Thursday, 31 October 2019
What You Can Learn From The Evolution of Amazon
Starting as an online bookstore, Amazon.com has diversified its product lines to include movies, books, DVDs, video games, electronics, computer software, and much more. With an effective marketing plan in place, the company could leverage the use of e-commerce, and certain information technologies, to improve on the efficiency and effectiveness of their business model in an effort to remain the largest online retailer in America.
Please note that Amazon.com is extremely effective in using marketing mix to create new opportunities for the firm. The company's creative use of e-business and e-commerce continues to create new products and services that address the needs of businesses and consumers. Through the business-to-business (B2B) and the business-to-consumers (B2C) model, Amazon.com can cater to the needs of both parties.
Here is a listing of some of the products and services offered by Amazon.com for consumers and businesses:
1. Amazon.com's B2B model
Data storage and backup services for other firms (Amazon SimpleDB, S3)
Additional processing capabilities for other organizations (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2)
Assists businesses with building an e-commerce website (Webstore by Amazon)
Advertising services on Amazon.com for other organizations
2. Amazon.com's B2C model
Sells books, movies, electronics, games, toys, software programs, and other consumer-based products online to global consumers daily.
Customers can pay for products and services online with PayPal and other online credit card merchants with ease and convenience, for a small monetary fee.
Personalized preferences based on previous purchases or searches (YourAmazon).
Providing additional details on all products and services to assists with convenience for the online shopping experience for all global customers.
In addition to creating new products and services for target markets, Amazon.com is also effective at using their channel of distribution to deliver these goods to consumers and businesses worldwide. For instance, Amazon.com has offices and distribution centers in the United States, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and even the United Kingdom. Further, the Internet has also enabled the firm to place their products and services at the right target markets with ease.
In fact, Amazon.com realized that the company could maximize on the use of the same channel of distributions to help other businesses. Therefore, Amazon.com has expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services, along with giving independent software developers opportunities to buy processing power on its IT infrastructure so that they don't have to buy their own. By taking advantage of certain trends in the marketplace, Amazon.com continues expand, and assist businesses in achieving organizational goals. This is a very effective marketing strategy for the firm because the company could generate additional revenues from other businesses by allowing these entities to exchanges goods and services using the same resources that Amazon.com has acquired over the years.
With a variety of products and services available for businesses and consumers, Amazon.com continues to remain competitive because of dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing is basically adjusting prices continually to meet the characteristics and needs of individual customers and situations. Rather than incorporating a fixed price policy, the firm realizes that the cost for the products and services offered by the firm must change periodically because of competitors. For example, Barnes and Noble introduced deep discounts of 30% on hard-covers and 20% on paperbacks, same as that of Amazon.com, to pose a direct threat to online sales. Responding to this, Amazon.com introduced price cuts of up to 40% on future best sellers and on selected titles. With this in mind, the pricing for goods and services at Amazon.com remains competitive because of the competition and threats facing the firm. Threats from reputable companies such as Barnes and Noble, eBay, and Walmart, all looking to acquire some of Amazon.com's market share.
Amazon.com has also developed several effective marketing strategies and tactics that aid in promoting products and services to customers. For instance, the firm can mine their databases to gauge a specific shopper's desires, measure his or her means, instantaneously tailor products to fit that shopper's behavior, and price products accordingly. The company would send e-mails to global customers with recommendations and promotions on certain products and services because Amazon.com is aware of the customer preferences based on past purchases. Customers have found this service to be very useful and do not mind the e-mails because of the accuracy of the promotions that are aligned with past purchases.
In addition, Amazon.com continues to be innovative in their marketing strategies and tactics. Rather than relying solely on the Internet for promoting products, Amazon.com is also capitalizing on acquisitions and partnerships with several key businesses around the globe. Here is a listing of some of the new opportunities Amazon.com has recently pursued after careful market analysis:
Joint venture with British retailer Marks and Spencer to sell its products and services online.
Collaboration with British Library to sell antique books to address the needs of the public sector.
Acquisition of China's largest online retailer, Joyo.com, to retail books, movies, toys, and music, at discounted prices.
Amazon.com continues to excel at promoting products and services. Rather than placing expensive ads to promote the goods and services, the firm relies strictly on strong partnerships, online ploys, and relentless declaration of quality to market itself. The strategic marketing mix employed by Amazon.com continues to be effective and profitable. The products, place, price, and promotions that are associated with Amazon.com's marketing plan has become an industry standard for online retailing.
Hopefully this post has provided you with additional information to succeed in your business endeavors similar to Amazon.com. As Thomas Edison wisely stated, "good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning." Through the firm's effective marketing mix, Amazon.com continues to have good fortune because of the consistent introduction of products and services that would assist businesses and customers worldwide.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7786998
Please note that Amazon.com is extremely effective in using marketing mix to create new opportunities for the firm. The company's creative use of e-business and e-commerce continues to create new products and services that address the needs of businesses and consumers. Through the business-to-business (B2B) and the business-to-consumers (B2C) model, Amazon.com can cater to the needs of both parties.
Here is a listing of some of the products and services offered by Amazon.com for consumers and businesses:
1. Amazon.com's B2B model
Data storage and backup services for other firms (Amazon SimpleDB, S3)
Additional processing capabilities for other organizations (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2)
Assists businesses with building an e-commerce website (Webstore by Amazon)
Advertising services on Amazon.com for other organizations
2. Amazon.com's B2C model
Sells books, movies, electronics, games, toys, software programs, and other consumer-based products online to global consumers daily.
Customers can pay for products and services online with PayPal and other online credit card merchants with ease and convenience, for a small monetary fee.
Personalized preferences based on previous purchases or searches (YourAmazon).
Providing additional details on all products and services to assists with convenience for the online shopping experience for all global customers.
In addition to creating new products and services for target markets, Amazon.com is also effective at using their channel of distribution to deliver these goods to consumers and businesses worldwide. For instance, Amazon.com has offices and distribution centers in the United States, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and even the United Kingdom. Further, the Internet has also enabled the firm to place their products and services at the right target markets with ease.
In fact, Amazon.com realized that the company could maximize on the use of the same channel of distributions to help other businesses. Therefore, Amazon.com has expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services, along with giving independent software developers opportunities to buy processing power on its IT infrastructure so that they don't have to buy their own. By taking advantage of certain trends in the marketplace, Amazon.com continues expand, and assist businesses in achieving organizational goals. This is a very effective marketing strategy for the firm because the company could generate additional revenues from other businesses by allowing these entities to exchanges goods and services using the same resources that Amazon.com has acquired over the years.
With a variety of products and services available for businesses and consumers, Amazon.com continues to remain competitive because of dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing is basically adjusting prices continually to meet the characteristics and needs of individual customers and situations. Rather than incorporating a fixed price policy, the firm realizes that the cost for the products and services offered by the firm must change periodically because of competitors. For example, Barnes and Noble introduced deep discounts of 30% on hard-covers and 20% on paperbacks, same as that of Amazon.com, to pose a direct threat to online sales. Responding to this, Amazon.com introduced price cuts of up to 40% on future best sellers and on selected titles. With this in mind, the pricing for goods and services at Amazon.com remains competitive because of the competition and threats facing the firm. Threats from reputable companies such as Barnes and Noble, eBay, and Walmart, all looking to acquire some of Amazon.com's market share.
Amazon.com has also developed several effective marketing strategies and tactics that aid in promoting products and services to customers. For instance, the firm can mine their databases to gauge a specific shopper's desires, measure his or her means, instantaneously tailor products to fit that shopper's behavior, and price products accordingly. The company would send e-mails to global customers with recommendations and promotions on certain products and services because Amazon.com is aware of the customer preferences based on past purchases. Customers have found this service to be very useful and do not mind the e-mails because of the accuracy of the promotions that are aligned with past purchases.
In addition, Amazon.com continues to be innovative in their marketing strategies and tactics. Rather than relying solely on the Internet for promoting products, Amazon.com is also capitalizing on acquisitions and partnerships with several key businesses around the globe. Here is a listing of some of the new opportunities Amazon.com has recently pursued after careful market analysis:
Joint venture with British retailer Marks and Spencer to sell its products and services online.
Collaboration with British Library to sell antique books to address the needs of the public sector.
Acquisition of China's largest online retailer, Joyo.com, to retail books, movies, toys, and music, at discounted prices.
Amazon.com continues to excel at promoting products and services. Rather than placing expensive ads to promote the goods and services, the firm relies strictly on strong partnerships, online ploys, and relentless declaration of quality to market itself. The strategic marketing mix employed by Amazon.com continues to be effective and profitable. The products, place, price, and promotions that are associated with Amazon.com's marketing plan has become an industry standard for online retailing.
Hopefully this post has provided you with additional information to succeed in your business endeavors similar to Amazon.com. As Thomas Edison wisely stated, "good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning." Through the firm's effective marketing mix, Amazon.com continues to have good fortune because of the consistent introduction of products and services that would assist businesses and customers worldwide.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7786998
Wednesday, 30 October 2019
How To Make $10,000+ Per Month With Amazon FBA
Amazon FBA (Fulfilment By Amazon) is a business opportunity provided by Amazon to encourage business-owners to list their products in its marketplace.
The model works by Amazon providing users with the ability to send their products to its warehouse, and having them "fulfilled" by the retain giant (it sends them out) upon successful purchase.
The reason why Amazon would do this is partly to get free niche products which are both unique and valuable (you own the products - they just ship them for you), and partly to make use of their massive infrastructure (which they would be paying for anyway).
It also adds to their offering as a business, as it gives them an even more diverse array of products to add to their portfolio (which is pretty much their core competitive advantage).
The important thing to consider about the "FBA" model is that it is indicative of the new "digital" business culture that seems to have become even more prevalent after the 2008 crash. Rather than keeping large amounts of stock, overheads and a large team... companies have taken to the Internet & social media to find buyers & create lean enterprises.
Gone are the days when distributors determined the fate of products. Now, new businesses, entrepreneurs and everyday people are able to create $10,000+ a month income streams without even having to own any land. All the infrastructure, marketing and fulfilment is handled by a completely independent company (Amazon) - to which you just do the work of sourcing a successful product.
To determine if you'd like to gain advantage from this method of investment, I've created this tutorial to explain the process of utilizing Amazon FBA. Rather than trying to get by on scraps from a local market, the new "digital" realm with all its promise is one of the best ways to get your foot in the door of the new world of enterprise.
How It Works
All businesses work in the same way - buy/build a product, offer the product to a market and any "profit" you're able to make can either be used to live off, or reinvest into more/better products.
The problem for most people is two-fold: 1) they have no product 2) they have no access to a market.
Whilst both are legitimate problems - which would have been a significant drawback in a time without the "digital" medium - times have moved on to the point that barriers-to-entry are so low that you only really need to be able to invest several $1,000 to have the opportunity of selling to a global audience.
And despite the fact that the "Amazon" opportunity has existed for almost 10 years now (anyone can list products in its marketplace), the "FBA" model (which is truly hands-off) has only started to become popular in the past 24 months-or-so.
If you didn't go to business school, to briefly explain how to run a "successful" business, you basically need to be able provide a product/service to a large audience. You'd typically aim for around 30% net profit margin (after COGS & advertising costs). How you do this is up to you - the key is to buy low, sell high.
Now, just because the "digital" realm is large doesn't mean it's devoid of the way in which "markets" typically work. Competition is obviously a major force, as is the idea that because something is "easy", it can be replicated relatively simply by others (leading to an erosion of your profits).
Selling on Amazon typically works by providing access to products which people either don't have access to locally, or are able to obtain locally but with major restrictions (such as color/size issues), or with problems in reliability of supply. In other words, whilst the Amazon marketplace is vast - don't think you can outwit supply/demand.
The real trick with "digital" businesses is to provide access to unique products (typically made by yourself or your company) which are only available through you. These products have to be focused on providing a solution that most people have no idea about, and thus makes the proposition of buying it through the Internet legitimate.
Obviously, creating a "unique" product is 1,000x easier said-than-done - the trick with it is to work on solutions to your own problems. Work towards sharpening a skillset, which you're able to apply to a wider audience, from which you'll be able to identify "products" which can be created and offered as a means to simplify/solve problems you've experienced yourself.
Steps
To begin selling on Amazon, there are several steps to take:
Sign Up For Amazon Seller Account The first step is to get a "seller" account from Amazon. There are two types of seller account - "individual" and "professional". Individual is free and allows you to "list" items which already exist in the Amazon catalogue. You pay a small fee each time a product is sold. Professional costs $40/mo, and has no extra "per sale" fees (although other fees such as a stocking fee etc may apply). This is the only account which allows you to list new items in Amazon's catalogue.
Sign Up For GS1 This gives you the ability to *create* barcodes. They come in two formats - UPC (Universal Product Code) and EAN (European Article Number). Whilst these can be bought relatively cheaply ($10), Amazon, Google and eBay strongly recommend using GS1 for standardization. By using GS1, you're able to have your products recognized by the likes of Amazon. The downside is the cost, but it shouldn't really matter - we always recommend setting aside ~$500 for admin costs, of which this would definitely be one.
Create A Legal Company (Optional) If you're looking to set up a real FBA operation, you'll need a legal business (and bank account). Apart from giving Amazon the ability to open a business account, it allows you to better manage taxes (which are notoriously bad for investing your own money in a personal capacity). This is very easy to setup, but is only necessary if you want to actually deal with Amazon on an FBA basis only. If you want to just sell products on the system, you're welcome to do it under your own name.
Buy/Build Boxed Products You then need to get a set of boxed versions of the product. If you make the product yourself, you need to get them into standardized boxes. Because thre are so many ways to do this, we'll just say that you should look for a boxing/printing company to handle it for you. There are many capable ones. You must also follow Amazon's guidelines on what types of packaging they accept.
Send The Products To Amazon Once you have the boxed products, you need to send them to Amazon. This is arranged through the Amazon seller system, allowing you to pick a time when the products should receive at the Amazon warehouse. Again, due to the level of variation in the process, it's best to say that you should follow the Amazon guidelines in order to do this.
Start Selling This is the hardest part, which is explained below.
Selling The Products
The last step is to get the products sold. This is the hardest as you're almost entirely at the whim of the market (both Amazon's and any other market you may bring to the platform).
The trick to getting products bought from Amazon is effective marketing.
Marketing comes down to several points - the most notable being that you need to be able to firstly attract the attention of potential buyers and then build demand - giving them the opportunity to buy your product as a means to satisfy that demand.
Whilst there are many ways to do this, you must remember that if you're going to do it effectively, you need to be able to go out and market the product independently of whether it's going to be popular on Amazon. The less you need Amazon, the more likely it will be that you'll actually get people buying through the channel.
--
Finally, we must also point out that any sales you make must NOT be counted as pure profit.
Your profit ONLY comes after your other costs have been accounted for (such as the actual products themselves, boxes and marketing). It is a rookie mistake to think that the money you receive from Amazon will actually be your "take home" profit - it's not.
You need to accumulate your initial principle from the gross revenue and then decide what to do with any profits made (as mentioned - this comes in the form of either paying yourself, or putting back into better/more products).
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9870346
The model works by Amazon providing users with the ability to send their products to its warehouse, and having them "fulfilled" by the retain giant (it sends them out) upon successful purchase.
The reason why Amazon would do this is partly to get free niche products which are both unique and valuable (you own the products - they just ship them for you), and partly to make use of their massive infrastructure (which they would be paying for anyway).
It also adds to their offering as a business, as it gives them an even more diverse array of products to add to their portfolio (which is pretty much their core competitive advantage).
