Four Reasons Websites Are Important for Businesses

Professional web development is an important consideration when building a business, as your website gives all the user traffic you generate a place to go. Without a website for your brand, you could end up losing customers and may not reach your sales or conversion goals. Let's discuss why having a professionally designed website is becoming more essential for businesses.

Marketing

A website acts as your online presence, presenting your brand to the world in a way that appeals to your target audience. It is one of the most important marketing tools you could have, as it gives the audience insight into what your business is all about and the services or products available. Even when using social media marketing techniques, you will still need an appealing and easy to navigate website design. Mornington Peninsula business owners benefit greatly with a great site for users to browse, learn, and make purchase decisions.

Sales

Without sales, your business can't continue operating. Luckily, there is any easy way to improve sales - improve your website. While it may not seem like a key factor, the state of your website can either improve or reduce your visibility. Professional web development teams strive to build websites that improve search engine optimisation and give your business even more sales opportunities. It's also a great way to share information with customers that increase the chances of bringing sales in to your brand.

Credibility

The website design of Mornington Peninsula brands is also essential in establishing credibility with customers. In the modern world, where the internet is easily accessible and browsed on a daily basis by most consumers, not having a website can be a problem. Without a website, users have no way of knowing whether your brand is reputable and trustworthy. A website that looks professional and neat creates an identity for your brand and provides valuable insight into your services or any products you offer.

24/7 Accessibility

The internet has taken the world of marketing by storm, giving businesses amazing benefits and new ways to reach customers all over the world. Because users can be in various different time zones, having a website allows your brand to be present at any time in any place. This means that you could generate sales even after business hours. Your site is always available, so users can get information about your brand and make purchases no matter what time it is.

A website is a highly important tool for modern businesses in Mornington Peninsula. It may seem as though every company has a site, but you'd be surprised at how many businesses have survived without interactions with users online. Whether you're a large brand or a small business, having an online presence can make a world of difference in your sales as well as how much trust and credibility customers put in your goods or services. Don't hesitate to build or optimise your site to increase visibility, traffic, sales, brand recognition, and more.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10218052

Top 8 Business Branding Tips For Today

1. Be Transparent

Even if you don't want people to know who you are today, they're going to find out if you become successful enough. Therefore, seek to build a brand that represents your true values that you'd be proud to represent. That way when things are discovered about you, it's not a shock to anyone because they know, like and trust you already.

2. Market to the Audience of One

Remember that you know exactly who you want to be in your audience and you will design all your marketing materials to appeal to only that audience of one. This means that you put blinders on and don't worry about whether you turn a few people off that might not buy your product, but seek to appeal to a specific targeted audience within the niche instead.

3. Send Information Regularly to List Members

One way to ensure that you stay connected with your audience is to ensure that you send emails to list members on a regular basis. One way to do that is to go with the "newsletter" idea, sending a nice update for each week of what you've shared all over social networks and your blog for them in one spot.

4. Pay for Ads (Especially on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube)

The days of free marketing are almost over. You can market free content, but it will take a lot longer. If you want to move things along faster, spend some money on marketing - at least on these platforms. Market your paid and free content to your audience to ensure the most eyes get on the content.

5. Post Long-Form Content on Your Blog

Today, longer content on your blog is more important than ever. When you post long content, it shows that you're an expert because you can get into detail about something that your audience cares about. It also signals to search engines that you may be an authority website.

6. Have a Mobile-Friendly Website

You really need a mobile-first strategy today, more than you need a "mobile-friendly" website. Your site needs to work on mobile and off mobile but if you design first for mobile, it will also work well and look good off mobile platforms.

7. Use the Social Media That Your Audience Likes Most

While you may want to be everywhere, use the platform your audience uses most more than the others. You may need to test it out to find out where you gain the most traction but once you know where they are, make that your main platform.

8. Attend Live Events

This applies whether the live event is online such as a live webinar or a live YouTube event, or an in-person event like a seminar or workshop. It's important that you go where your audience goes.

Branding is important for small businesses as well as large companies. If you have a limited budget, smart branding is perhaps the most inexpensive business tool you can create. To learn more about how to make your business stand out, download my free checklist, Branding For Small Businesses at https://jonallo.com/branding



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10208506

Shane Barker | 5 Benefits of Using Chatbots for Customer Engagement

Constant improvements to chatbot technology allow more accurate bot interactions. As a result, chatbots have changed the customer service game. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Consider that chatbots allow quicker response time to customer queries and faster resolutions. In fact, a HubSpot study found 71% of people are willing to get assistance from messaging apps. So they want quick solutions to their problems.
In addition, a Facebook study found 65% of millennials, 65% of Gen Xers, and 63% of baby boomers would much rather send a message than call customer service.

Keep these customer preferences in mind. Businesses must start prioritizing the use of chatbots to engage their customers and enhance user experience.

