Since the advance of digital, there are many opportunities for marketers and business owners to promote their business and nurture their relationships with customers. Yet, all these new channels should not underestimate our traditional online means of communication: email.
It turns out that email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing strategies today.
More recently, chatbots emerged to facilitate customer communication and provide high-level customer service. Today, the possibilities of chatbots are almost endless. They can send personalised messages, send and receive payments, and gather information, among many other features.
Of course, email has advanced a lot since it was first created. Among many features, email marketing can now integrate with chatbots. Can you imagine all the possibilities of chatbot and email marketing together? It is truly an upgrade!
The combination of chatbot and email marketing will make a big difference in your marketing efforts. The results will be fruitful in your communication, engagement, messaging and sales!
This article will understand how email marketing can integrate with your chatbot to skyrocket your results.
Why Email Marketing Matters
Whilst many people might think that email is dead and doubt that email marketing is worth their investment, the numbers tell us otherwise.
Around 4 billion people worldwide use email every day, and the number is set to rise to 4,6 in only three years. That represents more than half of the world’s population!
In Marketing, around 89% of marketers have email as their primary channel of lead generation and 92% use email channels for distributing content. Furthermore, 29% of marketing professionals consider email marketing the most effective marketing channel. Email marketing is indeed loved by marketers, but also by customers! 72% of customers prefer to use email to communicate with businesses.
The high rates of email usage by people are one reason why email marketing is so important, but there is more. Email marketing is fantastic for digital strategies as it can be used for both inbound and outbound marketing. Data shows that email can generate up to 4,200% in ROI!
Inbound emails create valuable content and tailor the customer experience—for example, personalised newsletters to email subscribers and discount codes for customers. Outbound emails aim to maximise your awareness and reach out to prospects who still haven’t engaged with your business.
For SaaS businesses, email marketing can be helpful and valuable through every step of the customer journey, driving conversions and facilitating engagement. For example, onboarding new customers, nurturing relationships, generating leads and retaining existing customers.
Email marketing is one tool that has the potential to drive a variety of results at different stages of your Marketing and Sales funnel. There are many email platforms, such as Mailer Lite, Active Campaign and HubSpot. One of the significant advantages of email marketing is its affordability. MailChimp, for example, is an email marketing platform that allows you to start your journey for free!
The Possibilities of Chatbots
Like email, the chatbot is also an accessible and cost-effective tool that can guide businesses throughout all the stages of the buyer’s journey, from attraction to retention.
Today, chatbots are the fastest growing brand communication channel. For consumers, chatbots work because they provide quick problem solutions and 24 /7 availability and support. For companies, chatbots are great allies, especially if you want your business to scale. They can cut costs and resources whilst delivering outstanding customer service and generating leads.
Another great deal of bots is personalisation, which enhances the customer experience. Customers feel more valuable, the interaction flows more naturally, and it can also represent a valuable additional source of customer data.
Chatbots evolved to be a crucial part of inbound marketing strategies. Chatbots can attract prospects, take proactive steps to stimulate conversations and turn visitors into leads. Then, nurture these leads and send actions to turn them into customers. Finally, entertain and engage these customers until they become advocates of your business.
Chatbots are set to be an essential component of future digital strategies. Still, it is imperative to choose your chatbot builder carefully. You need a platform that is accessible, intuitive, and that can unlock the advantages of chatbots, such as FlowXO.
Chatbot and Email Marketing: The Power of Integration
After reading all the goods that chatbots and email marketing can offer separately, can you imagine the power of this combination? It can’t go wrong.
Let’s understand how this integration accelerates results and drives performance.
Customer Support and Integration
Both customers and prospects might need some support when visiting your website, landing page or social media.
For example, if visitors are not familiar with your product and service and find issues navigating your website that cannot be solved at that moment, they are unlikely to convert.
Integrating chatbots in your channels can quickly resolve problems and make communication and conversion more efficient. For example, you can incorporate email marketing by simply taking prospects’ emails at this stage. Then, you can send personalised offers and emails to encourage your new leads to become customers.
Leads Generation and Nurturing
Chatbots and email marketing together can do a lot for your lead generation and nurturing strategy.
Chatbots help identify at which stage of the customer journey your user is, so you can precisely know the proper email communication to send. For example, if they are top-of-funnel, you can send email marketing messages to encourage them to convert, such as exclusive offers.
Integrating a chatbot with email marketing can smoothly move visitors down to the sales funnel. Chatbots are straightforward to interact with and can feel like a human conversation, making the user more likely to share their information with you. In addition, if they have a positive experience, they will be more likely to open your email.
Existing customers also benefit from this integration. For example, they can reach a chatbot to find a piece of particular information. The chatbot can help find what they need and gather this data to send personalised email marketing messages with tailored content to engage the customer.
Segmentation
One of the most impactful strategies is segmentation and targeting, as they can increase revenue by 760%.
Customer interaction must provide value, so generic emails and messages will not be as effective as customised ones. By segmenting your contacts, you can clarify your target and what type of messages to send, depending on your campaign and overall business objectives.
There are many ways to segment your customers, for example, by demographics, location, buying behaviour, stage in the customer journey, and many more.
Chatbots are excellent for segmentation and targeting. For example, the data gathered from customer interaction can provide critical information, and, further, businesses can also build personalised flows to ask specific questions.
The combination of chatbot and email can provide a more tailored view of your customer base and help to develop a segmented and more accurate marketing strategy.
Personalisation
As we know, segmentation and personalisation are impactful for both customers and businesses.
The right management of data can help you target your customers, provide customised messages and offers and stay one step ahead of your customers needs. By using email marketing tools, you send personalised emails to your contacts. With chatbots, you can deliver customised responses and personalised interactions.
When together, the personalisation provided by both tools can encourage customers to interact with your business even more. For example, the insights provided by chatbots can be used to later send personalised emails. Moreover, you can also add a link to your chatbot in your email. You can embed your bot, which redirects the user to your website or to a specific landing page.
Considering the usage of emails and the preference for chatbot’s communication, personalised messages can help you engage your audience and drive conversions on both channels.
Automation
Business automation increases the efficiency of tasks, reduces business costs and accelerates results. For example, according to statistics, 63% of companies that adopted marketing automation outperformed competitors!
Chatbots allow organisations to automate interactions based on predetermined triggers and actions. You can build your flows with triggers, so action is taken every time a trigger is activated.
So how can email marketing and chatbot be automated? First, you set up your chatbot to automatically send an email once the trigger is activated. For example, if a user signs up, you can automatically send a thank you message to your customer and even send an automated email to your team.
Chatbot and Email Marketing: The Best of Both Worlds
Chatbot and email marketing are fantastic tools, but they are even better together. Whilst chatbots can facilitate conversations and understand customer needs, the email marketing allows you to tailor your message and deliver exactly what they are looking for.
Businesses can leverage this combo results with a chatbot builder with email features. Flow XO is a customer-centric chatbot builder that offers integrations with email marketing providers.
Ready to start? Start for free.