7 Ways to Leverage a Lead Generation Chatbot for Your Business

At some point, you must’ve wondered, “Why is my bot not generating enough leads?”

Wasn’t that the whole point of chatbots?

To make the lead generation process easier?

We would think so. 

Because statistics are very much in favor of chatbots for lead generation. 47% of marketers use bots to generate high-quality leads.

Yes. High quality.

Clearly, they must have done something right.

At its core, chatbots are conversational. And we often forget that and treat them as simple forms.

Lead generation with a chatbot is an art and requires as much creative prowess as much as technical.

So it goes without saying that you have to take some measures to ensure your bot is successful in generating leads. Only then can you expect it to perform and achieve the results that you often associate chatbots with.

What are these measures?

Let’s have a look.

7 Ways to Leverage a Chatbot for Lead Generation for Your Business

1. Add a Pop-Up Message

For the chatbot to do its work, the visitors first need to know there is a chatbot.

Believe it or not, the chatbot bubble which is usually at the button right corner of your website often goes unnoticed. You need to have a short popup with a quick message that captures the attention and also breaks the ice with your customers (albeit in a subtle, non-intrusive way).

The chatbot’s first impression will go a long way in converting your visitors. Some of the top tactics you can utilize while designing a chatbot popup are:

• Try writing a message with a hint of quirkiness or a one-liner copy that addresses a major pain point. 

• Have a context-specific bot popup message for every page. For example, if the visitor lands on a pricing page, have a chatbot popup message that reads something like, “Want a customized pricing quotation?”

• Include a GIF or an image in the popup. Something that any visitor may relate to, or find funny. A pop culture GIF or an image can immediately catch the user's attention and prompt them to open the chat widget. 

• Have a notification sound a few seconds after a visitor lands on your website. In case they’re browsing other sites, it will remind them to open your site again and interact with the bot. 

Another emerging practice is the use of reverse IP lookup tools like Clearbit and 6Sense. It helps you optimize your sites to target audiences from different regions and personalize their experience. Without any interaction with the user, the bot identifies the user demographics based on the IP address. The popup can directly address the user by their name like, “Hey John, looking for marketing services?”

2. Enable Visitors to Book Meetings

The conventional method of collecting lead information and dumping the rest of the work on sales doesn’t work anymore. Converting outbound leads is a task in itself. 

You need to know the level of commitment, the buying desire, and the readiness to purchase. Lead qualification is a tedious process for the sales team and it increases the TAT. 

So then how does booking meetings qualify leads? 

If you think about it, a prospect scheduling an appointment or booking a meeting from their end shows a lot of commitment. 

A lot of industries like hospitals, salons, and SaaS, work on schedules and appointments. Imagine all the time invested in manually talking to leads and scheduling bookings or demos on their behalf. They are sometimes flooded with queries that lead to hassles while booking an appointment. 

Lead generation with chatbots means providing your visitors with a means to book appointments by themselves. All of this is at a fraction of chatbot pricing as compared to the appointment scheduling cost associated with a human employee. 

All you need to do is have scheduling integrations like Calendly that allows visitors to choose from available slots. You can add your available timings and days so the visitors only book in the given time frame. Instead of just relying on lead information, you have a scheduled meeting that has higher chances of conversions. 

3. Draft a Compelling Welcome Message

A lot of welcome messages on chatbots for lead generation fall prey to the same robotic tone. First impressions last longer than you think. And while building a bot that resonates with your overall brand is essential, you also need to give it some personality. It doesn’t have to be too formal or too informal. Find a balance and stick to it throughout the script. 

A keyword to keep in mind is ‘compelling’. How the bot introduces itself and starts a conversation will determine if the user wants to continue chatting. Some of the other best practices to follow while drafting a welcome message on the bot builder are:

Write crisp messages

No one likes text-heavy messages. Whether it’s your website content or your chatbot content. Learn how to say more in fewer words.

Ensure that your bot welcomes the user, gives them information about the purpose, and a few words of encouragement to move forward with the conversation. 

Break down the messages

Since chatbots are a messaging tool, use them like how you would talk on an instant messaging app like WhatsApp. You rarely send an entire message at a single go. That’s what you do in chatbots too.

If your welcome message is becoming too heavy, break them down into smaller snippets. Also, ensure that you don’t go on and on. Make a practice of not going over three snippets. You still need to be brief and engaging as possible. 

Introduce the bot

Give a name to the bot and add that name to the welcome message. What good does it do? A lot of customers wish to know that they’re speaking to a bot instead of a bot pretending to be a human.

And although a bot is well.. a bot, it at least builds a rapport and lays the foundation for long-term interaction with the potential customer. 

Include rich media

How do you interact with your family and friends on instant messaging apps? Barring a few, you try to have a friendly conversation with them that includes images, videos, and GIFs.

Aim for your chatbots to provide a familiar experience. Of course, you need to keep your brand personality in mind. But a few images or GIFs add flavor to an otherwise boring welcome message. 

Use buttons cleverly

Let your visitor dictate their conversational journey by themselves rather than forcing them on your desired narrative. Buttons help you design your flow intelligently and also allow you to understand the visitor’s intent.