Increase Customer Engagement With Chatbots
Check out some of the top ways in which chatbots can help you increase customer engagement.
#1: Available 24/7 for Your Customers
24/7 availability is one of the biggest benefits of using chatbots to engage your customers. Your support agents cannot work throughout the day and night. Even if you have teams taking different shifts to provide 24/7 support, it’s going to end up costing you a ton in wages and overhead. Chatbots are an inexpensive and effective solution to tackle this issue.

Your customers may have questions or issues that arise outside of your regular service hours. With chatbots, you can provide them with answers and resolutions at any time, even when your customer service staff is unavailable.

#2: Provide Quick Resolutions to Pressing Issues
A lot of people who contact customer support do not have a lot of time to wait for a response or resolution. Long hold times for phone support and slow email response times may quickly ruin the customer experience.

This is particularly harmful because 82% of consumers expect to get an immediate response to their sales or marketing questions. And 90% expect an immediate response when it comes to customer service questions.
In the case of chatbots, there is no wait time to start talking about your issues and to get a resolution. This allows for faster response times, which ultimately results in faster resolutions to customer support issues. You’ll be able to quickly engage your customers before they get frustrated.
In fact, a LogMeIn study found that 74% of consumers see the benefit of interacting with chatbots to get quicker resolutions and better support accessibility.

An Accenture study also found that chatbots could resolve 80% of chat sessions without the need to involve a human agent over chat or phone. So besides improving your resolution time, chatbots also free up time for your agents to handle issues that need human involvement.

#3: Provide Accurate Answers to Simple Questions
In some cases, customers may approach customer service only to get a quick answer to a simple question like information about their return or shipping policy, product features, etc.

So it doesn’t really make sense to send an email or wait for several minutes to speak to a support agent over a call. Chatbots can offer quick and accurate answers in these situations with zero wait time.

Normally, companies build chatbots with predefined responses and rules for basic and common questions. But aside from this, there are chatbots powered by AI and machine learning technology.

These chatbots can adapt and learn over time to increase the accuracy of their responses. They are ideal for increasing customer engagement as customers seek precise answers to their questions.

Amadeus, a leading solution provider for the tourism and travel industry, was able to start providing faster, 24/7 customer support service with the help of chatbots. They used an Aivo virtual assistant equipped with machine learning technology.

That technology allowed it to adapt and learn through every interaction. So it was able to provide precise and instant answers just like their customers needed.

They saw a 70% deflection of traditional channels, with the chatbot solving 3,300 cases a month. In addition, 78% of the answers it provided were effective.

#4: Ensure a Personalized Customer Service Experience
One of the advantages that chatbots have over human agents is that they are machines. This means they have the ability to process mountains of data in the blink of an eye.

They will be able to automatically collect customer details and history from your CRM, instantly providing them with a personalized response that’s relevant to their previous experience.

This is extremely important considering how human agents have to spend some time sieving through your customer database and find the most relevant information.
The LogMeIn study cited earlier even found that customer service agents end up spending 25% of their time finding relevant personal information about a customer.

Amazon’s chatbot, for instance, can instantly retrieve information about a customer’s most recent orders.

If you have any questions or issues with any of your past orders, you can simply select the relevant item and the chatbot will ask you what kind of questions you have about it.

This minimizes the need to go through the whole process of providing your order number to an agent, waiting for them to look it up, and so on.

#5: Cross-Promoting Relevant Products/Services/Content
Chatbots can also help you engage your customers through seamless cross-promotion. They can execute this in a natural and non-pushy way that’s relevant to the ongoing conversation.

For instance, say the customer needs more information about a certain product feature. The chatbot could direct them to a high-quality blog post or webpage that thoroughly describes this feature.

In some cases, the chatbot may even find it appropriate to cross-promote relevant products or services that go along with what a customer already has.

For example, let’s say the customer inquires about how to care for the new suede shoes they’ve recently ordered. Provide them with a useful guide, of course. But the chatbot could also recommend your brand’s suede cleaning kit.

Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are tons of ways in which chatbots can help you engage your customers more effectively. They can help you provide quick resolutions and prompt responses at all hours of the day even when your team isn’t working.

Since they can quickly access your customer, product, and content databases, they’re also exceptional at providing a personalized experience and cross-promoting highly relevant content or products.

So make the most of chatbots to start delivering a better customer service experience and watch your business grow. Got any questions about any of these points? Let us know in the comments.

Image: Depositphotos.com
Article Source: https://smallbiztrends.com/2019/08/customer-engagement-with-chatbots.html

Ankita Katurion | Why your Business Needs a Chatbot in 2019

The ongoing evolution in the digital landscape has completely changed the way enterprises do business today. Technologies are continuing to change the way we use the Internet, both at a day-to-day consumer level as well as on the business level.

Five years ago, digital marketing was all about apps or infographics, However, a new player has come into the spotlight: the chatbot. According to Business Insider, around 80% of all businesses will be using a chatbot by 2020.

Chatbots are rapidly making their way into mainstream enterprise adoption – failure to adopt now may cause businesses to get left behind. But let’s take a step back to understand why chatbots have become so popular lately?

