first interaction with a new potential customer will be on your mobile website. A lead generation chatbot on your mobile website is thus ideal for engaging more visitors. It also comes with the added benefit of making your website more accessible and mobile-friendly.
3. Chatbot Answers and NLP
The lead generation chatbot can be loaded with hundreds of questions and answers to cover any topics or queries that come up during the chat. These Q&As can be edited and customized to your business needs. The chatbot’s answers don’t have to be limited to text – they can also include videos, images and external links for creating great content that will help you convert more.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the chatbot’s ability to understand what people are asking using their own words. Using free text gives your visitors the room to have an intuitive conversation, and anyone with sales and marketing experience knows that conversation is key to a successful sales process.
Visitors who come to your website are often looking for real information about your product or service. You have paid a lot of money to bring these visitors to your website – money that is wasted if they have unanswered questions that prevent them from converting. Providing real answers to your visitors gets them into your sales funnel and increases conversions of visitors into leads.
4. Qualifying and Disqualifying Leads
Not all visitors on your website and landing pages are there to buy your products or services. What you don’t want is for your sales reps to be wasting their valuable time talking to people who never intended to make a purchase in the first place.
Your lead generation chatbot can filter and disqualify such leads by answering their "false questions" and bringing the focus back on what you offer and sell. The chatbot can also stop the conversation when certain questions are asked. This can save you a lot of time and money because only quality leads are generated and sent to your sales team.
5. Sending Leads to Your CRM
The sales leads that your chatbot collects can be sent directly to your CRM. CRM integration is an important tool for escalation. Sales teams need it in order to follow up with website visitors and manage incoming leads better.
CRM integration ensures that the leads your chatbot picks up make their way straight into the sales funnel, after which the sales team can follow up with promotional emails or phone calls. During its conversation with your visitors, the chatbot collects valuable information about each potential customer and what they are looking for. Equipped with this information, your sales reps can quickly contact leads who are expecting a call from you. Getting back to leads within the first hour dramatically increases your chances of a productive sales call.
Equip your website with an effective and intelligent lead generation chatbot. VirtualSpirits has several ready-to-use templates that can get your chatbot up and running in no time. Browse through our available options, and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.