If they click on ‘just browsing’ you know they’re still at the bottom of the funnel. If they click on ‘contact us’ they’re in the middle of the funnel and so on. This also gives you some background while qualifying the leads. 

4. Keep Data Collection Subtle and Smooth

Have you wondered why chatbots became the go-to automated lead generation software in the first place? 

It’s because they’re interactive. 

They facilitate seamless two-way communication which wasn’t possible before. 

Hence, you don’t straight away jump to the point while building a chatbot for lead generation. You allow the visitor to have a conversation whilst generating leads in the process. You can collect lead information via lead forms inside chatbots, sliders, or buttons. Some must-dos you need to have in a lead generation chatbot are:

Ask the visitor their name

To personalize the messages from the very beginning, the bot must ask the visitor before proceeding with the conversation. 

Request email address in conversation

If the user expresses interest to carry on the conversation, ask for the email without making it obvious. While capturing the email address, enable a default lowercase format.

Send out an error message if the user doesn’t provide a proper email address, i.e if the prefix doesn’t appear to the left of the @ symbol and the domain doesn’t appear to its right. 

Request phone number if possible

Keep the option of a phone number in order for you to get in touch with the customer later on. You can again ensure that the customer provides a correct number by sending an error message if the number of digits doesn’t match. 

And while you collect these details, remember to keep the essence of the chatbot and keep the process conversational. Consider the chatbot lead generation example in the two parallel conversations: 

Scenario 1

Bot: Hello. How can I help you today? 

1. About the Company

2. How to use the Product?

3. Pricing 

4. Resources

5. Just Exploring

Visitor: Just Exploring. 

Bot: That’s great. May I know your name? 

Visitor: John. 

Bot: Can you please provide your email address?

Visitor: But I am just exploring as of now. 

Bot: Sorry, I didn’t get that. 

Scenario 2

Bot: Welcome! I am OmniBot. Your assistant for today! 

How can I help you? 

1. About the Company

2. How to use the Product?

3. Pricing 

4. Resources 

5. Just Exploring 

Visitor: Just Exploring 

Bot: That’s awesome. I can show you around if you like. 

But wait…what do I call you?

Visitor: John

Bot: Nice to meet you, John. I have some interesting resources to share that will help you with your exploration. Would you be interested to know more?

1. Yes

2. No

Visitor: Yes

Bot: That’s great! Can you please share your email address? 

Visitor: john20@abccorp.com

Bot: Perfect! Sending you the information right away.

And in case you need help with anything else, you know where to find me!

It is the second conversation where you’ll have higher chances of converting your visitors. Because you’re not dictating your objectives forcefully. You’re having enough conversations with users and making them comfortable before asking for lead information. 

5. Personalize Your Messages 

It’s time and again established that the more personal your message, the higher chances of lead generation. 64% of brands believe that chatbots will help them provide personalized services.

How can it do that? 

• As mentioned before, your chatbot for lead generation needs to address the user by the name from the beginning. It builds trust even if it’s a machine-to-human conversation and urges the user to continue the conversation. 

• You can also identify returning users based on the IP address and lead information and personalize their messages. Instead of a simple hello you can address them with a “Hello again”. 

• Deploy multilingual chatbots to localize the conversational experience. A chatbot that speaks the language of the prospect has a higher chance of getting the customer to interact as opposed to a chatbot that only converses in English. 

6. Qualify Your Leads 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you generate 100 leads if none of them are qualified. With a lead qualification bot, you can ensure that the leads your chatbot generates are indeed genuine and have some desire to purchase.

But how do chatbots qualify leads exactly?

By asking qualifying questions.

Some of the questions you can ask to define the lead score of the visitor are: 

• What brings you here today?

• Are you a decision maker?

• What do you know about our product?

• What is your budget?

• Would you want to schedule a Demo?

• What is the size of your business?

• Where are you based? 

These questions will depend on your industry and goal. But assign a score to each question and let the chatbot assign value and qualify or disqualify them. Program your chatbot in a way that only the qualified leads get stored in your CRM. 

7. Use Page-Specific bots 

Deploying page-specific bots is a very underrated lead generation technique. A prospect that’s landing on a blog webpage will have a different intention than a prospect landing on a home page or the pricing page.

Instead of a generic flow, you can build different bots with a different conversational flow on each page.

For example, if you’re a B2B service provider that caters to different industries, you can have a different bot for your eCommerce solution page and your manufacturing solution page. Because it is unlikely that these two industries will face the same challenges and want the same solutions.

A chatbot with a personalized script and conversation will assure the reader that you’re not a newbie and have significant knowledge about their industry. You can also have different scripts for people that land on your resources page, the home page, the pricing page, and the about us page. This way, you’re closer to the customer in their buying journey process and hit them with the right questions instead of a one-for-all approach. 

Conclusion

Although lead generation is an obvious use-case of a chatbot, you need to consider redefining the engagement amidst changing customer expectations.

Ultimately, it’s the conversations that hold the lead generation game together on chatbots. If you learn that art, you can get a lot of things in lead generation right.

Regardless, if you want to optimize your lead generation process via chatbots, you can schedule a demo with us, and we’d be happy to guide you through.