 Understand where Chatbots fit in your business strategy
A chatbot is a service, managed by rules that you interact with via a chat interface. They are computer programs that mimic conversation with people using artificial intelligence. Facebook Messenger, Skype, Telegram Bots are all popular examples of chatbots.

The credit for drawing chatbots further into the limelight goes to Messenger by Facebook, when they made it possible to integrate chatbots into the platform.

Chatbots are proving critical for all businesses that want to step up their marketing game through messaging apps, considering the four biggest messaging apps reached about 4 billion users in 2016

With 1.3 billion monthly active users, Facebook Messenger is the most popular messaging channel of communication – making it a vital platform for reaching out to customers. There are currently 100,000 active bots on the Messenger platform.

This extensive active user count has led organizations to start envisaging strategies to introduce chatbots.

Messaging applications are very promising communication tools not only for social media but also as standalone tools. They offer a convenient alternative for companies to stay in touch with their customers.

While 80-90% of apps are used once and then deleted, messaging apps are thriving and account for 91% of time spent on mobiles in the U.S.

As user expectations continue to transform, it is imperative businesses put in the effort to stand out from the crowd.

As Flurry reports:

“Time spent in Social and Messaging apps grew by an astounding 394% over the last year, proving to be the driver that helped mobile achieve its year-over-year time-spent growth of 69%.”

Benefits of using a Chatbot for your business
Chatbots are everywhere. They are speeding up time to response on your customer inquiries, enhancing conversion rates on your landing pages, and unblocking the employee inquiry mailbox.



Immediacy: Chatbots provide companies the chance to have customer service inquiries of any kind answered at any time of day, from anywhere and even when companies are closed for holidays.
Easy To Develop: Chatbots are typically easy to build. It depends on what the business wants to achieve, of course, but businesses can design a simple chatbot based on Facebook Messenger without any programming experience.
Scalability: Chatbots can allow your company to manage more customers than before and  can help scale operations to new markets without having to worry about handling multiplying queries.
Company Brand & Image: When communicating with the customer, the chatbot represents the company, so from a marketing point of view,  it is a perfect expression of brand building.
Easy To Use: Finding information on a website or in an app is less intuitive. In most cases, it takes several steps until you have clicked through to the desired information. A chatbot eliminates the need for these superfluous steps.


Personalization: Chatbot’s ability to synthesize metadata, can quickly and easily personalize the customer experience. This may take on the form of product recommendations.
Cost-effective and Time-efficient:  Visitor engagement becomes easy and quick with the use of a friendly chatbot. This further helps convert potential visitors into customers.
Types of Chatbots
Command based chatbots
This is the simplest type of chatbot. It relies on a databank of replies and heuristics and only takes place in pre-defined ways and directions. The bots reply by selecting an answer that matches the context of a query.

Command based chatbot appears in messaging apps such as Messenger or Telegram.

AI-based Chatbots
AI-Based chatbots can answer ambiguous questions. They offer flexible responses to the user’s questions. But it cannot understand more complex contexts or lead the conversation – it can only give answers.

For example, CleverBot is an AI-Based ChatBot that learns from each conversation and uses these experiences to answer future questions more accurately.

Mark Zuckerberg’s “Jarvis” was an interesting AI-Based ChatBot. He says —

“My personal challenge for 2016 is to build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man. I’m going to start by exploring what technology is already out there. Then I’ll start teaching it to understand my voice to control everything in our home — music, lights, temperature and so on. I’ll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell.…”

Approach for Chatbot implementation for your business



Many companies leverage their own framework to implement chatbots. Their framework involves from ideation of bot use cases phase to continuous improvement phase. The following framework is leveraged traditionally for implementing chatbots:

Identify Goals: Identifying the goals that the company like to achieve by implementing chatbots and what pain points the company is looking to address.
User Stories:  Take requirements as user stories, and take into consideration the end users point of view, and use that to influence bot personality.
Business landscape understanding: Understanding the current business, identifying the suitable messaging platform to kick start implementation.
Conversation Design: After Prioritizing user stories, Conversation design is necessary to give a conversational voice to Bot and develop Bot Personality.

Implementation Stage: Leveraging the NLP libraries, intents, entities and develop, test, releasing the chatbot.

Continuous Improvement: Bot learns from a user’s behavior, monitoring performance and learns from each conversation and uses these experiences to answer future questions more accurately.

Conclusion
The future will be heavily directed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies which prominently includes chatbots. There’s a positive response to many chatbot benefits such as an increase in process efficiencies, decreased workload and improved customer service, but it’s important that a measured approach is taken to implement these technologies.

Article Source: https://www.thesmarketers.com/business-needs-chatbot/

Habits - The Big Secret to Marketing Success

What do you think you need more than anything else to attract more of your ideal clients?

Many people will say, "better information to show me how to do what works."

Others will say, "more motivation and drive to implement what I already know."

Another common answer is, "more time to fit marketing activities into my schedule."

And lots of people will say, "I need better goals and more clarity about what I want to achieve."

In writing this ezine/blog for the past 20 years I've talked about the importance of all of those.

