LoHi Park Media

ChatBots in the News

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It’s tough keeping up on all the news in the CRM, ChatBot and A.I. space, and even tougher getting through the news to determine what is important to you now vs. what you need to keep an eye on to future-proof your projects. Below are some article recaps with links to their original sources. The comments are open but note that we will be reviewing them before they go live for safety.

Why small businesses need chatbots to become successful

Automation and AI might look challenging to a small, medium business owner but exploring and incorporating the chatbots could turn the business ROI high up.

From Economic Times – “Small business owners cannot afford to have an extra labor like assistants because of limited finances. They have minimal costs and any investment they ask for brings ROI right away!”

What are Chatbots and Why are They Becoming so Popular?

From UCToday – “Chatbots are easily one of the most well-known examples of artificial intelligence. They’re useful in business because they save time and effort by automating various aspects of customer support. According to Gartner, by 2020, around 85% of our interactions will be handled by bots instead of humans. However, the possibilities of chatbots aren’t limited to answering customer questions. Chatbots are also ideal for collecting information about users, helping to organize meetings and more.”

What to Consider Before Bringing Chatbots Into Your Organization

From CMSWire – “Companies are finding that if they don’t provide a frictionless experience, consumers can easily find another brand that will. Knowing this, companies are increasingly using AI data backed chatbots to bring us a frictionless user experience,” Robb Hecht, adjunct professor of marketing at Baruch College in New York City. Hecht points out, “Chatbots are customers’ first and most direct experiences with AI and demand for them is going to increase dramatically in 2019.”

Planning

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There are multiple points of contact for reaching your audience. The best plans take into account all media outlets with a plan to optimize each and no try single approach across all of them. It’s also important to realize that there are some media outlets that you control and then there are other — more traditional outlets — where planning may take longer but the results far greater.

Starting with the outlets that we can control: websites, social media, and collateral (to start off). The success is in the planning. Controlling the message means planning ahead of time. We don’t want to the one that is posting about weekend events on Friday afternoon. Let’s make a plan ahead of time and use the tools that are available to schedule events ahead of time.

Platform

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Let’s talk a look at the tools that can bring new efficiencies to your team. These tools can range from free through thousands of dollars

These tools can range from free (!!) through thousands of dollars. The key from our perspective is ensuring that they work together — Keyword: Integrations — and that they can automate the tasks that you need automating to save you time (money) and minimize the risk that a breakdown will bring down your process.

I have walked into situations where teams were paying $1000 per month for an enterprise email solution. It was a full-powered platform capable of emailing millions of subscribers per campaign.
However, my clients only had 10 subscribers. I found that a Mailchimp solution at $10 to start was all that we needed, and the result in both email capabilities and reporting were all the same. MailChimp also was far more user-friendly, so it provided easier-to-apply features that allowed them to bring new ideas to their marketing.

Let’s review your workflow and find the right solutions at the right price to support your goals and team’s capabilities.

Performance

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Performance starts with goals. Let’s go back to the Planning process and see how well we did.

Chatbot Comparison

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In this video, I take a quick look at the chatbot services of Drift and Facebook Messenger. They are different, so it’s not likely that a business needs to make a decision which is best — your business model and how they work will make that decision for you.

On the positive side, we think that these two options cover the spectrum for anyone based on your business targets, selling process, and your team size. There are three approaches:

  • Drift for B2B and personal services where you want to set up a 1-to-1 consultation
  • Facebook Messenger for consumer targeting to build awareness and expand your audience using FB’s ad network
  • Hybrid Solution – Do you source from B2B vendors and then target consumers? We can build a solution that combines the best of both.

Selling Homes – Building Trust Before Selling Listings

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Face it; the goal is to sell properties, so it’s tempting for a real estate agent to focus on showing their properties. However, according to Lucid Press, the online buying process shows that creating trust and providing the opportunity for two-way conversations are keys to building the relationship that leads for a successful agent/client relationship.

Online marketing is great for its vast number of ways to reach prospective clients, but it can also be too many. You need to take into consideration the size and lifestyles of your marketplace and then your ability to commit to the process. You don’t need to be everywhere because you’ll be spread too thin and likely will not be able to generate any traction.