The important thing to consider about the "FBA" model is that it is indicative of the new "digital" business culture that seems to have become even more prevalent after the 2008 crash. Rather than keeping large amounts of stock, overheads and a large team... companies have taken to the Internet & social media to find buyers & create lean enterprises.
Gone are the days when distributors determined the fate of products. Now, new businesses, entrepreneurs and everyday people are able to create $10,000+ a month income streams without even having to own any land. All the infrastructure, marketing and fulfilment is handled by a completely independent company (Amazon) - to which you just do the work of sourcing a successful product.
To determine if you'd like to gain advantage from this method of investment, I've created this tutorial to explain the process of utilizing Amazon FBA. Rather than trying to get by on scraps from a local market, the new "digital" realm with all its promise is one of the best ways to get your foot in the door of the new world of enterprise.
How It Works
All businesses work in the same way - buy/build a product, offer the product to a market and any "profit" you're able to make can either be used to live off, or reinvest into more/better products.
The problem for most people is two-fold: 1) they have no product 2) they have no access to a market.
Whilst both are legitimate problems - which would have been a significant drawback in a time without the "digital" medium - times have moved on to the point that barriers-to-entry are so low that you only really need to be able to invest several $1,000 to have the opportunity of selling to a global audience.
And despite the fact that the "Amazon" opportunity has existed for almost 10 years now (anyone can list products in its marketplace), the "FBA" model (which is truly hands-off) has only started to become popular in the past 24 months-or-so.
If you didn't go to business school, to briefly explain how to run a "successful" business, you basically need to be able provide a product/service to a large audience. You'd typically aim for around 30% net profit margin (after COGS & advertising costs). How you do this is up to you - the key is to buy low, sell high.
Now, just because the "digital" realm is large doesn't mean it's devoid of the way in which "markets" typically work. Competition is obviously a major force, as is the idea that because something is "easy", it can be replicated relatively simply by others (leading to an erosion of your profits).
Selling on Amazon typically works by providing access to products which people either don't have access to locally, or are able to obtain locally but with major restrictions (such as color/size issues), or with problems in reliability of supply. In other words, whilst the Amazon marketplace is vast - don't think you can outwit supply/demand.
The real trick with "digital" businesses is to provide access to unique products (typically made by yourself or your company) which are only available through you. These products have to be focused on providing a solution that most people have no idea about, and thus makes the proposition of buying it through the Internet legitimate.
Obviously, creating a "unique" product is 1,000x easier said-than-done - the trick with it is to work on solutions to your own problems. Work towards sharpening a skillset, which you're able to apply to a wider audience, from which you'll be able to identify "products" which can be created and offered as a means to simplify/solve problems you've experienced yourself.
Steps
To begin selling on Amazon, there are several steps to take:
Sign Up For Amazon Seller Account The first step is to get a "seller" account from Amazon. There are two types of seller account - "individual" and "professional". Individual is free and allows you to "list" items which already exist in the Amazon catalogue. You pay a small fee each time a product is sold. Professional costs $40/mo, and has no extra "per sale" fees (although other fees such as a stocking fee etc may apply). This is the only account which allows you to list new items in Amazon's catalogue.
Sign Up For GS1 This gives you the ability to *create* barcodes. They come in two formats - UPC (Universal Product Code) and EAN (European Article Number). Whilst these can be bought relatively cheaply ($10), Amazon, Google and eBay strongly recommend using GS1 for standardization. By using GS1, you're able to have your products recognized by the likes of Amazon. The downside is the cost, but it shouldn't really matter - we always recommend setting aside ~$500 for admin costs, of which this would definitely be one.
Create A Legal Company (Optional) If you're looking to set up a real FBA operation, you'll need a legal business (and bank account). Apart from giving Amazon the ability to open a business account, it allows you to better manage taxes (which are notoriously bad for investing your own money in a personal capacity). This is very easy to setup, but is only necessary if you want to actually deal with Amazon on an FBA basis only. If you want to just sell products on the system, you're welcome to do it under your own name.
Buy/Build Boxed Products You then need to get a set of boxed versions of the product. If you make the product yourself, you need to get them into standardized boxes. Because thre are so many ways to do this, we'll just say that you should look for a boxing/printing company to handle it for you. There are many capable ones. You must also follow Amazon's guidelines on what types of packaging they accept.
Send The Products To Amazon Once you have the boxed products, you need to send them to Amazon. This is arranged through the Amazon seller system, allowing you to pick a time when the products should receive at the Amazon warehouse. Again, due to the level of variation in the process, it's best to say that you should follow the Amazon guidelines in order to do this.
Start Selling This is the hardest part, which is explained below.
Selling The Products
The last step is to get the products sold. This is the hardest as you're almost entirely at the whim of the market (both Amazon's and any other market you may bring to the platform).
The trick to getting products bought from Amazon is effective marketing.
Marketing comes down to several points - the most notable being that you need to be able to firstly attract the attention of potential buyers and then build demand - giving them the opportunity to buy your product as a means to satisfy that demand.
Whilst there are many ways to do this, you must remember that if you're going to do it effectively, you need to be able to go out and market the product independently of whether it's going to be popular on Amazon. The less you need Amazon, the more likely it will be that you'll actually get people buying through the channel.
--
Finally, we must also point out that any sales you make must NOT be counted as pure profit.
Your profit ONLY comes after your other costs have been accounted for (such as the actual products themselves, boxes and marketing). It is a rookie mistake to think that the money you receive from Amazon will actually be your "take home" profit - it's not.
You need to accumulate your initial principle from the gross revenue and then decide what to do with any profits made (as mentioned - this comes in the form of either paying yourself, or putting back into better/more products).
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9870346
Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Anne O'Dwyer | How I Began Writing & Publishing on Amazon
My first book was a collection or articles previously written that I combined into a book, basically to see if I could actually produce a book on Createspace a self publishing platform. I really am a technophobe but with a little help from Arty my trusted technical guy plus the help line at Createspace I achieved my first book.
As I hadn't had it professionally proof read and edited it was sprinkled with errors, but I had achieved my aim of writing and publishing a book. I made a little video to promote it on YouTube, set up a face book page and for the time being have left it languishing on Amazon with very little happening. A useful point to remember it is possible to redo both the cover and the contents when I'm ready to improve it. This is one of the advantages of self-publishing.
It all began with 2 years of sudden health problems which compromised my ability to walk for more than 100 yards without having to stop for breath. Needless to say this led me to indescribable depression. My life had changed it felt like overnight. Until then I had been a fit active pensioner working until the age of 75,but then disaster struck in two consecutive blows.
Apparently when trauma or debilitating illness occurs suddenly, which prevents you following your life plan, you are likely to suffer severe depression until you are able to create a new life plan for yourself. This certainly happened to me.
We had just bought a holiday home in Spain where we intended to spend the cold winter months plus a mobile home in the English countryside for the warm summer months when disaster struck. My first mistake was not learning the language, so anyone buying abroad, heed my warning and learn enough of their language to converse with the natives. Feeling so unwell I had no wish to return and the house was sold.
I wasn't until I developed my new interest that I began to feel human again. I now had something to get my teeth into. Writing has always been something I enjoyed although until recently it has been a dormant skill. So I have just finished my second book with several others at the planning stage and a new way of life has begun. Sadly I find Createspace has been swallowed up by Amazon, so for my new book I will have to fathom out the intricacies of the new system.
But I have learnt if you have a hidden talent or desire, don't wait for ill-health to hit you, make a decision to begin right now you will be so glad you did. You are never too old to begin something new; don't go to your grave wishing if only...
My New book is called: "Stress-Free Parenting", especially aimed at first time mums. It takes you from birth for the first 5 years, covering all the problem areas like potty, tantrums, an easy bedtime routine sibling jealousy, preparing for schooldays and much more. It is available on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/yywoyzkh it is free to read on Amazon prime- Enjoy!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10087288
As I hadn't had it professionally proof read and edited it was sprinkled with errors, but I had achieved my aim of writing and publishing a book. I made a little video to promote it on YouTube, set up a face book page and for the time being have left it languishing on Amazon with very little happening. A useful point to remember it is possible to redo both the cover and the contents when I'm ready to improve it. This is one of the advantages of self-publishing.
It all began with 2 years of sudden health problems which compromised my ability to walk for more than 100 yards without having to stop for breath. Needless to say this led me to indescribable depression. My life had changed it felt like overnight. Until then I had been a fit active pensioner working until the age of 75,but then disaster struck in two consecutive blows.
Apparently when trauma or debilitating illness occurs suddenly, which prevents you following your life plan, you are likely to suffer severe depression until you are able to create a new life plan for yourself. This certainly happened to me.
We had just bought a holiday home in Spain where we intended to spend the cold winter months plus a mobile home in the English countryside for the warm summer months when disaster struck. My first mistake was not learning the language, so anyone buying abroad, heed my warning and learn enough of their language to converse with the natives. Feeling so unwell I had no wish to return and the house was sold.
I wasn't until I developed my new interest that I began to feel human again. I now had something to get my teeth into. Writing has always been something I enjoyed although until recently it has been a dormant skill. So I have just finished my second book with several others at the planning stage and a new way of life has begun. Sadly I find Createspace has been swallowed up by Amazon, so for my new book I will have to fathom out the intricacies of the new system.
But I have learnt if you have a hidden talent or desire, don't wait for ill-health to hit you, make a decision to begin right now you will be so glad you did. You are never too old to begin something new; don't go to your grave wishing if only...
My New book is called: "Stress-Free Parenting", especially aimed at first time mums. It takes you from birth for the first 5 years, covering all the problem areas like potty, tantrums, an easy bedtime routine sibling jealousy, preparing for schooldays and much more. It is available on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/yywoyzkh it is free to read on Amazon prime- Enjoy!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10087288
Monday, 28 October 2019
The Ultimate Guide to Selling on Amazon in 2019
You might think most consumers start their online shopping sessions with a visit to Google, but according to a poll conducted by NPR and Marist, Amazon is actually the most common starting point for online shoppers.
With 44% of shoppers starting on Amazon (which is 11% more than Google) and 40% of Americans buying products on the website at least once every month, Amazon has become the central hub for online shopping.
If you’re in the eCommerce industry, selling on Amazon is your best bet for maximizing your reach and, ultimately, your revenue. To help you set up shop on Amazon, we’ve created this ultimate guide that'll teach you how to list your products, set up your shipping options, promote your products, manage your reviews, and analyze your performance. Read on to learn how to sell on the eCommerce platform in 2019.
1. Figure out if the product you want to sell needs approval from Amazon.
On Amazon, there are 20 categories open to all sellers, so if you want to sell products under any of these categories, you don’t need approval from Amazon. However, there are 15 categories that do require approval from Amazon, so if you want to sell products under any of these categories, you need to apply for a Professional Selling Plan subscription.
Amazon limits the number of sellers in each of these categories because they want to maintain the quality of their products. So if you believe your products are up to par and want to sell them under these categories, you need to request approval from Amazon by filling out their application. Amazon will let you know if they’ve approved you or if they need additional information from you in up to three business days.
Here are two lists of Amazon’s product categories that are open to all sellers or require approval.
Product Categories Open to All Sellers
1. Amazon Device Accessories
2. Amazon Kindle
3. Baby Products
4. Beauty
5. Books
6. Camera & Photo
7. Cell Phones
8. Clothing & Accessories
9. Electronics
10. Handmade
11. Health & Personal Care
12. Home & Garden
13. Musical Instruments
14. Office Products
15. Outdoors
16. Software & Computer Games
17. Sports
18. Tools & Home Improvement
19. Toys & Games
20. Video Games & Video Game Consoles
Product Categories That Require Approval From Amazon
1. Automotive & Powersports
2. B2B Business Products
3. Collectible Coins
4. Fashion Jewelry
5. Fine Jewelry
6. Fine Art
7. Grocery & Gourmet Food
8. Industrial & Scientific
9. Luggage & Travel Accessories
10. Personal Computers
11. Professional Services
12. Shoes, Handbags, & Sunglasses
13. Sports Collectibles
14. Video, DVD, & Blu-Ray
15. Watches
2. Pick a selling plan that suits your business model.
Amazon offers two selling plans: the Individual Plan and Professional Plan.
If you choose the Individual Plan, you’ll pay Amazon $0.99 for every item you sell plus referral and variable closing fees. According to Amazon, the Individual Plan is best for sellers who sell less than 40 items per month.
If you choose the Professional Plan, you can sell an unlimited number of products while only paying Amazon a subscription fee of $39.99 plus referral and variable closing fees. According to Amazon, the Professional Plan is best for sellers who sell more than 40 items per month.
3. Register for a seller account and list your products.
To register for a seller account on Amazon, visit Amazon Seller Central and click the “Start selling” button. Amazon Seller Central is also where you’ll manage your selling account.
After you’ve created your account, you can start listing your products on Amazon. If you have the Individual Plan, you can add one product to the Amazon Marketplace catalog at a time. If you have the Professional Plan, you can add batches of products to the catalog.
Additionally, if you’re selling products that are already listed on Amazon, all you have to do is tell them the amount of product you plan to sell, the condition of your product, and its shipping options.
If you’re selling products that aren’t listed on Amazon yet, the process is a little more complicated. You have to tell them what each of your product’s universal product code (UPC) and stock keeping unit (SKU) is and then list each product’s features on Amazon, like its title, description, and price.
If you don’t know what a UPC is, it consists of a 12-digit numeric code and a barcode. The American branch of GS1, an organization that develops and maintains global business communication standards, assigns a permanent UPC to a product for its entire shelf life. So even if multiple retailers sell the product, it’ll still have the same UPC at each store. For example, every box of a certain brand’s blackberries will have the same UPC at every store they’re sold at.
A SKU is similar to a UPC, but it differs from it by being a distinct string of letters and numbers that helps retailers identify every product in their inventory and each product’s specific traits, like its manufacturer, brand, price, style, color, and size. Retailers create their own internal SKU codes to quickly and accurately pinpoint and track every single piece of inventory in their retail stores, e-commerce stores, catalogs, warehouses, and product fulfillment centers.
4. Set up your shipping options.
Even if you sell on Amazon, you’ll always have the option to ship products on your own. But Amazon offers a truly unique and advantageous shipping service for all their sellers that’s incredibly hard to pass up -- Fulfillment by Amazon. With Fulfillment by Amazon, all you have to do is send your inventory to an Amazon fulfillment center and they’ll store your products, package them, and ship them to your customers.
Signing up for Fulfillment by Amazon also makes your products eligible for Amazon Prime free two-day shipping, free shipping, and customer service and returns. Shipping costs are already included in your seller plan, so all you have to pay for is storage space and and a fee for each order Amazon fulfills.
5. Sell and promote your products.
After you’ve set up your shipping options, you’re ready to start selling on Amazon. To attract as many potential customers as possible, make sure to craft compelling product listings that have clear and concise titles, benefits-rich descriptions, and vivid pictures.
If you want to increase your products' visibility on Amazon, consider running sponsored product ads directly on the platform. These ads are pay per click and will be placed alongside people’s search results. Amazon also offers an automatic ad targeting tool, which leverages their search algorithm to suggest a list of potentially lucrative keywords that you can bid on and promote your products through.
Once people buy your products on Amazon, they’ll deposit payments into your bank account on a regular basis and send you a notification when they pay you.