But I'm finally understanding a factor that is much more important: good habits.

Over the past year, I've been a big advocate of the writings of James Clear. He writes a blog about success and habits. And he just came out with his first book, Atomic Habits, which is fantastic.

Even though James isn't a marketing expert, I'm convinced he's right when he says that the ultimate determinant of success is building positive habits.

This idea is simple but true: Self-employed professionals who establish regular marketing habits have a much better chance of succeeding than those who don't.

And the crazy thing is that the four items - information, motivation, time, and goals - I mentioned above don't actually make a huge difference.

Information. These days, we have access to more information about marketing than ever before in history. And much of it is free and instantly available through a Google or YouTube search.

The problem is that most of us have not established a regular habit of studying what we need to know to become better marketers. The information is useless unless we become proficient at implementing it.

And even if we pay good money for courses and programs, much of it goes to waste. I just learned recently online that 97% of people who buy a course online never complete it.

Motivation. If we measured motivation by intention, we are all motivated. Don't we all want and need to grow our businesses? But we keep getting distracted and don't follow through on our intentions. Again, the issue is poor habits.

Time. If only we had more of it. But unsuccessful marketers have just as much of it as the most successful ones. The key is that they dedicate more time to implementing regular marketing habits.

Goals. Nothing wrong with goals except that they are only a starting point for success. And they can get us stuck in the future, instead of doing what needs to be done today - the routine marketing habits that we perform every day or week.

"A habit or system beats a goal every time." - James Clear

The research is in and the conclusion is clear.

Establishing positive and consistent marketing habits have a bigger impact on marketing success than anything else.

We may have great information, high motivation, lots of time, and clear goals, but unless marketing activities are performed regularly and habitually, the chances of success are slim to none.

The question you should be asking is, "How do I start establishing better marketing habits?"

James's Atomic Habits goes to great lengths to share a multitude of ways to become an expert habit practitioner. So I highly suggest you get his book. It could be the most valuable 'marketing' book you'll ever read.

But let me also give you my perspective on what it takes to establish new marketing habits.

The C - SPAT Model

This is a model I came up with for one of my marketing programs.

Coaching or Context. A coach declares the game, how it is played and how to win at it. And this creates the context in which you play the game. It helps if you have an outside source that can hold you accountable to play by the rules necessary to succeed.

This principle is why when you're working with a coach or in a program that you suddenly find it's easier to take action and form positive habits. The context of the game helps shape your behaviors.

Notice that all professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants go through rigorous training in the form of a professional school and internship. And in this context, professional habits and protocols are established.

As independent professionals, we'd all prefer to do things on our own, charting our own direction. That's nice, except that it doesn't always work very well, does it?

Study. A big part of the game is study and learning the body of knowledge necessary to perform effectively. Again, the information required to be an effective marketer is readily available, but you need some assistance in sorting the wheat from the chaff and studying what is most useful.

Planning. All successful marketing needs a plan. The alternative is implementing random marketing activities with little structure and direction. So it's not how much you know, but how you put what you know into action.

Action. Success doesn't come from being busy or doing a lot of things, but in doing the right things at the right time. This is where establishing regular marketing habits comes in.

To some, it might be writing an article once or twice a week. For others, it may mean setting up more meetings with networking contacts. Or it could be booking regular speaking engagements.

The secret to making this work is to leverage the first three steps of the model - Coaching, Study, and Planning, into marketing Actions that you perform as consistently as possible.

Tracking. What gets measured gets done. And when we fail to measure, habits don't tend to stick. When we measure and track habits, the chances increase dramatically that they are performed consistently.

It can take some time to establish positive habits. You know that's happened when you don't even have to think about it anymore; you just sit down and write that article every Monday or make five calls to prospects every week.

And when you're in action like this, you create a feedback loop, learning what works the best and what doesn't. This enables you to fine-tune and adjust over time until your marketing habits become more established.

So, stop putting so much attention on searching for the "perfect" marketing strategy, getting motivated, finding more time, and setting goals.

Instead, use the C - SPAT approach to establishing positive marketing habits.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10105413

The Five Pillars of Marketing Success

Does the following give a pretty good picture of your current marketing activity?

You have a website but you're not really satisfied with it. You go to networking events once in awhile. If someone asks you to give a talk, you're happy to do it. You post on Facebook and/or LinkedIn semi-regularly. When you find the time, you send an article to those on your relatively small email list. You occasionally set up meetings with colleagues to explore opportunities.

Now there's nothing wrong with any of those marketing activities. And usually, they will result in landing some new clients.

But this is not the approach that works to get a steady, predictable stream of new clients.

Please don't tune me out here, thinking, "Well, I really can't do more than this. I'm already stretched thin. If you give me too much to do I'll get overwhelmed."

I agree. It's not that you need to do more marketing, it's that you need to shift your marketing paradigm from one of "Randomness" to one that is "Focused."

Random marketing is just that; it's all over the place. You do a little bit here and a little bit there on an inconsistent basis. You are trying to keep your face, name, and message in front of your prospective clients but the results are unpredictable.