Here’s the full Lucid Press 1-4, and a recap of the points that you can address first:

  • Choose the right platform
  • Build 2-way conversations
  • Post consistently (and strategically)
  • Remember past clients!

DIY Projects
Build an early bond by showing some DIY projects that help buyers feel they are making the home their own. Careful to focus on this type of project over home repairs.

Type of content: It’s not all about house listings. Create Evergreen or “how-to” content. You can recycle over time. This could include DIY and decorating information for both the buyer and the seller. It might also be an opportunity to create a professional guide of other businesses in the area that you work with to show your involvement and standing in the area.

Another type of content especially is your listings focus on a certain area of town is to write a local guide or even make informal videos as you walk around the neighborhood.

Market to past clients: General marketing research across ALL products and services show that creating repeat and referral prospects are your #1 and #2 most effective prospecting. This can be via email updates or using newer ChatBot technology. Even people that just bought a home may refer a friend if a home in their neighborhood is on the market, so it worth the effort to keep these channels open.

Marketing For Realtors – From Marketing Pros

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In this article from Kipp Bodnar, CMO at HubSpot, covers “10 Real Estate Social Media Marketing Strategies That’ll Bring in New Business.” It comes from the marketing point of view (vs the real estate) as Hubspot is a leading CRM and Inbound Marketing platforms. I use Hubspot (I have a certification in Content Marketing and can set up Hubspot for small businesses) to manage client contacts and follow-ups. They also offer website and social media tools.

Here are three of Kipp’s points. It’s important to note that his list for connecting with prospective buyers does not include pushing a stream of properties; his steps focus more on building trust early in the process.

Market the area
Market the area before focusing on listings

Promote the town, not just the house: This goes beyond the “Location, Location, Location” adage, and gets more specific with some how-to. Some examples are to use location ad services and tagging features built into each platform such as using @TownName and @SchoolDistrictName in order to push your Town information to people researching that location.

Respond to comments, good and bad: First the obvious – never miss a chance to say thank you for positive comments or actions. They can be about you, a property, or a project that you are working on. For instance, if a positive comment is made on the local school district site, a follow-up that compliments the people responsible or gives some history as to how the town bonded together to make it happen goes a long way to pushing goodwill around. Just be honest and give credit to where it’s due.

On the other side – bad comments: There are two types: 1) Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. If this happens and you can address the situation, then you should step up and provide an explanation and it helps to say how you can help make things better or prevent them from happening again. Then. 2) Trolls. These are people looking to bait you or those that you just can’t satisfy – don’t take the bait. Others readers know who these trolls are and even they don’t want to cloud up their feeds so stay clear.

Avoid talking to yourself – Share and Collaborate:  This takes in pieces from the above, but it starts by ensuring that you have content that people want to read and engage with. That’s probably not a house listing, but more related to the positive compliments about the town and the people that are making life better. It can also be resources for buying homes, like banks, mortgage brokers and contractors – to name a few people in the buying process – that can reciprocate by sharing your information.

Selling Cars – Connect Early in the Sell Cycle with Buyers

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Selling CarsIn this article from Rebixit Consulting, an English digital agency, the importance of using visual content again comes through as a primary best practice as users watch over 30 minutes of product videos as part of their buying research.

I think the real number that jumps out in this research is that pre-buyers look at over 30 minutes of video. To me, that is a lot of videos considering that it’s likely short-form video.

However, going back to my time at AOL Search, I know that GM was the first buyer of a video ad block that I worked designed that displayed when users searched on car models.

The other important takeaway, which I think is very important, is that connecting early in the buying process often leads to dealer/brand success. According to a Facebook study, the car buying process can start six months before the purchase. This means that it’s valuable to maintain contact with buyers, even when they may not be buying (or don’t think they are buying) and also maintain long-term marketing programs in SEO and awareness ad campaigns that keep your name out there, subtly keeping a top-of-mind presence for when the focus starts to turn to buying a new car.

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