6. Encourage reviews.
Reviews are crucial for driving sales on Amazon. The more reviews you have, the more credible and trustworthy customers will perceive your products to be. Fortunately, Amazon lets sellers send follow up emails to customers after they order one of their products and ask for product reviews. They even let you automate the process, but Amazon also requires you to follow a strict set of guidelines, which don’t allow you to include marketing messages, link to other websites, or ask for, demand, or incentivize positive reviews in these emails.
In 2016, Amazon banned incentivized reviews -- which were customer reviews given to brands in exchange for a free or discounted product as long as the reviewers revealed they received an incentive for their feedback. These incentives were artificially inflating brands’ average ratings, so Amazon decided they needed to level the playing field. With this in mind, don’t even think about trying to incentivize a positive review. Just send your customers emails that politely ask for a candid product review.
7. Analyze your performance.
On your Amazon Seller Central account, you’ll have access to a sales dashboard, which displays a snapshot of your orders for the day, quantity of units sold, the amount of sales you’ve generated for the day, and other metrics.
You’ll also have access to business reports that display metrics like sales by item, sales and orders by month, page views, brand performance, inventory in stock, and more.
Additionally, you’ll have access to a “Compare Sales” graph that can compare any day’s sales to each other, which helps you discover seasonal trends and patterns.
Finally, you’ll have access to a sales reporting tool that can pull any of your account’s metrics to produce a graphical representations of your sales data. This’ll help you truly grasp how your Amazon account is performing.
Article Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-sell-on-amazon
Originally published Jan 14, 2019 7:00:00 AM, updated September 09 2019
With 44% of shoppers starting on Amazon (which is 11% more than Google) and 40% of Americans buying products on the website at least once every month, Amazon has become the central hub for online shopping.
If you’re in the eCommerce industry, selling on Amazon is your best bet for maximizing your reach and, ultimately, your revenue. To help you set up shop on Amazon, we’ve created this ultimate guide that'll teach you how to list your products, set up your shipping options, promote your products, manage your reviews, and analyze your performance. Read on to learn how to sell on the eCommerce platform in 2019.
1. Figure out if the product you want to sell needs approval from Amazon.
On Amazon, there are 20 categories open to all sellers, so if you want to sell products under any of these categories, you don’t need approval from Amazon. However, there are 15 categories that do require approval from Amazon, so if you want to sell products under any of these categories, you need to apply for a Professional Selling Plan subscription.
Amazon limits the number of sellers in each of these categories because they want to maintain the quality of their products. So if you believe your products are up to par and want to sell them under these categories, you need to request approval from Amazon by filling out their application. Amazon will let you know if they’ve approved you or if they need additional information from you in up to three business days.
Here are two lists of Amazon’s product categories that are open to all sellers or require approval.
Product Categories Open to All Sellers
1. Amazon Device Accessories
2. Amazon Kindle
3. Baby Products
4. Beauty
5. Books
6. Camera & Photo
7. Cell Phones
8. Clothing & Accessories
9. Electronics
10. Handmade
11. Health & Personal Care
12. Home & Garden
13. Musical Instruments
14. Office Products
15. Outdoors
16. Software & Computer Games
17. Sports
18. Tools & Home Improvement
19. Toys & Games
20. Video Games & Video Game Consoles
Product Categories That Require Approval From Amazon
1. Automotive & Powersports
2. B2B Business Products
3. Collectible Coins
4. Fashion Jewelry
5. Fine Jewelry
6. Fine Art
7. Grocery & Gourmet Food
8. Industrial & Scientific
9. Luggage & Travel Accessories
10. Personal Computers
11. Professional Services
12. Shoes, Handbags, & Sunglasses
13. Sports Collectibles
14. Video, DVD, & Blu-Ray
15. Watches
2. Pick a selling plan that suits your business model.
Amazon offers two selling plans: the Individual Plan and Professional Plan.
If you choose the Individual Plan, you’ll pay Amazon $0.99 for every item you sell plus referral and variable closing fees. According to Amazon, the Individual Plan is best for sellers who sell less than 40 items per month.
If you choose the Professional Plan, you can sell an unlimited number of products while only paying Amazon a subscription fee of $39.99 plus referral and variable closing fees. According to Amazon, the Professional Plan is best for sellers who sell more than 40 items per month.
3. Register for a seller account and list your products.
To register for a seller account on Amazon, visit Amazon Seller Central and click the “Start selling” button. Amazon Seller Central is also where you’ll manage your selling account.
After you’ve created your account, you can start listing your products on Amazon. If you have the Individual Plan, you can add one product to the Amazon Marketplace catalog at a time. If you have the Professional Plan, you can add batches of products to the catalog.
Additionally, if you’re selling products that are already listed on Amazon, all you have to do is tell them the amount of product you plan to sell, the condition of your product, and its shipping options.
If you’re selling products that aren’t listed on Amazon yet, the process is a little more complicated. You have to tell them what each of your product’s universal product code (UPC) and stock keeping unit (SKU) is and then list each product’s features on Amazon, like its title, description, and price.
If you don’t know what a UPC is, it consists of a 12-digit numeric code and a barcode. The American branch of GS1, an organization that develops and maintains global business communication standards, assigns a permanent UPC to a product for its entire shelf life. So even if multiple retailers sell the product, it’ll still have the same UPC at each store. For example, every box of a certain brand’s blackberries will have the same UPC at every store they’re sold at.
A SKU is similar to a UPC, but it differs from it by being a distinct string of letters and numbers that helps retailers identify every product in their inventory and each product’s specific traits, like its manufacturer, brand, price, style, color, and size. Retailers create their own internal SKU codes to quickly and accurately pinpoint and track every single piece of inventory in their retail stores, e-commerce stores, catalogs, warehouses, and product fulfillment centers.
4. Set up your shipping options.
Even if you sell on Amazon, you’ll always have the option to ship products on your own. But Amazon offers a truly unique and advantageous shipping service for all their sellers that’s incredibly hard to pass up -- Fulfillment by Amazon. With Fulfillment by Amazon, all you have to do is send your inventory to an Amazon fulfillment center and they’ll store your products, package them, and ship them to your customers.
Signing up for Fulfillment by Amazon also makes your products eligible for Amazon Prime free two-day shipping, free shipping, and customer service and returns. Shipping costs are already included in your seller plan, so all you have to pay for is storage space and and a fee for each order Amazon fulfills.
5. Sell and promote your products.
After you’ve set up your shipping options, you’re ready to start selling on Amazon. To attract as many potential customers as possible, make sure to craft compelling product listings that have clear and concise titles, benefits-rich descriptions, and vivid pictures.
If you want to increase your products' visibility on Amazon, consider running sponsored product ads directly on the platform. These ads are pay per click and will be placed alongside people’s search results. Amazon also offers an automatic ad targeting tool, which leverages their search algorithm to suggest a list of potentially lucrative keywords that you can bid on and promote your products through.
Once people buy your products on Amazon, they’ll deposit payments into your bank account on a regular basis and send you a notification when they pay you.
6. Encourage reviews.
Reviews are crucial for driving sales on Amazon. The more reviews you have, the more credible and trustworthy customers will perceive your products to be. Fortunately, Amazon lets sellers send follow up emails to customers after they order one of their products and ask for product reviews. They even let you automate the process, but Amazon also requires you to follow a strict set of guidelines, which don’t allow you to include marketing messages, link to other websites, or ask for, demand, or incentivize positive reviews in these emails.
In 2016, Amazon banned incentivized reviews -- which were customer reviews given to brands in exchange for a free or discounted product as long as the reviewers revealed they received an incentive for their feedback. These incentives were artificially inflating brands’ average ratings, so Amazon decided they needed to level the playing field. With this in mind, don’t even think about trying to incentivize a positive review. Just send your customers emails that politely ask for a candid product review.
7. Analyze your performance.
On your Amazon Seller Central account, you’ll have access to a sales dashboard, which displays a snapshot of your orders for the day, quantity of units sold, the amount of sales you’ve generated for the day, and other metrics.
You’ll also have access to business reports that display metrics like sales by item, sales and orders by month, page views, brand performance, inventory in stock, and more.
Additionally, you’ll have access to a “Compare Sales” graph that can compare any day’s sales to each other, which helps you discover seasonal trends and patterns.
Finally, you’ll have access to a sales reporting tool that can pull any of your account’s metrics to produce a graphical representations of your sales data. This’ll help you truly grasp how your Amazon account is performing.
Article Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-sell-on-amazon
Originally published Jan 14, 2019 7:00:00 AM, updated September 09 2019
Friday, 25 October 2019
PlayerFM | #342 Chatbots for Amazon with Paul Harvey of Seller Chatbot
https://player.fm/series/amazing-fba-1461986/ep-342-chatbots-for-amazon-with-paul-harvey-of-seller-chatbot
Chatbots for Amazon - What are they & How to Launch with them What are chatbots for Amazon and why do they matter to Amazon or e-commerce sellers? Chatbots for Amazon are definitely an on-trend topic for Amazon sellers and e-commerce marketers. The question is whether they are really worth investigating and using. What are Chatbots? They are like instant messaging meets automated email marketing (email autoresponders). Facebook wants Messenger to be the WeChat of the west Facebook Messenger has currently around an 80% open rate because most businesses are not using it yet. But this will probably change as more marketers spam the system! It kills email in open rate, at about 20% open rate. Also as Paul is a former maths teacher - not into spelling and grammar - but can create 50-60 word message easily and quickly, compared to a complex sales email. WeChat Any Amazon seller who has been to China will have used it. You can use it to make payments or book a cab. You can send payments etc. you don’t need to carry cash Facebook wants Messenger to become a platform Buy things Give money to friends Communicate Facebook bought out WhatsApp; they own Instagram In fact, 3 of the 4 top social media platforms are owned by Facebook. And they plan to combine them into one. Who is Amazon’s biggest competitor? FaceBook has 5X the user base that Amazon has. As soon as FaceBook has that streamlined, it's going to start taking market share off Amazon in the e-commerce space. In Africa not many people have FaceBook but they all have WhatsApp. Everyone used to have a Blackberry. Now it's messaging. Where do you use Chatbots for Amazon? Let’s say you’re launching a product - 2-3 months of samples, revisions, sourcing, then you ship it out. This is what you’ve done on a bucket load of money. But now it’s on Amazon and you’ve done zero marketing. You sign up to Manychat, you run ads on FaceBook with big discount and send users to buy on Amazon. That is the launch! Downsides of last-minute Amazon launches with Chatbots But consider: this is to a cold audience! The amazon seller spent months sourcing but they did a poor job of launch. It’s interruption marketing - people go to FaceBook to gossip, not to buy. SO that means 1. High ad cost; 2. Big discount - because 80% off is the only way to get a response from a really cold audience. To explore using Seller Chatbot software, click here (affiliate link) The secret to using Chatbots for Amazon: Pre-launch That could be avoided with a pre-launch set of basic FaceBook ads 2-3 weeks before Create a list in advance Then reach out to a ready-made audience. FaceBook ads Whatever chatbot vehicle you use, you need fuel! You need to get the ads working to get traffic. The real skill is in the FaceBook ads. It’s the skill of finding an audience. Before they launch - spend 2-3 weeks pre-launch; This is when you “want to fail” - who is your ideal customer? Where do they hang out? What do they do? create 10 types of custom avatars/personae. Chatbot Funnel for Amazon Pre-launch: Eg selling a baby blanket, 1. Decide on your Avatars (about 10) Mums who need babies to sleep better Mums interested in charity Mums who go running etc. etc. 2. Create FaceBook ad: "We have a new product launching in a couple of weeks. Let us know if you’re interested" 3. Send to all 10 audiences 4. Assess: After 2 weeks, check wihich audience converted best Product Launch using Chatbot You reach back out to say, 300 people, but only 10 people a day: so you reach 10 people a day for 30 days Client case study Big client - they know how to establish a brand - website, FaceBook Paul had been saying to them they need top do chatbot marketing Paul went into their audiences in FaceBook - audiences of people who have already Been on websites Clicked on FaceBook ads On messenger Did a sale for 80% off
By Michael Veazey. Discovered by Player FM and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Player FM, and audio is streamed directly from their servers. Hit the Subscribe button to track updates in Player FM, or paste the feed URL into other podcast apps.
Article Source: https://player.fm/series/amazing-fba-1461986/ep-342-chatbots-for-amazon-with-paul-harvey-of-seller-chatbot
Chatbots for Amazon - What are they & How to Launch with them What are chatbots for Amazon and why do they matter to Amazon or e-commerce sellers? Chatbots for Amazon are definitely an on-trend topic for Amazon sellers and e-commerce marketers. The question is whether they are really worth investigating and using. What are Chatbots? They are like instant messaging meets automated email marketing (email autoresponders). Facebook wants Messenger to be the WeChat of the west Facebook Messenger has currently around an 80% open rate because most businesses are not using it yet. But this will probably change as more marketers spam the system! It kills email in open rate, at about 20% open rate. Also as Paul is a former maths teacher - not into spelling and grammar - but can create 50-60 word message easily and quickly, compared to a complex sales email. WeChat Any Amazon seller who has been to China will have used it. You can use it to make payments or book a cab. You can send payments etc. you don’t need to carry cash Facebook wants Messenger to become a platform Buy things Give money to friends Communicate Facebook bought out WhatsApp; they own Instagram In fact, 3 of the 4 top social media platforms are owned by Facebook. And they plan to combine them into one. Who is Amazon’s biggest competitor? FaceBook has 5X the user base that Amazon has. As soon as FaceBook has that streamlined, it's going to start taking market share off Amazon in the e-commerce space. In Africa not many people have FaceBook but they all have WhatsApp. Everyone used to have a Blackberry. Now it's messaging. Where do you use Chatbots for Amazon? Let’s say you’re launching a product - 2-3 months of samples, revisions, sourcing, then you ship it out. This is what you’ve done on a bucket load of money. But now it’s on Amazon and you’ve done zero marketing. You sign up to Manychat, you run ads on FaceBook with big discount and send users to buy on Amazon. That is the launch! Downsides of last-minute Amazon launches with Chatbots But consider: this is to a cold audience! The amazon seller spent months sourcing but they did a poor job of launch. It’s interruption marketing - people go to FaceBook to gossip, not to buy. SO that means 1. High ad cost; 2. Big discount - because 80% off is the only way to get a response from a really cold audience. To explore using Seller Chatbot software, click here (affiliate link) The secret to using Chatbots for Amazon: Pre-launch That could be avoided with a pre-launch set of basic FaceBook ads 2-3 weeks before Create a list in advance Then reach out to a ready-made audience. FaceBook ads Whatever chatbot vehicle you use, you need fuel! You need to get the ads working to get traffic. The real skill is in the FaceBook ads. It’s the skill of finding an audience. Before they launch - spend 2-3 weeks pre-launch; This is when you “want to fail” - who is your ideal customer? Where do they hang out? What do they do? create 10 types of custom avatars/personae. Chatbot Funnel for Amazon Pre-launch: Eg selling a baby blanket, 1. Decide on your Avatars (about 10) Mums who need babies to sleep better Mums interested in charity Mums who go running etc. etc. 2. Create FaceBook ad: "We have a new product launching in a couple of weeks. Let us know if you’re interested" 3. Send to all 10 audiences 4. Assess: After 2 weeks, check wihich audience converted best Product Launch using Chatbot You reach back out to say, 300 people, but only 10 people a day: so you reach 10 people a day for 30 days Client case study Big client - they know how to establish a brand - website, FaceBook Paul had been saying to them they need top do chatbot marketing Paul went into their audiences in FaceBook - audiences of people who have already Been on websites Clicked on FaceBook ads On messenger Did a sale for 80% off
By Michael Veazey. Discovered by Player FM and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Player FM, and audio is streamed directly from their servers. Hit the Subscribe button to track updates in Player FM, or paste the feed URL into other podcast apps.
