How to Promote a Chatbot: 4 Big Ways

As more and more businesses are jumping in on the chatbot space, the industry is becoming more competitive than ever. Discovery remains a big hurdle for new chatbots, though platforms are thankfully implementing solutions. The Facebook Messenger discover tab, for example, makes it easy for users to find the bots most relevant to their needs. The Facebook Messenger discover tab is still a competitive space, though, and directories for bots on other platforms aren’t nearly as accessible. What’s a botmaker to do for chatbot promotion?

Brands and botmakers need to get creative when it comes to chatbot promotion. It is especially important when many customers might not feel moved to seek out bots at all. No matter what platform your bot’s on, we’ve got a handful of great ideas on how to promote a chatbot—check them out below.

Chatbot Promotion on Your Website

A great option for how to promote a chatbot is to place it directly on your website. This effectively transforms it into a helpdesk, alerting users immediately to the bot’s existence. If you’re looking for how to promote a Messenger bot, install Messenger’s Customer Chat Plugin to place a Messenger window on your home page. This plugin pulls from the user’s chat history, so they can continue the conversation on other devices so long as they’re logged into a Facebook account.

If you’re looking for general chatbot promotion, you can use similar third-party apps like Smooch. These plugins place a chat window in the corner of your website, but beware. Unlike the Messenger plugin, users may not be able to carry the conversation to another session or device. A final option for website chatbot promotion is to simply add a button that links to the bot. This option is less intrusive, though it may be easier for visitors to miss.

How to Market a Chatbot on Twitter: DM Cards

Twitter announced their Direct Message cards less than a year ago to help consumers discover brand chatbots on the platform. This feature allows brands to attach an attention-grabbing photo or video to a promoted tweet, then outfit it with up to four customizable CTA buttons. Bot Tender, a chatbot from Patrón Tequila, lets users begin an interaction by selecting where they’d like to enjoy a drink (poolside, cookout, etc.). It then delivers a custom list of personalized drinks, immediately demonstrating the bot’s value to users with little friction.

Not only does this alert followers to your bot’s existence, but it encourages options for them to interact with it right from the get-go using buttons. It’s an excellent option for how to market a chatbot that’s being used in timed campaigns.

How to Market a Chatbot Using Retargeting Ads

If your chatbot exists to help sell a service to current or prospective customers, retargeting ads are the perfect method of chatbot promotion for you. When a prospective customer visits your website, they’re likely going to visit competing businesses afterward to compare services and prices. This isn’t a bad thing; use it to your advantage while promoting your bot at the same time.

By installing a Facebook Pixel, you can target prospective customers after they’ve visited your website. Point your resulting ad campaign to your chatbot to further appeal to users’ needs and push them through the sales funnel. Of course, any business with a chatbot—not just ones hoping to make a sale—can benefit from using a retargeting campaign as a tactic for how to market a chatbot.

Implement Shareable Design for Organic Chatbot Promotion

The previous methods for how to promote a chatbot detailed how you can use external tools and plugins to your benefit. But you can easily drive organic chatbot promotion by implementing shareable design into your conversation flow. What is shareable design? Exactly what it sounds like. Designing your bot to make it as shareable as possible, much like how you’d compose any other piece of digital content.

There are two big ways to implement shareable design for how to promote a Messenger bot. This is offering group solutions or providing opportunities for users to share information with friends about themselves. Hipmunk is an excellent example of chatbot promotion using group solutions; it encourages users to collaboratively plan a trip as a group. TJ Maxxx, meanwhile, did an excellent job helping users promote themselves by offering a personalized Christmas wish list that users could share with their loved ones.

Is your bot struggling with a discovery problem? Sign up for Botanalytics and receive conversational data and chatbot analytics to understand where users are coming from, when and why. From there, you can improve every aspect of your bot, from engagement to retention to discovery.