The Random marketing paradigm is not very effective because it doesn't gain a lot of momentum. You don't do enough of one marketing activity to grab the attention of your prospective clients and move them to take action.

The Focused Marketing Paradigm is very different. It's based on repeatedly communicating very directly to your target market with a very definite end in mind. It gets the attention of your prospective clients and they ultimately take action.

The Focused Marketing Paradigm has Five Pillars

Understand and implement these five pillars and I promise you'll see a shift in your marketing results.

Pillar One: Focused Goals

A Random goal is saying something like, "I'd like to attract a few more clients to my business." Not very compelling is it?

A Focused goal is much more specific. "My goal is to land 3 new clients in the high-tech plastics business in the Houston area with an average project size of $30,000 each by the end of the year."

The more detail, depth, and specificity about the goal, the better. You've really thought through what you want to achieve and also have confidence that you could deliver if you did reach your goal. It's so real to you that you can taste it.

What is the Focused Goal for your marketing?

Pillar Two: Focused Program or Service

Random programs or services are generalized consulting, coaching or training programs. "I offer management consulting and training to corporations." Kind of vague, right? But this is what I hear all the time.

A Focused Program or Service is more tangible. "I offer the high-tech plastics industry Management Acceleration Programs for emerging leaders in the industry."

In my business, I've always offered programs: The Marketing Mastery Program, the Marketing Action Group, and the More Clients Club. And each program has very specific parameters, deliverables, and objectives. It sure makes intangible services easier to market and sell.

What is the Focused Program or Service you're offering?

Pillar Three: Focused Target Market

In the above example, the target was the "high-tech plastics industry." But it's more common to hear things like, "I work with large companies who want to increase productivity." This is too general and it makes it hard for clients to know if you understand them and can help them.

A Focused target market is where you are absolutely clear what kinds of people or companies can most benefit from your expertise. And then you articulate that clearly.

I worked with a financial planning company last year that targeted middle class families in the Buffalo New York area. Guess who they attracted to their practice? When people read about who they worked with on their website, they said, "That's Us!" and called them.

Who exactly is your Focused Target Market?

Pillar Four: Focused Message and Value Proposition

A Random message or value proposition tends to be too general and can be hard to pin down. It avoids making a promise that is meaningful to the prospective client.

Messages such as, "We offer the best service in the industry," or "Smart insights into great management," are meaningless to your prospective clients. The value is not immediately obvious.

A Focused message or value proposition zeros in on exactly what your clients get and what it means to them. I admit that this can be the marketing pillar that is hardest to pin down. Ultimately you have to test a number of different things.

For the re-launch of the More Clients Club, my current value proposition is: "Everything Self-Employed Professionals Need in One Place to Attract More Clients." And now, of course, I'm bending over backward to deliver on that promise.

And a marketing message or value proposition is much more than a sound bite. Your message must permeate every aspect of your marketing, from your website to the emails you send out. Your prospects need to be constantly reminded of the value you offer.

What is your Focused Message or Value Proposition?

Pillar Five: Focused Marketing Strategy

A Random marketing strategy is much like the collection of marketing activities I outlined at the top of the article. You're just all over the place, throwing something at the wall, hoping it will stick, with no organized system or plan.

A Focused marketing strategy is more like a putting on a theatrical production. You have the script, the actors, rehearsals, and opening night, all executed on a strict timeline.

Two examples:

For my Marketing Mastery Program, I held a series of introductory teleconferences, invited those interested to apply for the program, interviewed each applicant, and then converted 50% into participants. Over a 6-week period, I filled my business for a full year - four years in a row.

A career coach in one of my programs recently filled her practice in three months with a focused campaign of personalized emails designed to get appointments with her ideal clients. Then she converted a large percentage into paying clients.

That's the power of a focused marketing strategy.

You need to identify the right marketing strategy for your business, but even more important is the way you organize and implement the strategy.

Developing a focused strategy is the most complex and challenging of the Five Pillars. You can't just put together something haphazardly and hope you get the equivalent of a professional Shakespearian production.

What is your Focused Marketing Strategy?

If you work to build a focused plan with these five solid pillars, your marketing will work better and faster, attracting more of your ideal clients, usually at a higher rate.

I recommend you work on one pillar at a time. Write them out and fine-tune them until you feel confident and excited about them. Yes, you will need to do some research and study to make sure your plan is viable. But this is certainly better than spinning your wheels with a random strategy that is going nowhere.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10106361

How to Successfully Meet the Three Biggest Marketing Challenges

I like to think I'm a pretty good marketer of my professional services.

After all, I've been at it for 34 years, read hundreds of marketing books, thousands of articles and studied with the very best marketing gurus.

But marketing is still challenging for me and the majority of independent professionals. If it weren't, we'd all have more clients than we could serve, they'd be paying us high fees, and we'd never having to worry where our next clients would come from.

And we wouldn't need the thousands of marketing coaches and consultants like me offering services of all kinds to help you attract more clients.