Article Source: https://player.fm/series/amazing-fba-1461986/ep-342-chatbots-for-amazon-with-paul-harvey-of-seller-chatbot
Thursday, 24 October 2019
Amazon chatbots and what they’re bringing to customer service
ere are few things more annoying to a customer than the following phrase: Your call is important to us. Please hold, we’re currently experiencing a high call load. Thankfully companies like Amazon are beginning to realize the damaging effects a phrase like this can have on their brand. The retail giant appears to be building its chatbots development team with the hiring of Angel.ai co-founder and CEO Navid Hadzaad.
The pros of chatbots to business
Amazon is implementing bot technology to better automate its online channels. AI-infused chatbots are a vital ingredient in the recipe of ‘conversational commerce’. This trend is beneficial because it can be used to drive sales through customer interaction and because it streamlines customer relationship management (CRM).
This technology will also strengthen Amazon’s search features with the help of natural language programming (NLP) – that is, it’ll allow smoother, more natural search functionality across the board.
Chatbots also have enormous potential to help Amazon significantly cut labor costs, and other companies should take note. Public Tableau suggests that 30% of customer service positions in the US could be automated through chatbots, saving an estimated $23 billion in annual salaries.
Another rapidly growing area that chatbot technology is helping in is inside the actual enterprise. Employees of companies like Amazon now have access to a range of intelligent assistants that can help them schedule meetings, manage tasks and interact with other employees. All this leads to an improved, more focused customer service employee and therefore an improved customer experience.
Chatbots will also help Amazon drive brand engagement. In the same way a website, blog, or Facebook page would deliver content, Amazon can use chatbots to push content to their customers. The major difference being that the content can be interactive and personalized.
Stumbling blocks to chatbot adoption
The chatbot experience also has some potential failings that, if left unchecked, could lead to alienating customers. If the technology is rolled out to a substandard level or if it’s only offered in isolation, companies like Amazon only risk adding another cumbersome element to the customer service process, something that’ll only succeed in driving customers away. Chatbots need to be seamlessly integrated into the current processes and need to be picked up on by a human agent. One study found that as many as 88 percent of respondents expect their chatbot interactions to be followed up with a transfer to a live person.
Unleashing chatbots into the customer service world has been a stroke of genius on Amazon’s part, matching technology with necessity. Chatbots will only get better, stronger, more versatile with time as we move towards the perfect CRM solution and Amazon is already on the way. Be sure to read our blog post on the future of CRM if you’re interested in the future growth of this technology alongside business workflow. In addition, have a look at our blog post that explores how Clickatell Touch is using artificial intelligence to revolutionize CRM.
Article Source: https://www.clickatell.com/articles/customer-relationship-management/amazon-chatbots-customer-service/
The pros of chatbots to business
Amazon is implementing bot technology to better automate its online channels. AI-infused chatbots are a vital ingredient in the recipe of ‘conversational commerce’. This trend is beneficial because it can be used to drive sales through customer interaction and because it streamlines customer relationship management (CRM).
This technology will also strengthen Amazon’s search features with the help of natural language programming (NLP) – that is, it’ll allow smoother, more natural search functionality across the board.
Chatbots also have enormous potential to help Amazon significantly cut labor costs, and other companies should take note. Public Tableau suggests that 30% of customer service positions in the US could be automated through chatbots, saving an estimated $23 billion in annual salaries.
Another rapidly growing area that chatbot technology is helping in is inside the actual enterprise. Employees of companies like Amazon now have access to a range of intelligent assistants that can help them schedule meetings, manage tasks and interact with other employees. All this leads to an improved, more focused customer service employee and therefore an improved customer experience.
Chatbots will also help Amazon drive brand engagement. In the same way a website, blog, or Facebook page would deliver content, Amazon can use chatbots to push content to their customers. The major difference being that the content can be interactive and personalized.
Stumbling blocks to chatbot adoption
The chatbot experience also has some potential failings that, if left unchecked, could lead to alienating customers. If the technology is rolled out to a substandard level or if it’s only offered in isolation, companies like Amazon only risk adding another cumbersome element to the customer service process, something that’ll only succeed in driving customers away. Chatbots need to be seamlessly integrated into the current processes and need to be picked up on by a human agent. One study found that as many as 88 percent of respondents expect their chatbot interactions to be followed up with a transfer to a live person.
Unleashing chatbots into the customer service world has been a stroke of genius on Amazon’s part, matching technology with necessity. Chatbots will only get better, stronger, more versatile with time as we move towards the perfect CRM solution and Amazon is already on the way. Be sure to read our blog post on the future of CRM if you’re interested in the future growth of this technology alongside business workflow. In addition, have a look at our blog post that explores how Clickatell Touch is using artificial intelligence to revolutionize CRM.
Article Source: https://www.clickatell.com/articles/customer-relationship-management/amazon-chatbots-customer-service/
Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Facebook Chatbot Campaigns To Increase Amazon Sales and Rankings
One of the most powerful, yet underutilized, tools at the disposal of Facebook marketers are Messenger chatbots.
Chatbots allow marketers to automate interactions with potential prospects through Facebook Messenger. It is a highly effective way of building and engaging your audience. Often marketers will see engagement rates 3, 5 or even 10 times greater than with email and other communication channels.
Since late 2017, advanced Amazon sellers have started to use chatbots to run product launches, promotions and to distribute coupons; with great results.
However, the main challenge has been the complexity in setting up a chatbot campaign. The common method sellers have been using is running promotions natively on Facebook without a landing page and daisy chaining a number of applications together such as ManyChat, Zapier, Google sheets to distribute coupons.
Not only is this tedious and time consuming to setup, the funnel it is also prone to breaking as there are so many moving pieces.
AMZPromoter’s Chatbot Solution
To address this issue of complexity we have come up with what we believe is the highest converting and easiest to setup solution on the market.
Introducing the Facebook Messenger Chatbot Campaign type on AMZPromoter.
Our solution still allows you to create highly converting, mobile optimized landing pages but we replace the email opt-in button with a Send To Messenger button so the funnel can be completed on Facebook Messenger using a chatbot.
The Benefits Of Using A Chatbot Campaign (Versus A Standard Landing Page Campaign)
The main benefit of using a Facebook Chatbot campaign versus a standard landing page campaign is reduced friction.
For a standard email opt-in campaign the user has to type in their name and email. Although this seems like a relatively benign task, many of your potential customers are lazy and if they don’t strongly desire your product they might decide against putting in the effort of typing and go back to Facebook to continue their browsing.
You have to think about what your prospects mindset it like when they see your ad. Generally people browse Facebook to ‘switch off’ (or because they are addicted!). They aren’t in the mood for exerting any effort and are happy mindlessly browsing. Typing their name and email and worrying about whether or not they trust you to not SPAM their email takes them out of that ‘switched off’ mindset and will cause a number of your potential prospects to not convert.
With a Facebook Chatbot campaign however the user does not need to type anything. All they needs to do is click a single button.
Standard coupon landing page funnels still have a place in your Amazon marketing arsenal. However, if you are running Facebook ads (particularly on mobile) you will likely get a higher conversion rate if you use a chatbot campaign. But the only way to find out is to test it yourself!
How To Set Up Your Chatbot Landing Page in AMZPromoter
Setting up your Chatbot campaign in AMZPromoter is quite straight forward.
The first thing to do is to select ‘Chatbot Campaign’ in the ‘Basic Setup’ tab.
From there just go through the campaign setup wizard per normal until you get to the last tab (Facebook Chatbot).
In the ‘Facebook Chatbot’ there are two flow options.
m.me Messenger Flow
Send To Messenger Flow
The m.me Messenger Flow is the simpler of the two. All you need to link AMZPromoter and your Chatbot is your ‘Page ID’, which you can get from Facebook, and the ‘Data Ref’ which can be found in your Chatbot.
Thats it!
You can read more about the technical details about setting up by clicking here to read our help guide.
What Chatbot should you use?
Although technically any Chatbot will work with AMZPromoter we recommend SellerChatBot as it is specifically designed for Amazon sellers.
The main advantage of using SellerChatBot is that it allows you to distribute one-time coupon codes without using any other application. You can simply upload your coupon codes onto the platform and it will automatically distribute the unique codes to your prospects when they interact with the bot. This will save you a huge amount of time and also reduce the risk of your funnel breaking.
If you are running promotions on Facebook ads you should definitely conduct a test with a Chatbot campaign and see if you get a higher conversion rate. We are confident you will be satisfied with the results!
Article Source: https://amzpromoter.com/blog/facebook-chatbot-campaigns/
Chatbots allow marketers to automate interactions with potential prospects through Facebook Messenger. It is a highly effective way of building and engaging your audience. Often marketers will see engagement rates 3, 5 or even 10 times greater than with email and other communication channels.
Since late 2017, advanced Amazon sellers have started to use chatbots to run product launches, promotions and to distribute coupons; with great results.
However, the main challenge has been the complexity in setting up a chatbot campaign. The common method sellers have been using is running promotions natively on Facebook without a landing page and daisy chaining a number of applications together such as ManyChat, Zapier, Google sheets to distribute coupons.
Not only is this tedious and time consuming to setup, the funnel it is also prone to breaking as there are so many moving pieces.
AMZPromoter’s Chatbot Solution
To address this issue of complexity we have come up with what we believe is the highest converting and easiest to setup solution on the market.
Introducing the Facebook Messenger Chatbot Campaign type on AMZPromoter.
Our solution still allows you to create highly converting, mobile optimized landing pages but we replace the email opt-in button with a Send To Messenger button so the funnel can be completed on Facebook Messenger using a chatbot.
The Benefits Of Using A Chatbot Campaign (Versus A Standard Landing Page Campaign)
The main benefit of using a Facebook Chatbot campaign versus a standard landing page campaign is reduced friction.
For a standard email opt-in campaign the user has to type in their name and email. Although this seems like a relatively benign task, many of your potential customers are lazy and if they don’t strongly desire your product they might decide against putting in the effort of typing and go back to Facebook to continue their browsing.
You have to think about what your prospects mindset it like when they see your ad. Generally people browse Facebook to ‘switch off’ (or because they are addicted!). They aren’t in the mood for exerting any effort and are happy mindlessly browsing. Typing their name and email and worrying about whether or not they trust you to not SPAM their email takes them out of that ‘switched off’ mindset and will cause a number of your potential prospects to not convert.
With a Facebook Chatbot campaign however the user does not need to type anything. All they needs to do is click a single button.
Standard coupon landing page funnels still have a place in your Amazon marketing arsenal. However, if you are running Facebook ads (particularly on mobile) you will likely get a higher conversion rate if you use a chatbot campaign. But the only way to find out is to test it yourself!
How To Set Up Your Chatbot Landing Page in AMZPromoter
Setting up your Chatbot campaign in AMZPromoter is quite straight forward.
The first thing to do is to select ‘Chatbot Campaign’ in the ‘Basic Setup’ tab.
From there just go through the campaign setup wizard per normal until you get to the last tab (Facebook Chatbot).
In the ‘Facebook Chatbot’ there are two flow options.
m.me Messenger Flow
Send To Messenger Flow
The m.me Messenger Flow is the simpler of the two. All you need to link AMZPromoter and your Chatbot is your ‘Page ID’, which you can get from Facebook, and the ‘Data Ref’ which can be found in your Chatbot.
Thats it!
You can read more about the technical details about setting up by clicking here to read our help guide.
What Chatbot should you use?
Although technically any Chatbot will work with AMZPromoter we recommend SellerChatBot as it is specifically designed for Amazon sellers.
The main advantage of using SellerChatBot is that it allows you to distribute one-time coupon codes without using any other application. You can simply upload your coupon codes onto the platform and it will automatically distribute the unique codes to your prospects when they interact with the bot. This will save you a huge amount of time and also reduce the risk of your funnel breaking.
If you are running promotions on Facebook ads you should definitely conduct a test with a Chatbot campaign and see if you get a higher conversion rate. We are confident you will be satisfied with the results!
Article Source: https://amzpromoter.com/blog/facebook-chatbot-campaigns/
Tuesday, 22 October 2019
Six Leaf | Anthony Lee: Can Messenger Chatbots Make You More Money on Amazon?
It’s a simple question. And no doubt you’ve heard of what a Messenger bot is. So, the question stands: Are you leveraging chatbots to grow your brand?
Often when we embark on the journey that is selling a private label brand online, specifically through Amazon FBA, it can become very easy to focus solely on the marketplace. We become overwhelmed with the new skills we must learn, and dedicate time and energy to mastering them; keyword ranking, optimization, sponsored product ads, promotions, coupons, lightning deals, and so on.
Rinse and repeat this process long enough and one day we look up and, ideally, we see that we’ve built a successful…Amazon business. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all. Quite the contrary, there is a lot of money to be made on Amazon and leveraging the platform makes sound business sense. Success is success.
The problem comes when we start to believe that the Amazon marketplace is the only source of gaining new customers. When we fall into this trap, we leave so much money on the table.
Research and statistics show that the majority of purchases on Amazon started with a keyword search using the platform’s search engine. That simply means the majority of sellers, including your competitors, aren’t doing a very good job driving targeted and directed traffic to their Amazon listings from outside sources. This presents a great opportunity.
The Viability of “Chatbots”
Messenger bots, otherwise called chatbots, represent a marketing strategy still in its infancy. Facebook just allowed Messenger objectives as an option in 2016.
What’s more, there is a good chance your competitors aren’t using chatbots in their marketing yet. While the technology is growing rapidly in popularity, many business owners and marketers still express concerns that the Messenger platform will one day go the way of email and people will simply tune out.
That seems like a viable concern, except that it isn’t.
The reason is because, unlike email, a mostly free service that isn’t heavily monitored and barely any support is offered to, Facebook is heavily monitored, heavily moderated and has a vested interest in ensuring the Messenger platform remains one of the most popular ways people communicate.
Simply put, Facebook cannot allow the Messenger platform to become over-run by bad marketing. It exists to enrich the lives of users, and now businesses have the unique opportunity to engage with that process.
Just take a look at some of these stats:
From the user perspective, according to the 2018 State of Chatbots Report, a large majority of people have plenty of reasons to engage with a chatbot if one is available. Chief among them are things like 24 hour service and getting an instant response.
From the business owner’s perspective, predictions of the growth of chatbots and what they are expected to achieve serve as a clear sign that they can help companies make money, hands down. Just look at these chatbot statistics from Ubisend:
Ok, so now that we are all on the same page regarding how viable a marketing channel Messenger is, what do we do about it?
Using Chatbots to Grow Your Brand
The Facebook Messenger platform, and chatbots that operate within it, are simply communication channels. But that is essentially what we as Amazon sellers lack, isn’t it? The ability to communicate with our customers?
But what can we achieve if we gain the ability to talk with customers?
For starters, we can provide more immediate and more helpful customer service. Sometimes, a sale or even a repeat sale rests on the strength of an interaction with a company.
If you compare side by side the process of interacting with a customer through Amazon’s messaging system, versus through Facebook Messenger, the results are startling. First of all, unless you are already logged into Seller Central, you won’t see that you received a message on Amazon until you get either an email notification, or you log back in.
When you use Amazon’s messaging system, you are limited to only seeing order information if the message is in connection with an order. So, if you are approached by a potential customer, you will only see their profile handle and no other information about them.