So, why is marketing so challenging?

There are many marketing challenges, however, if you look at marketing closely, there are actually only three big challenges that give us the most trouble.

Learn how to meet those challenges and your marketing will become more successful, easier, and fun.

Here are those three marketing challenges:

Challenge #1. Clearly communicating the value of what you are offering. Someone will not buy your services if they don't see the real value to them. Your message can't be vague or confusing; it must be clear and beneficial.

One way to zero in on the value of your service is to define the top three attributes your service possesses. One or two is not enough; five or six tends to dilute your message.

So, for instance, a sales training company might want to emphasize that their training is guaranteed to increase sales, improve sales confidence quickly, and can be delivered virtually in 45-minute online modules.

That's easy to understand and obviously beneficial. That kind of clear and valuable message is likely to generate attention, interest, and response.

Seems simple, but not so easy to do. In my experience with thousands of independent professionals, their messages tend to be vague, not specific, and weak in terms of value.

And if that value is not clear, prospects won't respond.

Taking the time to work on your message, fine-tune it, and test it until it gets a favorable response is one of the most important things you can possibly do in your business.

To succeed at this task you must get inside the heads of your ideal clients and ask what they want the most, what problems they struggle with frequently, what isn't working for them, and what could make their jobs easier and more productive.

Jaynie L. Smith of Smart Advantage consulting says that 90% of companies don't really know what their clients value the most. No wonder marketing messages are so bad.

You can improve your marketing messages by reading and research (ask Google), sending questionnaires to your clients (Survey Monkey), or conducting a virtual focus group (via Zoom Video). Ultimately, you want to find out their biggest challenges and what they value the most.

When you have that marketing intelligence, it will be a lot easier to come up with powerful marketing messages.

This is challenging because it takes time and deep thinking. But if you realize its importance, you'll invest your energies to come up with a powerful message that makes your service attractive, interesting, and compelling to your ideal clients.

Challenge # 2. Making your business visible with repeated impressions of your message over time. It can take several impressions before someone responds to your marketing message.

Just today, I noticed a message that one of my first level connections had sent to me on LinkedIn. When I checked the message, I noticed that he had sent me a total of 13 messages over a one-year period.

The messages were actually very good. They had the right tone and great calls-to-action. It's just that I don't pay a lot of attention to my LinkedIn messages and had completely missed the first 12!

He understood the value of repeat impressions over time and had developed a system within LinkedIn that had enabled him to send a unique, personalized message every month for a year. Pretty impressive.

If he had only sent one or two messages, the chances are good that I wouldn't have seen them.

Again, my experience with the majority of self-employed professionals is that their marketing visibility is, at best, random and inconsistent, and at worst, non-existent.

As you may know, I've sent out an email newsletter to my list pretty much every week for 21 years. That's visibility. It's really quite simple, but not so easy.

If you want to be effective at your marketing, you must identify marketing strategies that enable you to get your message in front of your prospective clients consistently.

And again, this is challenging. What is the best marketing activity for you, your personality and talents? How can you fit something into your schedule and do it consistently, not for a few weeks but for years?

The question is not just what marketing strategies to use. Networking, speaking, blogging, email newsletters, webinars, social media, and direct outreach can all work.

The more important question is what strategies will work the best for you and how exactly you can implement those strategies without spinning your wheels.

You're looking for proven, step-by-step instructions so you can evaluate if a strategy is right for you and something you can fit into your schedule on a regular basis. Remember, sporadic implementation is a waste of time.

Implementing visibility strategies takes commitment and persistence. Is growing and succeeding in your business important enough for you to make that kind of effort? If it is, you'll succeed at finding the best strategy for you.

The final challenge may be the most important of all to overcome.

Challenge #3. Maintaining the right marketing attitude and mindset over time, despite setbacks. If you can't maintain The 3 R's of success - responsibility, resourcefulness, and resilience, your marketing will never achieve the results you want.

These 3Rs are absolutely essential.

Responsibility is the stance that the buck stops with you. You are the only one who will find a way to attract clients and you won't give up until you find that way. You won't make excuses or blame circumstances, but instead will be accountable for making results happen.

Resourcefulness is the skill to utilize your talents, and abilities to quickly find smart ways to overcome difficulties and find solutions. And to be resourceful, you can't be full of doubts and fears of failure or rejection. A responsible person commits to finding a way; a resourceful person tries every way possible until they discover the best way.

Resilience may be the most powerful trait of all. It's what enables you to bounce back from adversity, setbacks, and even failures. And if you're working to attract great clients, you'll inevitably experience all of those many times. People who are not resilient don't even try, let alone succeed.

All of these essential qualities are in short supply. But if you work to grow those qualities persistently, over time, they will help you succeed with the first two challenging things in marketing - messaging and visibility.

Despite these three marketing challenges - messaging, visibility, and mindset - there is good news.

Improving your skills or abilities - even a little - in any of these three challenge areas will increase your marketing effectiveness.

There is no perfect way of tackling all three challenges and you can't do it in big leaps that get you there overnight. But you can work on all three slowly, with persistence, making small gains every week.

When you improve your messages, you'll start to see a better response in communicating to your prospects. Marketing then becomes like a game that starts with the question, "How can I communicate my value more clearly and powerfully?"

When you increase your visibility, you'll also notice a better response because to some degree, marketing is a numbers game. Your question might be, "How can I get my message in front of more of the right people this month?"

And when you enhance your responsibility, resourcefulness, and resilience, you'll find that playing the game becomes easier and more fun. The 3Rs are the fuel that enables you to persist with the first two challenges.

Where do you start?

You start by admitting where you are now and then committing to a purpose (your WHY for being in business in the first place), a goal (a specific thing you want to achieve), and to taking action (the actual steps you'll implement to get there).

Yes, marketing is challenging. But meeting those challenges is absolutely worth it.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10110078

Different Types of Direct Marketing Lists

Direct marketing delivers your marketing message directly to a group consumers or businesses on a personalized level (such as a telephone call or via a personal email message). It's a form of marketing that provides the recipient with a direct call to action. The following are the three main types of direct marketing.

Mailing Lists
Direct mail is one of the most common forms of direct marketing and an essential part of an integrated marketing campaign. Companies promote their products and services with a provocative mailer. Direct mail campaigns provide your prospects with a tangible piece of mail to read at their leisure. Direct mail campaigns are extremely effective and when they are personalized and customized to a specific target audience can have great response rates.

Telemarketing Lists
Telemarketing is the process of calling prospects on the phone to promote your products or services. This can be done using your own sales staff or by subcontracting out to a call center. Telemarketing is vital in creating brand recognition, building customer relationships, nurturing leads and of course, closing sales.

Even with its bad reputation, telemarketing still plays an important part of any direct marketing campaign. Telemarketing is personal and interactive, and capable of providing an immediate response. As effective as telemarketing is, you need to be sensitive to your prospects' willingness to receiving unsolicited phone calls.

Telemarketing campaigns work best when the telemarketing lists are highly targeted, with accurate data that matches your current customer's profiles.

Email Lists
Email marketing is an effective way of reaching out to new prospects or following up with existing customers. Email marketing is extremely versatile, and you can easily customize your marketing messages to various market segments, or for prospects in different stages of the sales funnel.

Email marketing can be used to nurture customer relationships, provide company and product information, drive website traffic and to promote direct sales. The emails can be as elaborate or as simple as needed.

Most people check their emails on a daily basis, making email a very effective marketing method for your business. However, email marketing should be used responsibly, and it is extremely important to have your customers' consent before sending emails.

The most successful direct marketing campaign will use a mix of marketing methods. Repetition is very important in any type of marketing efforts. The more you can get yourself out in front of prospects, the greater the chance of being remembered. Try a direct mail campaign with a telemarketing follow-up or an email blast in conjunction with a direct mail campaign. A Multi-Channel campaign also allows your prospects multiple ways to communicate back to you.

Regardless of the method, the key aspect in any direct marketing campaign is the ability to target the marketing message to a specific audience. With properly defined target market, you can deliver your message directly to those who have a greater probability of purchasing from your business. This allows businesses of all sizes focus their marketing budget and resources where they're most likely to get results.

It's very important, before starting any direct marketing campaign, that you understand the different regulations governing each method of communication. The responsibility is yours to make sure you are compliant. Legitimate list brokers and managers should be able to confirm that the lists they are providing comply to the various rules and regulations. If you are uncertain, do not hesitate to ask.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10142808

Will Power And Self Discipline In Your Online Business

In your online business, there are quite a number of things that you have to master in order to be successful, but few can compare in importance to will-power and self-discipline. You are going to be tested in so many ways, while building your business that you are going to need these two qualities so important in your life almost every day. It is no good carrying on procrastinating and taking no action about different things that we all know are absolutely necessary in your online business.

So often you may want to do things that you know are beneficial and important for your business online yet, if you do not actually take action to get them done, you see that time carries on regardless and very little is achieved. This sort of thing happens to most of us, especially when we lack will power and have no self-discipline. So keep reading because I will cover a few ways to develop will power and acquire self-discipline.

I don't want you to keep wishing you had will-power and self-discipline. Instead, I am going to show how to get these qualities to make a great difference in your life. When you start eliminating the habits that stop you from going forward, like laziness, excessive eating, smoking and procrastination, you will be on your way to recognize that you are getting more will power and self-discipline. Having more of these qualities is absolutely necessary to do well in your online business.

But how do you get will-power, how do you begin to understand will-power?. Well, if you think, like many people do, that will-power is something very arduous or difficult, or that you have to tense your body and brain to express it, you are mistaken. Don't believe it because I am going to show some strategies that will convince you it is not difficult to develop will-power.

When you don't value insignificant, unnecessary and unhealthy ideas, feelings, actions and reactions that don't empower you, you are showing you posses will-power. This energy is stored inside you and can be available any time you need it to accomplish anything your want.