Contrast that with the rich and robust experience of Facebook Messenger. It is fast, users are alerted when their message has been read, the experience is seamless and highly convenient as well. Now, if you add a chatbot to the mix, customer support issues can be resolved almost immediately, information can be disseminated quickly and the customer can be moved through a positive experience with your brand in record time. This most assuredly can and will lead to more sales.
And that is just when using a chatbot for customer support. Now imagine you use it to communicate information about products.
To illustrate the potential here, I would like to show you screenshots of my own results. Now, I know my limited experience will not accurately represent the industry as a whole, but industry statistics are very much in line with my personal results.
First, take a look at this. These are the last five broadcasts I sent through one of my Manychat accounts. I use broadcasts to survey my audience, give them pertinent information about my brand, and introduce them to new products.
First, take a look at the open rates. 83 to 100%. That is simply incredible. I’ve never written an email that got those kinds of results (and I’m not a bad writer).
Now take a look at the next column, the click through rate. While those are much lower than the open rates, on the LOW end they hover at 25%. Again, this is an incredible number.
Now let’s compare that to an email list with roughly the same number of people on it. Here is a number of autoresponder sequences I have set up. Notice the abysmally lower open rates and CTR’s.
If that doesn’t open your eyes to the possibilities of chatbots in your marketing, I don’t know what will.
How to Maximize Your Chatbot/Amazon Experience
If you are already doing well on Amazon, that’s fantastic, but you can do even better. One of the best ways to achieve this is to turn on outside marketing channels in a highly targeted way. I suggest that the most cost effective way to get lasting results is through Facebook ads, targeting custom audience lookalikes with a Messenger objective, distributing a deal.
If you upload your buyer information from Amazon into Facebook you can create what is called a “custom audience.” This audience, once it becomes available to you, can be used to target advertisements to. That in and of itself is powerful. However, you can leverage the amazing power of Facebook’s platform intelligence even further by creating a “look alike audience” from that custom audience. When you do this, Facebook will identify millions of people on their platform who most similarly resemble your buyers.
With a pool of millions of potential customers, now you can run targeted ads with the objective to have them engage with your Messenger. Then, by setting up a simple chatbot like Manychat, you can offer people who engage with your ad and bot a deal to entice them to make a purchase.
And now the process is easier than ever.
Bridge by SixLeaf allows you to create a custom audience at the push of a button. With Bridge, you can also filter your buyer information by things like product, brand, amount spent, and more. You can even create an LTV (lifetime value) look alike audience directly from Bridge, so you can laser target only the people most likely to vote for your products with their wallet.
Code Courier by SixLeaf now offers Manychat integration, so you can distribute single-use Amazon coupon codes through Messenger that not only give out promo codes, but also direct buyers to your Amazon listing using our legendary Heatseeker URL. This is the most powerful way to both build your own list of customers and brand advocates AND rank for keywords simultaneously.
Messenger, chatbots and custom targeting are all innovations in advertising and communications technology that are shaping the future of marketing. SixLeaf is perfectly poised to offer Amazon sellers exactly the tools they need to leverage that technology and stay ahead of the curve, and their competitors.
UPDATE: March 2019
While the purpose of this article was to educate people on the potential of what they can achieve for their brand using chatbots, as well as to introduce everyone to features we have to integrate our tools with Facebook Messenger, we’ve gotten many requests for more details on those features.
We will write more extensively on this topic, but I thought I would add some more in-depth information on our Courier and Manychat template and campaign integration here in this post.
Let’s go over campaign setup and features within Courier by SixLeaf.
A Courier campaign offers the ability to distribute single use codes, a general code, or no code at all (for rebate setups). It also lets you add time and/or quantity based scarcity.
Next you can choose an integration (Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, etc). If you choose an Amazon product then you have the ability to use SixLeaf’s proprietary Heatseeker URL in the campaign.
You also have the ability to customize the Courier campaign “widget” fully. You can manipulate the fonts, text, spacing, imagery…every aspect of the offer window.
Analytics allows you to see which codes were taken, when they were taken, and by what IP address.
And you can also choose to install and integrate with our Manychat template, which will allow you to distribute your codes and/or URL through Facebook Messenger.
From there you can tag users, add them to sequences, and followup for a number of exposure-getting, brand-building actions (like reviews, social shares, referrals, etc).
Article Source: https://www.sixleaf.com/can-messenger-chatbots-make-you-more-money-on-amazon/
Often when we embark on the journey that is selling a private label brand online, specifically through Amazon FBA, it can become very easy to focus solely on the marketplace. We become overwhelmed with the new skills we must learn, and dedicate time and energy to mastering them; keyword ranking, optimization, sponsored product ads, promotions, coupons, lightning deals, and so on.
Rinse and repeat this process long enough and one day we look up and, ideally, we see that we’ve built a successful…Amazon business. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all. Quite the contrary, there is a lot of money to be made on Amazon and leveraging the platform makes sound business sense. Success is success.
The problem comes when we start to believe that the Amazon marketplace is the only source of gaining new customers. When we fall into this trap, we leave so much money on the table.
Research and statistics show that the majority of purchases on Amazon started with a keyword search using the platform’s search engine. That simply means the majority of sellers, including your competitors, aren’t doing a very good job driving targeted and directed traffic to their Amazon listings from outside sources. This presents a great opportunity.
The Viability of “Chatbots”
Messenger bots, otherwise called chatbots, represent a marketing strategy still in its infancy. Facebook just allowed Messenger objectives as an option in 2016.
What’s more, there is a good chance your competitors aren’t using chatbots in their marketing yet. While the technology is growing rapidly in popularity, many business owners and marketers still express concerns that the Messenger platform will one day go the way of email and people will simply tune out.
That seems like a viable concern, except that it isn’t.
The reason is because, unlike email, a mostly free service that isn’t heavily monitored and barely any support is offered to, Facebook is heavily monitored, heavily moderated and has a vested interest in ensuring the Messenger platform remains one of the most popular ways people communicate.
Simply put, Facebook cannot allow the Messenger platform to become over-run by bad marketing. It exists to enrich the lives of users, and now businesses have the unique opportunity to engage with that process.
Just take a look at some of these stats:
From the user perspective, according to the 2018 State of Chatbots Report, a large majority of people have plenty of reasons to engage with a chatbot if one is available. Chief among them are things like 24 hour service and getting an instant response.
From the business owner’s perspective, predictions of the growth of chatbots and what they are expected to achieve serve as a clear sign that they can help companies make money, hands down. Just look at these chatbot statistics from Ubisend:
Ok, so now that we are all on the same page regarding how viable a marketing channel Messenger is, what do we do about it?
Using Chatbots to Grow Your Brand
The Facebook Messenger platform, and chatbots that operate within it, are simply communication channels. But that is essentially what we as Amazon sellers lack, isn’t it? The ability to communicate with our customers?
But what can we achieve if we gain the ability to talk with customers?
For starters, we can provide more immediate and more helpful customer service. Sometimes, a sale or even a repeat sale rests on the strength of an interaction with a company.
If you compare side by side the process of interacting with a customer through Amazon’s messaging system, versus through Facebook Messenger, the results are startling. First of all, unless you are already logged into Seller Central, you won’t see that you received a message on Amazon until you get either an email notification, or you log back in.
When you use Amazon’s messaging system, you are limited to only seeing order information if the message is in connection with an order. So, if you are approached by a potential customer, you will only see their profile handle and no other information about them.
Contrast that with the rich and robust experience of Facebook Messenger. It is fast, users are alerted when their message has been read, the experience is seamless and highly convenient as well. Now, if you add a chatbot to the mix, customer support issues can be resolved almost immediately, information can be disseminated quickly and the customer can be moved through a positive experience with your brand in record time. This most assuredly can and will lead to more sales.
And that is just when using a chatbot for customer support. Now imagine you use it to communicate information about products.
To illustrate the potential here, I would like to show you screenshots of my own results. Now, I know my limited experience will not accurately represent the industry as a whole, but industry statistics are very much in line with my personal results.
First, take a look at this. These are the last five broadcasts I sent through one of my Manychat accounts. I use broadcasts to survey my audience, give them pertinent information about my brand, and introduce them to new products.
First, take a look at the open rates. 83 to 100%. That is simply incredible. I’ve never written an email that got those kinds of results (and I’m not a bad writer).
Now take a look at the next column, the click through rate. While those are much lower than the open rates, on the LOW end they hover at 25%. Again, this is an incredible number.
Now let’s compare that to an email list with roughly the same number of people on it. Here is a number of autoresponder sequences I have set up. Notice the abysmally lower open rates and CTR’s.
If that doesn’t open your eyes to the possibilities of chatbots in your marketing, I don’t know what will.
How to Maximize Your Chatbot/Amazon Experience
If you are already doing well on Amazon, that’s fantastic, but you can do even better. One of the best ways to achieve this is to turn on outside marketing channels in a highly targeted way. I suggest that the most cost effective way to get lasting results is through Facebook ads, targeting custom audience lookalikes with a Messenger objective, distributing a deal.
If you upload your buyer information from Amazon into Facebook you can create what is called a “custom audience.” This audience, once it becomes available to you, can be used to target advertisements to. That in and of itself is powerful. However, you can leverage the amazing power of Facebook’s platform intelligence even further by creating a “look alike audience” from that custom audience. When you do this, Facebook will identify millions of people on their platform who most similarly resemble your buyers.
With a pool of millions of potential customers, now you can run targeted ads with the objective to have them engage with your Messenger. Then, by setting up a simple chatbot like Manychat, you can offer people who engage with your ad and bot a deal to entice them to make a purchase.
And now the process is easier than ever.
Bridge by SixLeaf allows you to create a custom audience at the push of a button. With Bridge, you can also filter your buyer information by things like product, brand, amount spent, and more. You can even create an LTV (lifetime value) look alike audience directly from Bridge, so you can laser target only the people most likely to vote for your products with their wallet.
Code Courier by SixLeaf now offers Manychat integration, so you can distribute single-use Amazon coupon codes through Messenger that not only give out promo codes, but also direct buyers to your Amazon listing using our legendary Heatseeker URL. This is the most powerful way to both build your own list of customers and brand advocates AND rank for keywords simultaneously.
Messenger, chatbots and custom targeting are all innovations in advertising and communications technology that are shaping the future of marketing. SixLeaf is perfectly poised to offer Amazon sellers exactly the tools they need to leverage that technology and stay ahead of the curve, and their competitors.
UPDATE: March 2019
While the purpose of this article was to educate people on the potential of what they can achieve for their brand using chatbots, as well as to introduce everyone to features we have to integrate our tools with Facebook Messenger, we’ve gotten many requests for more details on those features.
We will write more extensively on this topic, but I thought I would add some more in-depth information on our Courier and Manychat template and campaign integration here in this post.
Let’s go over campaign setup and features within Courier by SixLeaf.
A Courier campaign offers the ability to distribute single use codes, a general code, or no code at all (for rebate setups). It also lets you add time and/or quantity based scarcity.
Next you can choose an integration (Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, etc). If you choose an Amazon product then you have the ability to use SixLeaf’s proprietary Heatseeker URL in the campaign.
You also have the ability to customize the Courier campaign “widget” fully. You can manipulate the fonts, text, spacing, imagery…every aspect of the offer window.
Analytics allows you to see which codes were taken, when they were taken, and by what IP address.
And you can also choose to install and integrate with our Manychat template, which will allow you to distribute your codes and/or URL through Facebook Messenger.
From there you can tag users, add them to sequences, and followup for a number of exposure-getting, brand-building actions (like reviews, social shares, referrals, etc).
Article Source: https://www.sixleaf.com/can-messenger-chatbots-make-you-more-money-on-amazon/
Monday, 21 October 2019
ManyChat: How to Set up an Amazon Giveaway Bot Contest That Generates Sales, Leads, and Product Reviews
The idea of giving something away for free and still making money sounds a little wonky at first glance.
Seasoned marketers know that giving products away for free can be an extremely effective marketing tool. Just look at the businesses around you and observe what they’re doing. You won’t have to look far before seeing plenty of offers to “buy one get one free” or “claim your free widget today.”
Think about how many times you’ve started a free trial for software or services. If you liked the product, you probably ponied up the cash to buy it. But what if there hadn’t been a free trial? You would have been much more reluctant to pull out your credit card and might have even gone to a competitor of the product instead.
How about free samples? If you’ve ever been to Costco or Amazon giveaway bots, you know they’re all pushing free samples all the time, and it’s not just a coincidence.
Why? Because free works.
Free is one of the most powerful ways to provide leads and/or established customers with huge value to build brand awareness and loyalty.
And so, with this information in mind, here’s yet another feather in the cap of Messenger Marketing: bots are pretty much the perfect tool for running a giveaway campaign, often with (much) higher engagement rates than email.
Today we’re digging into one of the most effective ways to utilize freebies, a time-tested classic marketing maneuver: the giveaway.
Except this time, we’re going to put a more modern spin on it…
Why Giveaways Work for Amazon Sellers
A lot of ecommerce business owners tend to shy away from giveaways, especially when they’re just starting out. With a limited budget and inventory, the idea of giving away their precious product for free seems foolhardy.
This, however, is a pretty massive misconception.
Product launches—whether it’s your first or your hundredth—are a super effective time to launch a giveaway campaign, whether that’s in the form of a contest or a “buy one get one” scenario.
The bottom line here is that giveaways are an investment, not a loss.
Suppose that you run a giveaway contest on Facebook. While plenty of successful campaigns give away a single product, let’s go a little crazy and say you were giving away 10 items. To keep things easy, let’s say your cost per product is $10. That’s a total of $100 “lost” to the giveaway campaign.
However, say that your contest racks up 1,000 new leads (not unheard of by any stretch of the imagination). That’s $0.10 per lead… which, to put it plainly, is dirt cheap pretty much regardless of your product type or niche—physical product sellers typically pay significantly more per lead.
That, of course, is a fairly simplified example, but the point stands: giveaway campaigns + messenger bots = a match made in heaven.
Let’s dive into the details of how you can run one of these campaigns yourself.
The 3 Steps to Harnessing the Power of Giveaways With Facebook Messenger Bots
Time for nuts and bolts.
Here’s a rough sequence of events for running a giveaway with messenger chatbots:
Create a landing page for your giveaway. ManyChat’s free growth tools make it easy to create a straightforward opt-in page.
Get visibility for your giveaway. This will likely be via Facebook ads. There are free methods of course (including simply posting the giveaway details on your page), but for the most visibility ads will be best.
Create your messenger bot sequence and tie it all together. This is where the real magic happens.
That’s it—three steps to generate sales, leads, and reviews by giving away a handful of your products for free.
The messenger bot sequence is where the real meat and potatoes are found, which we’ll discuss shortly. If you’ve been an online entrepreneur for any length of time, steps 1-2 are likely things you’re already pretty familiar with, although we’re going to dive into a few expert tips to improve your chances of success with this particular strategy below.
Messenger Bot Giveaway Landing Page Do’s and Don’t’s
The first thing to be aware of is that landing pages for messenger bot giveaway contests should not utilize long form copy at all—we’re not saying that it’s impossible, but generally speaking it’s totally unnecessary and will likely be detrimental to the performance of your campaign.
In other words, we’re going to be applying the good old K.I.S.S. principle here: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Your short form copy should clearly explain…
What the product is and why it’s so great. Keep in mind that it’s possible people coming across your giveaway don’t know what your product is or why they’ll need it. Your copy should touch on the most important benefits and pain point solutions of your product.
How to enter the contest. This will likely be something along the lines of “Click the ‘Send to Messenger’ button below OR to comment below the post to be auto-added to your list, depending on your backend setup OR to enter their email address. In some cases, you can link your email marketing platform with your ManyChat messenger bot. More on this later.