We will cover later some exercises you can do to gain a lot of will power, but now let us talk about self-discipline and why you need it for your life and your business. You could say that when you make decisions for your business and carry them through to fruition, you have some self-discipline because you have not allowed instant gratification and pleasure take you away from your desired course. Indeed that is a good definition of self-discipline because your actions allowed you to stay with the course that you selected before-hand.

Is this skill useful and required in everyone's life? Absolutely! Without it, as we touched before, you would not stick with your decisions and would have a hard time achieving your goals in business. When you have it, your actions, thoughts and behaviour are in line with a better and more fulfilling life because your inner strength and will power overcome addictions, and other negative traits like procrastination, laziness and lack of focus, to allow you to achieve whatever you want to do in online business.

So why would you not develop self-discipline? You do know how useful and required it is for success in your personal life and of course in your business world too, so fortify it, embrace it and develop it further. Remember that lack of discipline may lead you to failure in reaching your goals. But on the other hand, actions described above that demonstrate you have self-discipline, leads to self-assurance, inner strength and self-regard, as well as to complete satisfaction and happiness.

There are lots of issues and challenges along the path of success, accomplishment and wealth in business and you want to rise above all of them to become successful in whatever you do. You want and need to have perseverance, persistence and sheer will power in order to also overcome other negative traits like smoking, drinking, eating disorders and other damaging habits like drug addition, procrastination and laziness.

Here is what self-discipline can do for you, in addition to those qualities mentioned above:
• It allows you to regulate and control anger, indecision, appetite and various other natural responses.

• You can eliminate many types of temptations which you do not need like gossiping or gambling, overeating or watching too much television.

• It can certainly rescue you from throwing in the towel when things are tough in the business world or in your personal life, by giving you the strength to keep going.

• With it you can get great relationships with others, by not feeling easily hurt or disturbed with what sometimes people do or say to you.

• It gives you better control over the need to accomplish the goals you set for yourself in your online business, as well as having total control over your responses, needs and thoughts.

There are so many more qualities that self-discipline can bring to you...

But how can you develop these inner qualities of will-power and self-discipline? Well, will-power can be obtained gradually and it all depends really on your desire to get it.

And you do not require huge monumental feats of effort to achieve it. Don't believe those who tell you that to get will-power require you to go through great suffering or physical mutilation.

In fact, anyone can become powerful with will-power simply by the challenge of eliminating everything that you know is harmful for you in many areas of your personal and business life. By giving up adverse and useless things that take your time to make you weak, you gain in strength according to how many of these bad habits you can stop. Repeating this process is the challenge you need to make your life more absorbing, gratifying and interesting.

The will-power that you want is not something that can be achieved in one day. You can only developed it bit by bit, over a period of time and it is something that doesn't depend on feelings, emotions, un-focus enthusiasm or even optimism. Instead this gradual ability, developed over a period of time, if it turns into a habit, it is something so special that you can use over and over again whenever and wherever you require it.

This training of the will-power extends or inter-relates with self-discipline since the taking of gradual steps to obtain will-power requires another great quality as we've covered before called self-discipline. So, carry on this way because with self-discipline you also get self-control which is another way of calling self-discipline.

Using self-control wisely is one of the most important tools you can have for self-improvement and for accomplishing success online.

What else does self-control do? It can do a lot of things really, like keeping under control any self-destructive, addictive, compulsive and obsessive action. It can enhance the sense of personal mastery and balance over your life. And it can remove any feelings of weakness and being too dependent on other people. It also enables you to take control over your life. And there are many other qualities that self-control brings to your life.

Self-control also has to act against many obstacles like truly understanding what self-control really is about; or about deficiencies of the desire to alter and improve. And it has to act against solid and uncontrolled emotional responses. Also, do not allow self-control to be considered a restricting and unpleasant activity.

How do you develop self-control? You first find out what areas of your life need more self-control and these could be: Drinking, Betting, Smoking, Obsessive behaviour, Eating and then attempt to identify emotions that lack control, like being angry, dissatisfied, sadness, resentment, delight or fearfulness. See if you can isolate the thoughts and emotions that push you to act in an unrestrained manner.

Here are a few exercises that you can do to gain will-power, self-discipline and self- control: A) Refrain from saying things that are offensive or negative to other groups of people. B) Overlook the gossip useless pages of newspapers. C) When you desire to eat unhealthy meals, discard the thought and prepare yourself an alternative healthy one. D) Try not to drink your tea with sugar for a week if you normally take sugar with your tea. E) Get up straight away at the set time to do it, instead of thinking about it. F) Develop the habit of finishing what you started.

But there are so many more things similar to those above to create an unstoppable muscle to develop your inner strength. The point here is that you do not want to continue making your life hard by doing the things you don't like. Consider instead making your life 'easy' by doing the things that most people think hard to do. These skills are vital for your will-power, self-discipline, your personal life and your online business.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8001352

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/

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/

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

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.

Article Source: https://chatbotsmagazine.com/5-ways-ai-is-changing-property-companies-5d7db55f9a27

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/