When the contest ends. It has to end sometime, after all. Setting a firm date will create a sense of urgency for users and give you the opportunity to reach out to winners (and, as we’ll see later on, to contact the majority of users who didn’t win).
Keep the images and graphics light, with a clear eye path to your CTA and/or button.
Simple, short landing pages work better for contests because for most people, the decision to enter is a spur of the moment thing. If you’ve ever entered one, you probably thought, “I probably won’t win but it would be neat if I did, so I’ll go ahead and dedicate the next 15 seconds of my life to entering.”
If entering the contest took too long or if too much of your information was demanded, unless you really, really wanted whatever it was, you were probably out of there.
If you’re not a designer, don’t sweat it: ManyChat’s free growth tools make putting together a landing page with these features a breeze.
Amazon Giveaway Facebook Ads Done Right
Above is an example campaign. As you can see, short ‘n sweet is the order of the day here as well. In large part, you’ll want to mimic the same strategies that you would use for a landing page.
However, if you look a little closer at this campaign, you’ll notice that users can opt-in to the giveaway simply by commenting below.
If you haven’t ran a contest with comment opt-ins, you’ll be blown away by the response rate they can get. It’s easy and simple for people to enter, and yes, they do occasionally tag friends, which is just more free exposure for your contest.
As for the copy itself, you’ll notice that we…
Added a bit of social proof (“people are freaking out”)
Clearly explained what they’re getting (a year’s supply of dog food)
Clearly explained how to enter
Clearly explained that you’re going to follow up via Facebook messenger and that they’ll need to follow the instructions.
You’ll also likely want to mention below-the-fold that entrants must be 18+ and residents of the US (or your preferred country). You’ll also need to add a note about the contest not being associated with Facebook—copy for ads like this typically include boilerplate like:
You must be 18 years of age or older to enter. US residents only. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to the owner of this Facebook page and not to Facebook.
Also, and this should really go without saying, you need to be running a real contest with real winners—if you try to go “blackhat” and get cute with a campaign like this, it’ll more than likely bite you back down the line.
Tip: always split test your ads.
Now, let’s move on to the fun stuff, your messenger bot sequence after a user opts in.
Giveaway Messenger Bot Sequences
This is where things get exciting. Designing the sequence of your messenger bot messages is easy thanks to ManyChat’s Flow Builder. We’re going to proceed assuming you have a basic understanding of messenger bot sequences. If you don’t, read the post linked above.
It’s fairly obvious that a giveaway gives you a great opportunity to build a strong relationship with the winner(s). That’s great, but the vast majority of your entrants won’t be winners. There’s power in numbers, and the people who didn’t win are your bread and butter.
You’re not going to warm up to everyone on your first message; it takes time. Your complete sequence might last anywhere from two weeks to a full month—you’re playing the long game here.
Here’s an example of what your sequence might look like:
Day 1: Send them a welcome message confirming their entry into the contest. This is actually your opportunity to confirm that they want to hear more from your bot. Typically you’ll have them reply with a string or tapping a check mark (e.g., “Reply with ‘enter contest’ to get all the details from us!”).
Day 2: Second confirmation of entry. This follow up message can pick up a good percentage of users who ignored the initial message. If they already entered, this is your first opportunity to sell your product. You might tell them that if they don’t want to wait, they can buy the product at a discount “today only.”
Day 7-10: Typically contests run for 7-10 days, so somewhere in this time range you need to announce the winners. Again, you have an opportunity to offer those who didn’t win the chance to buy your product at a discount (as something of a consolation prize).
Day 15: Another follow up message, letting users know this is their last chance to get a discount on your product.
Day 20: At this point if a user purchased your product, they probably would have received it in the mail. Now is your chance to ask for a review.
Day 25: Review follow up.
As you can see, this sequence runs for nearly a month. There are three offers for your product at a discount—and asks for an honest review of that product twice.
It’s important to ask for reviews, whether you’re doing so via messenger bot or any other mode of communication. 70% of consumers will leave a review for a business… IF you ask them for one.
This sequence can of course be tweaked in many different ways. Maybe on day 10 you offer them a free ebook that really dives into how to use your product and the benefits of doing so. Maybe on day 15 you offer them the steepest discount yet, along with a video demonstration of your product in action.
When you set up your flows correctly, you can even segment your entrants into different categories. Winners can receive offers for complementary products later. Entrants who haven’t purchased the product by a predetermined time might be offered a different product.
There are so many different ways to spin your sequence and flows that you should be mentally salivating at the possibilities.
Bottom line? Free is good.
What’s Next?
Facebook messenger bots offer an incredibly unique opportunity. If history has taught us anything, those entrepreneurs who jump on new technology enjoy the most rapid and profound growth. (Don’t you wish you were doing email in the late 90s?).
Here’s a few other posts from the Manychat blog that you may find complementary to the information in this post:
Facebook Messenger Marketing Case Study: How A Local Mexican Restaurant Generated 85¢ Leads Using A Simple Chatbot
The New Business Card: Generate Customer Reviews on Your Facebook Business Page Using a Customer Review Bot
The Ultimate Guide To Messenger Marketing and Facebook Chatbots
If you’re an Amazon seller or other ecommerce entrepreneur, you’re plain old silly if you ignore this technology. There’s so many different ways to use it, but we humbly believe giveaway campaigns are among the most powerful.
Don’t miss this gravy train.
See you on the other side.
Article Source: https://manychat.com/blog/amazon-giveaway-bot/
Seasoned marketers know that giving products away for free can be an extremely effective marketing tool. Just look at the businesses around you and observe what they’re doing. You won’t have to look far before seeing plenty of offers to “buy one get one free” or “claim your free widget today.”
Think about how many times you’ve started a free trial for software or services. If you liked the product, you probably ponied up the cash to buy it. But what if there hadn’t been a free trial? You would have been much more reluctant to pull out your credit card and might have even gone to a competitor of the product instead.
How about free samples? If you’ve ever been to Costco or Amazon giveaway bots, you know they’re all pushing free samples all the time, and it’s not just a coincidence.
Why? Because free works.
Free is one of the most powerful ways to provide leads and/or established customers with huge value to build brand awareness and loyalty.
And so, with this information in mind, here’s yet another feather in the cap of Messenger Marketing: bots are pretty much the perfect tool for running a giveaway campaign, often with (much) higher engagement rates than email.
Today we’re digging into one of the most effective ways to utilize freebies, a time-tested classic marketing maneuver: the giveaway.
Except this time, we’re going to put a more modern spin on it…
Why Giveaways Work for Amazon Sellers
A lot of ecommerce business owners tend to shy away from giveaways, especially when they’re just starting out. With a limited budget and inventory, the idea of giving away their precious product for free seems foolhardy.
This, however, is a pretty massive misconception.
Product launches—whether it’s your first or your hundredth—are a super effective time to launch a giveaway campaign, whether that’s in the form of a contest or a “buy one get one” scenario.
The bottom line here is that giveaways are an investment, not a loss.
Suppose that you run a giveaway contest on Facebook. While plenty of successful campaigns give away a single product, let’s go a little crazy and say you were giving away 10 items. To keep things easy, let’s say your cost per product is $10. That’s a total of $100 “lost” to the giveaway campaign.
However, say that your contest racks up 1,000 new leads (not unheard of by any stretch of the imagination). That’s $0.10 per lead… which, to put it plainly, is dirt cheap pretty much regardless of your product type or niche—physical product sellers typically pay significantly more per lead.
That, of course, is a fairly simplified example, but the point stands: giveaway campaigns + messenger bots = a match made in heaven.
Let’s dive into the details of how you can run one of these campaigns yourself.
The 3 Steps to Harnessing the Power of Giveaways With Facebook Messenger Bots
Time for nuts and bolts.
Here’s a rough sequence of events for running a giveaway with messenger chatbots:
Create a landing page for your giveaway. ManyChat’s free growth tools make it easy to create a straightforward opt-in page.
Get visibility for your giveaway. This will likely be via Facebook ads. There are free methods of course (including simply posting the giveaway details on your page), but for the most visibility ads will be best.
Create your messenger bot sequence and tie it all together. This is where the real magic happens.
That’s it—three steps to generate sales, leads, and reviews by giving away a handful of your products for free.
The messenger bot sequence is where the real meat and potatoes are found, which we’ll discuss shortly. If you’ve been an online entrepreneur for any length of time, steps 1-2 are likely things you’re already pretty familiar with, although we’re going to dive into a few expert tips to improve your chances of success with this particular strategy below.
Messenger Bot Giveaway Landing Page Do’s and Don’t’s
The first thing to be aware of is that landing pages for messenger bot giveaway contests should not utilize long form copy at all—we’re not saying that it’s impossible, but generally speaking it’s totally unnecessary and will likely be detrimental to the performance of your campaign.
In other words, we’re going to be applying the good old K.I.S.S. principle here: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Your short form copy should clearly explain…
What the product is and why it’s so great. Keep in mind that it’s possible people coming across your giveaway don’t know what your product is or why they’ll need it. Your copy should touch on the most important benefits and pain point solutions of your product.
How to enter the contest. This will likely be something along the lines of “Click the ‘Send to Messenger’ button below OR to comment below the post to be auto-added to your list, depending on your backend setup OR to enter their email address. In some cases, you can link your email marketing platform with your ManyChat messenger bot. More on this later.
When the contest ends. It has to end sometime, after all. Setting a firm date will create a sense of urgency for users and give you the opportunity to reach out to winners (and, as we’ll see later on, to contact the majority of users who didn’t win).
Keep the images and graphics light, with a clear eye path to your CTA and/or button.
Simple, short landing pages work better for contests because for most people, the decision to enter is a spur of the moment thing. If you’ve ever entered one, you probably thought, “I probably won’t win but it would be neat if I did, so I’ll go ahead and dedicate the next 15 seconds of my life to entering.”
If entering the contest took too long or if too much of your information was demanded, unless you really, really wanted whatever it was, you were probably out of there.
If you’re not a designer, don’t sweat it: ManyChat’s free growth tools make putting together a landing page with these features a breeze.
Amazon Giveaway Facebook Ads Done Right
Above is an example campaign. As you can see, short ‘n sweet is the order of the day here as well. In large part, you’ll want to mimic the same strategies that you would use for a landing page.
However, if you look a little closer at this campaign, you’ll notice that users can opt-in to the giveaway simply by commenting below.
If you haven’t ran a contest with comment opt-ins, you’ll be blown away by the response rate they can get. It’s easy and simple for people to enter, and yes, they do occasionally tag friends, which is just more free exposure for your contest.
As for the copy itself, you’ll notice that we…
Added a bit of social proof (“people are freaking out”)
Clearly explained what they’re getting (a year’s supply of dog food)
Clearly explained how to enter
Clearly explained that you’re going to follow up via Facebook messenger and that they’ll need to follow the instructions.
You’ll also likely want to mention below-the-fold that entrants must be 18+ and residents of the US (or your preferred country). You’ll also need to add a note about the contest not being associated with Facebook—copy for ads like this typically include boilerplate like:
You must be 18 years of age or older to enter. US residents only. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to the owner of this Facebook page and not to Facebook.
Also, and this should really go without saying, you need to be running a real contest with real winners—if you try to go “blackhat” and get cute with a campaign like this, it’ll more than likely bite you back down the line.
Tip: always split test your ads.
Now, let’s move on to the fun stuff, your messenger bot sequence after a user opts in.
Giveaway Messenger Bot Sequences
This is where things get exciting. Designing the sequence of your messenger bot messages is easy thanks to ManyChat’s Flow Builder. We’re going to proceed assuming you have a basic understanding of messenger bot sequences. If you don’t, read the post linked above.
It’s fairly obvious that a giveaway gives you a great opportunity to build a strong relationship with the winner(s). That’s great, but the vast majority of your entrants won’t be winners. There’s power in numbers, and the people who didn’t win are your bread and butter.
You’re not going to warm up to everyone on your first message; it takes time. Your complete sequence might last anywhere from two weeks to a full month—you’re playing the long game here.
Here’s an example of what your sequence might look like:
Day 1: Send them a welcome message confirming their entry into the contest. This is actually your opportunity to confirm that they want to hear more from your bot. Typically you’ll have them reply with a string or tapping a check mark (e.g., “Reply with ‘enter contest’ to get all the details from us!”).
Day 2: Second confirmation of entry. This follow up message can pick up a good percentage of users who ignored the initial message. If they already entered, this is your first opportunity to sell your product. You might tell them that if they don’t want to wait, they can buy the product at a discount “today only.”
Day 7-10: Typically contests run for 7-10 days, so somewhere in this time range you need to announce the winners. Again, you have an opportunity to offer those who didn’t win the chance to buy your product at a discount (as something of a consolation prize).
Day 15: Another follow up message, letting users know this is their last chance to get a discount on your product.
Day 20: At this point if a user purchased your product, they probably would have received it in the mail. Now is your chance to ask for a review.
Day 25: Review follow up.
As you can see, this sequence runs for nearly a month. There are three offers for your product at a discount—and asks for an honest review of that product twice.
It’s important to ask for reviews, whether you’re doing so via messenger bot or any other mode of communication. 70% of consumers will leave a review for a business… IF you ask them for one.
This sequence can of course be tweaked in many different ways. Maybe on day 10 you offer them a free ebook that really dives into how to use your product and the benefits of doing so. Maybe on day 15 you offer them the steepest discount yet, along with a video demonstration of your product in action.
When you set up your flows correctly, you can even segment your entrants into different categories. Winners can receive offers for complementary products later. Entrants who haven’t purchased the product by a predetermined time might be offered a different product.
There are so many different ways to spin your sequence and flows that you should be mentally salivating at the possibilities.
Bottom line? Free is good.
What’s Next?
Facebook messenger bots offer an incredibly unique opportunity. If history has taught us anything, those entrepreneurs who jump on new technology enjoy the most rapid and profound growth. (Don’t you wish you were doing email in the late 90s?).
Here’s a few other posts from the Manychat blog that you may find complementary to the information in this post:
Facebook Messenger Marketing Case Study: How A Local Mexican Restaurant Generated 85¢ Leads Using A Simple Chatbot
The New Business Card: Generate Customer Reviews on Your Facebook Business Page Using a Customer Review Bot
The Ultimate Guide To Messenger Marketing and Facebook Chatbots
If you’re an Amazon seller or other ecommerce entrepreneur, you’re plain old silly if you ignore this technology. There’s so many different ways to use it, but we humbly believe giveaway campaigns are among the most powerful.
Don’t miss this gravy train.
See you on the other side.
Article Source: https://manychat.com/blog/amazon-giveaway-bot/
Friday, 18 October 2019
Puzzle London: Alex Dixon | How Chatbots Will Solve Real Estate Challenges in 2019
You only have to switch on the news for three minutes before concluding that at the moment, UK businesses are in quite a precarious position. Inevitably, one word that looms over the horizon, causing various industries to quake in fear, is Brexit.
That Pandora’s Box of regulations, redundancies, and reduced Raclette reserves. But did someone say Real Estate opportunities too?
Okay, perhaps it isn’t entirely apocalyptic, especially with the brilliant development and utilisation of Machine Learning that is already influencing our everyday lives. Maybe technology can shine like the Beacons of Gondor, to help enterprises soar in these unpredictable times (more on this in a minute).
It is however no exaggeration that the housing market is experiencing a state of uncertainty. Some experts speculate that we are in a clear buyers-market, with decreased prices caused by fewer international buyers and properties stubbornly refusing to sell. Others suggest that this issue is exclusive to the capital, citing market growth in places like Liverpool and Manchester where prices are still happily rising. Further commentators observe that property prices in London are still ludicrously high, having only ever been topped in early 2017.
So, creating clear digestible trends from such conflicting pieces of information is not always simple.
What is undeniable though, high street companies are struggling, and Estate Agents are not an exception. One can look to Foxton’s six branch closures in the capital as a sign of this, and its stock price misfortunes (shared with the likes of Countrywide PLC).
As alluded to earlier, technologically savvy companies – though not entirely spared from the difficulties of their high street companions – are having an easier time, and boast the potential to thrive in these challenging waters.
Automation, “Big Data”, and so called virtual-assistants all benefit and work in conjunction with this decade’s consumer trend, the need for total accessibility. The modern customer wants results at any time, in any location, and on any device.
To give some perspective, 60% of searches are from mobile devices, and 66% of consumers prefer to contact brands via messages. Furthermore, with 1.3 billion monthly active users, Facebook Messenger is a particularly potent tool.
A refusal to adapt is prehistoric, and inflexible Real Estate monoliths will find their next generation of potential customers seduced and swept away by more agile and progressive companies.
So, how do we keep up with these ever more demanding consumer requirements. Simple – we need to meet customers on platforms that they are most comfortable on.
This is where – *drumroll please* – Chatbots step in, and step up. A versatile digital tool that can assist estate agents by generating leads, substantially lowering costs, cultivating data, perfectly representing the brand, and far more.
What’s more, Chatbots are available round the clock, for your customer’s every need.
7 Key Areas That Bots Will Add Value In Real Estate:
Help Humans, Save Resources
• According to McKinsey, around 30% of customer service positions could be automated through chatbots.
• Bots can easily compile those repetitive, tedious, but so-very necessary tasks, freeing up your workforce to take on more complex and fulfilling areas of work. Undoubtedly, your motivated employees will benefit from this.
• They offer great commercial potential to save Agencies from spending huge amounts on an overpopulated but under stimulated workforce.
Qualify leads and schedule viewings = Resources Saved
New York had a fun one – a Chatbot helped sell 3 apartments, in 10 days, at a cost of €1.6 per pre-qualified lead:
• Chatbots can take potential leads through the first stages of the online customer journey in a seamless, quick, and convenient manner.
• No more form filling: Bots can ask leads questions regarding desired properties, then provide tailored suggestions, which become optimize as the Bot learns.
• Bots can schedule viewings, arrange timings and alert the relevant realtor, when the lead finds a positive property. Bots can even offer 360’ walkthroughs of properties, to further qualify the lead before the viewing.
Databases and Referrals
A quick stat-spree:
• 88%of buyers would use the same agent or refer them;
• 84% of sellers would use their agent again;
• 82% of ALL real estate transactions are referrals
• Yet only 25% of agents cultivate their existing contacts and past clients for referrals – those who do generate more than 50% of their annual business this way!
What if there is a way for databases to automatically update, and for those same pots of gold to mine themselves at the perfect moment, without any time spent?
• If a customer is not ready to arrange a viewing in the first interaction, the Bot can take invaluable information, like how and when the customer wants to be targeted, to be put into a CRM for use in more tailored marketing campaigns.
• Property preferences can be fed back into an ever-improving recommendation system, utilising Big Data, which can then be fed back to the chatbot.
• Bots can initiate conversations with online leads, and chase customers who have visited the website previously, this time providing more relevant suggestions.
Inspire Millennials
As mentioned above, it makes sense to approach customers on platforms that they use regularly:
• Bots can handle quick conversations with the newest generation of buyers on their phone, answering any questions and concerns that they may have.
• This is a sure-fire way to welcome a new loyal audience, who appreciate a brand that is engaging, inclusive, and reputable.
Synergise with conventional paid media
• Paid media campaigns – used in isolation – can be high priced in such a saturated market. Sure, they increase presence, but in competitive industries, bidding against high-budget entities can be very expensive.
• When used in conjunction with one another, the ROI for social campaigns which utilise chatbots are greatly multiplied.
• Chatbots are an exceptionally accessible natural progression from typical campaigns, turbocharging online presence through engaging and efficient interactions.
Converse with potential customers
• Through Natural Language Processing, Bots can understand the potential customer’s written text, and converse in a manner that fluid and natural.
• Typical online form filling, with awkward parameters and clunky options that can be frustrating for customers, is no longer a necessity.
• This interactivity cuts down redundant online browsing time, keeping the customer engaged during their time on the site, with no need to turn to competition.
24/7 representative
• Bots are available at any time to assist the customer, on any device
• When workers are not available on social media, Bots can take care of new leads and provide auto responses and information on potential properties
• Chatbots can personify company values, demonstrating the image and tone that the agency wishes to brand themselves with
These benefits are not restricted to Estate Agents. For example, Chatbots can be a concierge to assist letting agents, answering tenant’s questions, and assisting with payments.
And of course, there is great potential for disruption in wider industries too; just look at how they’re impacting Retail – there is brilliant overlap in the benefits that Bots offer.
So, Artificial Intelligence is not necessarily the malevolent force that we viewed with such animosity and fear after the Terminator films, and we won’t all lose our jobs… who would have thought it?
There is clearly great potential for success in the marriage between Artificial intelligence and Real Estate. With the ability to assist agents, chase referrals, secure leads, and display the company’s desired social persona, they offer value in a range of ways. It just takes a little creative flare, and a clear strategy.
Article Source: http://puzzlelondon.com/2018/11/26/chatbots-will-solve-real-estate-challenges-2019/
That Pandora’s Box of regulations, redundancies, and reduced Raclette reserves. But did someone say Real Estate opportunities too?
Okay, perhaps it isn’t entirely apocalyptic, especially with the brilliant development and utilisation of Machine Learning that is already influencing our everyday lives. Maybe technology can shine like the Beacons of Gondor, to help enterprises soar in these unpredictable times (more on this in a minute).
It is however no exaggeration that the housing market is experiencing a state of uncertainty. Some experts speculate that we are in a clear buyers-market, with decreased prices caused by fewer international buyers and properties stubbornly refusing to sell. Others suggest that this issue is exclusive to the capital, citing market growth in places like Liverpool and Manchester where prices are still happily rising. Further commentators observe that property prices in London are still ludicrously high, having only ever been topped in early 2017.
So, creating clear digestible trends from such conflicting pieces of information is not always simple.
What is undeniable though, high street companies are struggling, and Estate Agents are not an exception. One can look to Foxton’s six branch closures in the capital as a sign of this, and its stock price misfortunes (shared with the likes of Countrywide PLC).
As alluded to earlier, technologically savvy companies – though not entirely spared from the difficulties of their high street companions – are having an easier time, and boast the potential to thrive in these challenging waters.
Automation, “Big Data”, and so called virtual-assistants all benefit and work in conjunction with this decade’s consumer trend, the need for total accessibility. The modern customer wants results at any time, in any location, and on any device.
To give some perspective, 60% of searches are from mobile devices, and 66% of consumers prefer to contact brands via messages. Furthermore, with 1.3 billion monthly active users, Facebook Messenger is a particularly potent tool.
A refusal to adapt is prehistoric, and inflexible Real Estate monoliths will find their next generation of potential customers seduced and swept away by more agile and progressive companies.
So, how do we keep up with these ever more demanding consumer requirements. Simple – we need to meet customers on platforms that they are most comfortable on.
This is where – *drumroll please* – Chatbots step in, and step up. A versatile digital tool that can assist estate agents by generating leads, substantially lowering costs, cultivating data, perfectly representing the brand, and far more.
What’s more, Chatbots are available round the clock, for your customer’s every need.
7 Key Areas That Bots Will Add Value In Real Estate:
Help Humans, Save Resources
• According to McKinsey, around 30% of customer service positions could be automated through chatbots.
• Bots can easily compile those repetitive, tedious, but so-very necessary tasks, freeing up your workforce to take on more complex and fulfilling areas of work. Undoubtedly, your motivated employees will benefit from this.
• They offer great commercial potential to save Agencies from spending huge amounts on an overpopulated but under stimulated workforce.
Qualify leads and schedule viewings = Resources Saved
New York had a fun one – a Chatbot helped sell 3 apartments, in 10 days, at a cost of €1.6 per pre-qualified lead:
• Chatbots can take potential leads through the first stages of the online customer journey in a seamless, quick, and convenient manner.
• No more form filling: Bots can ask leads questions regarding desired properties, then provide tailored suggestions, which become optimize as the Bot learns.
• Bots can schedule viewings, arrange timings and alert the relevant realtor, when the lead finds a positive property. Bots can even offer 360’ walkthroughs of properties, to further qualify the lead before the viewing.
Databases and Referrals
A quick stat-spree:
• 88%of buyers would use the same agent or refer them;
• 84% of sellers would use their agent again;
• 82% of ALL real estate transactions are referrals
• Yet only 25% of agents cultivate their existing contacts and past clients for referrals – those who do generate more than 50% of their annual business this way!
What if there is a way for databases to automatically update, and for those same pots of gold to mine themselves at the perfect moment, without any time spent?
• If a customer is not ready to arrange a viewing in the first interaction, the Bot can take invaluable information, like how and when the customer wants to be targeted, to be put into a CRM for use in more tailored marketing campaigns.
• Property preferences can be fed back into an ever-improving recommendation system, utilising Big Data, which can then be fed back to the chatbot.
• Bots can initiate conversations with online leads, and chase customers who have visited the website previously, this time providing more relevant suggestions.
Inspire Millennials
As mentioned above, it makes sense to approach customers on platforms that they use regularly:
• Bots can handle quick conversations with the newest generation of buyers on their phone, answering any questions and concerns that they may have.
• This is a sure-fire way to welcome a new loyal audience, who appreciate a brand that is engaging, inclusive, and reputable.
Synergise with conventional paid media
• Paid media campaigns – used in isolation – can be high priced in such a saturated market. Sure, they increase presence, but in competitive industries, bidding against high-budget entities can be very expensive.
• When used in conjunction with one another, the ROI for social campaigns which utilise chatbots are greatly multiplied.
• Chatbots are an exceptionally accessible natural progression from typical campaigns, turbocharging online presence through engaging and efficient interactions.
Converse with potential customers
• Through Natural Language Processing, Bots can understand the potential customer’s written text, and converse in a manner that fluid and natural.
• Typical online form filling, with awkward parameters and clunky options that can be frustrating for customers, is no longer a necessity.
• This interactivity cuts down redundant online browsing time, keeping the customer engaged during their time on the site, with no need to turn to competition.
24/7 representative
• Bots are available at any time to assist the customer, on any device
• When workers are not available on social media, Bots can take care of new leads and provide auto responses and information on potential properties
• Chatbots can personify company values, demonstrating the image and tone that the agency wishes to brand themselves with
These benefits are not restricted to Estate Agents. For example, Chatbots can be a concierge to assist letting agents, answering tenant’s questions, and assisting with payments.
And of course, there is great potential for disruption in wider industries too; just look at how they’re impacting Retail – there is brilliant overlap in the benefits that Bots offer.
So, Artificial Intelligence is not necessarily the malevolent force that we viewed with such animosity and fear after the Terminator films, and we won’t all lose our jobs… who would have thought it?
There is clearly great potential for success in the marriage between Artificial intelligence and Real Estate. With the ability to assist agents, chase referrals, secure leads, and display the company’s desired social persona, they offer value in a range of ways. It just takes a little creative flare, and a clear strategy.
Article Source: http://puzzlelondon.com/2018/11/26/chatbots-will-solve-real-estate-challenges-2019/
Thursday, 17 October 2019
Real Estate Chatbots — Do You Really Need Them?
It’s 2019 and the chatbot hype hasn’t died down. In fact, more and more industries are looking to implement chatbots in their businesses to ensure customer engagement and loyalty in the current digital age when the customer is flooded with options (read competitors).
The real estate industry is no stranger to the challenges of generating leads and closing them.
Properties are not something you can pack into your bags and showcase to people.
Hence lead generation in the real estate industry becomes a lot more complex and grueling.
In today’s time of digitization and online presence of businesses, most of the customers are converted from leads online. In such a scenario, letting all that online traffic go is something one cannot afford to do. Intelligent chatbots in real estate help you tap into that traffic in order to collect and convert leads into customers.
Let’s assume a buyer on your website is on the lookout for a new place to move into or seller is looking to sell his/her home. In both cases, the buyer and the seller need immediate answers. However, for a real estate agent that is juggling new and old property listings, evaluating products, chasing their own sales and marketing goals, and managing past clients — it is quite difficult for them to take time out and assess the requirements of an online lead.
Taking time out to ascertain the overall seriousness of the lead from scratch is pretty time-consuming. But, it is a no-brainer that if you wish to be successful when it comes to real estate, you need to capture as many leads as possible to make sure that you have a specific number of clients on a monthly basis.
The bot will handle conversations with clients that are at the top of the funnel — generally people you don’t know and who might be unsure of actually buying/selling the property. The bot can be programmed on tasks like collecting basic information in the form of asking relevant questions and generating relevant answers resulting in an e-mail capture. Additionally, the chatbot can even transfer the conversation to a human agent, if need be.
To get started, one needs to figure out what medium makes the most sense for their business — Facebook, Web Chat, automated email or SMS bots.
If you happen to have a robust Facebook presence with a good following and engagement, it makes sense to deploy a Facebook bot.
If you generate a good amount of traffic on your website, then a chatbot that pops up and assists your visitors in their journey is your best bet.
1. Real Time Enquiry
When a user lands on your website, they can immediately get their queries answered by the chatbots. They do not have to wait for assistance from a human agent in order to seek answers about the property they are interested in.
2. Available 24×7
As real estate agents have time constraints like meeting deadlines, shift timings, it is not possible for them to remain available to the user throughout the day. With chatbots in real estate being available round the clock, 365 days a year — your customer’s queries can be addressed even outside of operational hours.
3. Qualify Buyer and Seller Needs
Using natural language generation, your custom chatbot determines the prospect’s exact needs and relays the required information without you having to step in, or without your customers having to download an additional app.
4. Schedule Property Viewings
Once the prospect is deeper into the sales funnel, the bot can schedule a home tour and in a way, take care of introducing the client and the real estate agent. At this point, the agents or sales team can take over the reigns.
5. Search MLS Listings
The bot can assess a prospect’s search requirements, scan the MLS for relevant and matching properties and then display listings that are active within the chat interface itself.
6. 360-degree virtual tours
Are prospects too busy or too eager to see the property in person? The real estate chatbot has your back. Your prospects can take a quick virtual tour through the bot itself without them wasting time waiting to get an inside look.
7. Logging Conversations
With chatbots, you can keep a log of the interactions that your leads had with your bot. This comes in very handy when the human agent takes over from the bot and interacts with the lead. With access to prior interactions, you have a better understanding of the lead’s preferences even before you talk to them.
8. Automate your follow-up process
As a realtor, you have a lot on your plate other than following up on people who are yet to be customers. Chatbots can be very easily utilized to follow up on your leads via the medium they choose. Whether they want to be contacted via email or text message for more information or would directly prefer talking to the realtor, is all asked to the user.
Follow-up messages or emails can be automatically sent to the prospect without manual intervention. Or if you prefer to follow-up with the lead manually, then that too is possible.
9. Language no bar
Chatbots can communicate with your targeted audience in their language, thus further personalizing the customer’s experience. This also contributes to elevating your brand and increasing customer engagement.
10. Ease of Data Handling with Integrations
Fret not! Implementing chatbot in your business does not add to the data chaos. In fact, data handling becomes a lot easier with chatbots. Chatbots collect information and feed it directly to your CRM or database, without your assistance.
At WotNot, we have worked with leading property aggregators in the Real Estate industry and developed bespoke chatbot solutions that have resulted in pre-qualified leads for their sales team, while at the same time addressing FAQs and customer support.
With WotNot, you can have your chatbot ready in under an hour! So, what are you waiting for? We have the chatbot templates ready for you to experience for free! Visit us at https://wotnot.io/ and experience the chatbot apt for your business for free!
Article Source: https://medium.com/swlh/real-estate-chatbots-do-you-really-need-them-4f9fe892af00
The real estate industry is no stranger to the challenges of generating leads and closing them.
Properties are not something you can pack into your bags and showcase to people.
Hence lead generation in the real estate industry becomes a lot more complex and grueling.
In today’s time of digitization and online presence of businesses, most of the customers are converted from leads online. In such a scenario, letting all that online traffic go is something one cannot afford to do. Intelligent chatbots in real estate help you tap into that traffic in order to collect and convert leads into customers.
Let’s assume a buyer on your website is on the lookout for a new place to move into or seller is looking to sell his/her home. In both cases, the buyer and the seller need immediate answers. However, for a real estate agent that is juggling new and old property listings, evaluating products, chasing their own sales and marketing goals, and managing past clients — it is quite difficult for them to take time out and assess the requirements of an online lead.
Taking time out to ascertain the overall seriousness of the lead from scratch is pretty time-consuming. But, it is a no-brainer that if you wish to be successful when it comes to real estate, you need to capture as many leads as possible to make sure that you have a specific number of clients on a monthly basis.
The bot will handle conversations with clients that are at the top of the funnel — generally people you don’t know and who might be unsure of actually buying/selling the property. The bot can be programmed on tasks like collecting basic information in the form of asking relevant questions and generating relevant answers resulting in an e-mail capture. Additionally, the chatbot can even transfer the conversation to a human agent, if need be.
To get started, one needs to figure out what medium makes the most sense for their business — Facebook, Web Chat, automated email or SMS bots.
If you happen to have a robust Facebook presence with a good following and engagement, it makes sense to deploy a Facebook bot.
If you generate a good amount of traffic on your website, then a chatbot that pops up and assists your visitors in their journey is your best bet.
1. Real Time Enquiry
When a user lands on your website, they can immediately get their queries answered by the chatbots. They do not have to wait for assistance from a human agent in order to seek answers about the property they are interested in.
2. Available 24×7
As real estate agents have time constraints like meeting deadlines, shift timings, it is not possible for them to remain available to the user throughout the day. With chatbots in real estate being available round the clock, 365 days a year — your customer’s queries can be addressed even outside of operational hours.
3. Qualify Buyer and Seller Needs
Using natural language generation, your custom chatbot determines the prospect’s exact needs and relays the required information without you having to step in, or without your customers having to download an additional app.
4. Schedule Property Viewings
Once the prospect is deeper into the sales funnel, the bot can schedule a home tour and in a way, take care of introducing the client and the real estate agent. At this point, the agents or sales team can take over the reigns.
5. Search MLS Listings
The bot can assess a prospect’s search requirements, scan the MLS for relevant and matching properties and then display listings that are active within the chat interface itself.
6. 360-degree virtual tours
Are prospects too busy or too eager to see the property in person? The real estate chatbot has your back. Your prospects can take a quick virtual tour through the bot itself without them wasting time waiting to get an inside look.
7. Logging Conversations
With chatbots, you can keep a log of the interactions that your leads had with your bot. This comes in very handy when the human agent takes over from the bot and interacts with the lead. With access to prior interactions, you have a better understanding of the lead’s preferences even before you talk to them.
8. Automate your follow-up process
As a realtor, you have a lot on your plate other than following up on people who are yet to be customers. Chatbots can be very easily utilized to follow up on your leads via the medium they choose. Whether they want to be contacted via email or text message for more information or would directly prefer talking to the realtor, is all asked to the user.
Follow-up messages or emails can be automatically sent to the prospect without manual intervention. Or if you prefer to follow-up with the lead manually, then that too is possible.
9. Language no bar
Chatbots can communicate with your targeted audience in their language, thus further personalizing the customer’s experience. This also contributes to elevating your brand and increasing customer engagement.
10. Ease of Data Handling with Integrations
Fret not! Implementing chatbot in your business does not add to the data chaos. In fact, data handling becomes a lot easier with chatbots. Chatbots collect information and feed it directly to your CRM or database, without your assistance.
At WotNot, we have worked with leading property aggregators in the Real Estate industry and developed bespoke chatbot solutions that have resulted in pre-qualified leads for their sales team, while at the same time addressing FAQs and customer support.
With WotNot, you can have your chatbot ready in under an hour! So, what are you waiting for? We have the chatbot templates ready for you to experience for free! Visit us at https://wotnot.io/ and experience the chatbot apt for your business for free!
Article Source: https://medium.com/swlh/real-estate-chatbots-do-you-really-need-them-4f9fe892af00
Wednesday, 16 October 2019
Chatbot Magazine: Varia Mhitarian | 5 Ways AI is Changing Property Companies
In terms of how it is affecting the property industry, AI technology could very well be as innovative an event as the appearance of the internet itself in the mid-nineties, which went far beyond the expectations of its creators.
Rather than being fearful of AI replacing human jobs, companies are starting to embrace automation for a more intelligent way of working and providing the highest level of client satisfaction. Below we will explore the different ways in which smart technology has already been or is on its way to being implemented within the property industry.
1. Automated Property Management
Problems within rented buildings are a constant source of complaint and burden, to which the human element of a property manager also contributes. Things don’t always go wrong between the working hours of 9–6, and waiting for something to get fixed till the next working day may be a problem of the past. Companies such as UK-based Pi Labs are already implementing an AI messaging platform called AskPorter to help residents in apartments have issues within their buildings or inquiries they may have solved quickly and efficiently. All they have to do is log their complaint with the virtual assistant, and then track its progress until things are back to normal.
2. The Recommendation System
Recommendation systems are being used by a multitude of industries in order to provide customers with a wider variety of options when purchasing or making an inquiry. The AI component understands which types of products are liked by users and can then make relevant suggestions to a new person on the site. The technique is seen in both residential and commercial arenas with companies such as Green & Company (and now even our own company, Free Office Finder, as seen towards the bottom of our results page) already implementing the recommendation system.
3. Virtual Assistants
Further to the above system, making the property search experience even more seamless, recent AI programs like Apartment Ocean are providing real estate websites with chatbots that assist potential clients in their search for a property. The user can now ask an automated bot specific questions and receive answers on how to progress their search in a conversation initiated by the program, which is one that a real estate agent would usually have with potential clients. Acting as a virtual assistant and currently being implemented by team messaging app Slack, Apartment Ocean then converts this opening encounter into useful data that can be used to optimise future interactions with clients.
4. Data Analysis
There are multiple ways in which AI is being used in the property industry at the moment for more efficient analysis of data. Building IQ is one of the companies using AI for data capture analysis — it predicts possible areas in a building that will need maintenance based on information it has gathered about the condition of the building itself. Being solely data-based, AI systems can help humans infer the best course of action to take in order to make tenants save energy, money and live in optimal comfort. Brands such as Nest have implemented this energy-saving tactic into their AI-powered thermostat, learning from data that it collects about the individual who has purchased it for their home, while AirBnB uses AI to set pricing on locations based on what previous customers have liked most about a property (e.g. the photos, the geographical location).
5. Building Security
Companies are currently implementing smart technology in order to provide tenants with ultimate security. GateGuard uses facial recognition for apartment building inhabitants as a replacement for a “doorman”, as well as allowing tenants to let in delivery services when they are out, giving facial access through their phone or computer remotely. Office space provider LABS has implemented intelligent recognition software so that employees and clients can use the mobile app to enter the building without needing a set of keys or a key card.
It’s clear that artificial intelligence is not only fast-growing, but has managed to cover a great variety of industries in a small space of time, reaching the property industry, as outlined above. By improving the efficiency of simple management roles, smart technology works as a suitable partner for agents and brokers within the property field, as well as optimizing the tenant experience through a skillful gathering and analysis of data.
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
9 Reasons why you need Chatbots in Real Estate
It’s 2018, and chatbots have now truly evolved to now reach almost every aspect of our lives. Right from Facebook Messenger, to Skype to phones – we talk and interact with them. Some assist us in planning our trips while some crack some jokes. When it comes to chatbots in real estate, they have revolutionized the way we buy, sell or rent properties by turning long static forms into an interactive experience.
Back in 2016, big tech players like Facebook, Microsoft, and Google, launched their own bots and chatbot platforms. Ever since then, AI-based applications started to boom, and many interesting bot concepts started to take shape. Like with any other new technology, in the beginning, everyone just wants to explore how to use this “AI engine” to create a bot, but as the AI infrastructure keeps improving at such a rapid rate, it is clear that AI will surely help people in their everyday lives and make businesses run more efficiently & enhance their customer service. However, the key here is to continue engaging with customers particularly beyond normal hours of operation & to address questions that don’t really need human input.
With bots being deployed across a plethora of industries such as healthcare, e-commerce, retail or hospitality have made a significant impact in terms of ROI and customer engagement. Bots are well and truly poised to be helpful in the world of real estate as well. Be it a real estate agent or a customer, chatbots in real estate prove to be of assistance to both when it comes to saving time, money and additional resources.
When it comes to assisting a visitor who could be a potential lead for you, here’s how a chatbot can turn a potential lead from lukewarm to hot.
Let us assume a visitor is looking to move into a new place or a potential seller is looking to sell their apartment. In both the scenarios, both parties need quick answers, however, when it comes to a real estate agent or a broker or a developer that is taking care of new and old listings, addressing their own sales and marketing goals, and managing past clients — it is quite difficult for them to take time out and cater to the requirements of a random visitor on their website.
Investing time out to ascertain the overall seriousness of the lead from scratch is pretty time-consuming, to say the least. However, it is quite evident that to be successful in real estate, you need to capture as many leads as possible to make sure that you have a healthy pipeline in place from time to time.
Given that majority of buyers and sellers are starting their journeys online, it is prudent to deploy custom chatbots in real estate that assist them in building their sales funnel.
In today’s time of digitisation and online presence of businesses, most of the customers are converted from leads online. In such a scenario, letting all that online traffic go is something one cannot afford to do. Intelligent chatbots in real estate help you tap into that traffic in order to collect and convert leads into customers.
We all know, in any business, lead generation is the most important and yet the most daunting task. Important, because that is how you come across people who are interested and willing to buy your product. Daunting, because you cannot do this without facing rejections & facing rejections results in a lot of your time being taken up, without any success in getting prospective customers. This leads to frustration and wastage of time.
In the real estate industry, lead generation becomes all the more difficult because of the complexity of the industry.
Properties are not something you can pack into your bags and go door-to-door showcasing them to the people.
A lot of nitty-gritty goes into the process of lead generation solely and it also takes time to figure out what the real estate brokers or agents have to offer & what the customer is looking for. Elucidated below are 9 reasons why chatbots in real estate tend to guarantee success –
1. Real-time Enquiry
When a user lands on your website, they can immediately get their queries answered by the chatbots. They do not have to wait for assistance from a human agent in order to seek answers about the property they are interested in.
2. Available 24×7
As real estate agents have time constraints like meeting deadlines, shift timings, it is not possible for them to remain available to the user throughout the day. With chatbots in real estate being available round the clock, 365 days a year – your customer’s queries can be addressed even outside of operational hours.
3. User Specific
Not everyone is looking for the same type of apartment or property type. Chatbots in real estate are the key element here in providing the customer exactly what they are looking for by probing the visitor with a series of questions and offering relevant information in an interactive manner. This is in stark contrast to traditional methods of collecting information via lengthy forms which in turn, keeps the user engaged till the end.
4. Better Engagement
Earlier we used to have physical copies of forms given out to the people to capture the type of product they are interested in. But, truth be told, most of those forms ended up in the trashcan. They were slowly replaced by online forms, which proved to be better than their predecessors, but at the end of the day, they were still forms that required a lot of input from the customer’s side.
Forms are less interactive and are not much effective when it comes to holding the attention of the customer. Even if a lead fills out the form, they are just providing you information but are not getting any, which they are looking for. With chatbots in real estate, customers can engage in real-time basis, responding to their queries and at the same time, collecting information about their preferences.
5. Better Time Management
The biggest plus of any robot is saving ample amount of time. Chatbots are no different. As a realtor, you will not be wasting your time in fruitless queries. You and your sales team will be dealing with a much narrower, filtered & pre-qualified lead base which will save you time and effort. Chatbots work at the grassroot level, by interacting with each potential lead in a personalized manner save the collected information to a database.
As a realtor, you can access the database and have all the information about what the customer wants, prior to making that first call. This way, you’re only concerned with closing the deal and not spending time prospecting or answering FAQs.
6. Automate your follow-up process
As a realtor, you have a lot on your plate other than following up on people who are yet to be customers. Chatbots can be very easily utilised to follow up on your leads via the medium they choose. Whether they want to be contacted via email or text message for more information or would directly prefer talking to the realtor, is all asked to the user.
A text message or an email will then be sent to the prospect automatically (based on what you have fed in the system), or if you would prefer to take it from there manually, then that too, is possible.
7. History of Interaction
Imagine the amount of paperwork it would have taken had you documented each and every reply of each and every lead you have interacted with. Unimaginable, right? Chatbots help you out here by keeping record of all the conversations till date. Anytime you need to look up what the customer had said, you can just refer the logs stored in the system.
This way, trends can be identified between customer and bot interactions. If you want to find out if there’s a particular type of property, belonging to a particular category (area wise, budget wise etc.) garnering a lot of interest, you can do so easily using all the data stacked up in your logs.
8. Schedule Property Viewings
Once the prospect is deeper into the sales funnel, the bot can schedule a home tour and in a way, take care of introducing the client and the real estate agent. At this point, the agents or sales team can take over the reigns.
9. 360 Degree Virtual Tours
With prospects being too busy to see the property in person, chatbots in real estate can give interested prospects a quick virtual tour through the bot itself. This gives them a fair idea of what the property would look like before even scheduling a site visit.
While the above covers the salient features, there are more benefits of chatbots in real estate as covered below –
Cross platform – Not only your website, but various online platforms or channels of your choice like Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype can support chatbots.
Additional functionality – Apart from the information gathered on screen, chatbots also help you get additional information like the location from where the client contacted you (through IP-based information), from which page the bot was invoked and other similar ads the client has surfed through, etc.
Language no bar – Chatbots can communicate with your targeted audience in their language, thus further personalizing the customer’s experience.
Direct database entry & integration with CRM – Data handling becomes so much easier with bots. Chatbots in real estate collect information and feed it directly to the database or CRM, without needing your assistance.
At Maruti Techlabs, we have worked with leading developers and property aggregators in Real Estate and developed bespoke AI based chatbot solutions that have assisted our clients in generating pre-qualified leads for their sales team, while also addressing FAQs and customer support across the smorgasbord of buy/sell/rent scenarios, at scale.
The widespread adoption and advent of bots over the last two years along with the participation of tech behemoths are major indications that conversational AI is no longer just a fad, but well and truly here to stay. Being in real estate, it would be prudent to consider bot-o-mating your sales and customer service process.
Article Source: https://marutitech.com/chatbots-in-real-estate/
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