Best Facebook Chat Bots for Lead Generation
Last updated
by
Daniel Wade
/
July 28, 2022
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Chatbots are growing into a marketing necessity. According to this hubspot report, 5% of all companies on the planet were regularly using chatbots by 2016. 20% of that portion had just piloted their chatbots, while an additional 32% were looking to test them the following year.
That was over four years ago, and today, chatbots are more relevant than ever. It is possible that we're heading into a chatbot marketing future because these digital marketing tools have a diverse range of applications.
Bots can substitute numerous manual tasks, cutting down on manpower without affecting your bottom line. And because they are online 24/7, chatbots can work for you around the clock, building customer relationships and generating leads even while you sleep.
There are a lot of reasons to use a chatbot, but the following statistics best capture their primary benefits:
- Chatbots multiply web page engagement rates by 3x on average.
- Most sites report an average conversion increase of 45% after adding a chatbot.
- The majority of web users, roughly 71%, prefer to use their messaging apps to get assistance-they do so because they want quick solutions to their problems.
- Consumers are more likely to return to a website that has a chatbot that's helpful.
How Marketers are Using Chatbots
Even to a small business, chatbots are an attractive marketing tool. For starters, they are always online 24/7, so there is always someone to help out consumers throughout the day.
They can be used to handle several menial tasks that you had to do manually. Chatbots are highly adaptable. You'll be surprised just how many ways you can integrate the technology with your business.
For instance, marketers these days have taken to using chatbots for the following purposes:
- Generate leads
- Route leads directly to sales.
- Ease website and product navigation.
- Carry out polls and surveys.
- Generate views for specific content.
- Build sales funnels.
- Upsell customers and nurture leads.
- Run online contests.
- Run opt-in campaigns for email and SMS marketing.
Ultimately, all these strategies have one goal: to generate leads and grow revenue. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. A chatbot can have a dramatic impact on your revenue.
The Best Facebook Chat Bots for Lead Generation
We shall be focusing on Facebook Messenger chatbots for two reasons:
- The IM/chat environment is still a very intimate space for consumers. If you can manage to harness their attention here using chatbots, your conversion rates will skyrocket.
- Chatbots are very effective in personal environments, especially if they can provide tailored solutions to consumers' problems quickly.
Bear in mind that chatbots are built, not purchased ready to use. Don't worry. You don't need any coding skills to build a Facebook Messenger chatbot.
Most of the available options come in the form of chatbot builders that can integrate with platforms like Messenger, WeChat, and Viber.
With that in mind, we'll be looking at the best Facebook chatbots to use when you want to maximize lead generation.
1. SmartLoop
First on our list is SmartLoop, an AI-based chatbot that uses machine learning to understand the context. It is, therefore, much more adept at understanding what your customers want in specific circumstances.
SmartLoop allows you to build highly intelligent chatbots for lead nurturing and generation. In addition to creating customized chatbots, it allows you to analyze your users' interactions with your bots, letting you fix loopholes and capitalize on what's working to maximize lead generation.
A combination of machine learning and detailed analytics makes this a particularly potent chatbot builder for businesses that are just starting to experiment with chatbot technology. You have a lot of room to try out different strategies and tweak them according to real-time results gathered by the tool until you get what your business needs.
Features of SmartLoop
- AI-based - This software's entire knowledge base is built on conversational AI. It is capable of more natural conversations and can generate a diverse range of responses to suit multiple unique scenarios.
- Automation - SmartLoop provides a long list of automation tools to help you engage with your customers at just the right moment. Automation tools can be used to trigger interactions when customers perform specific actions.
- Messenger integration - Out of the box, this software easily integrates with Facebook Messenger. You can leverage its automation tools and AI-backed knowledge base to interact seamlessly with customers within the Messenger environment.
- Simple conversation builder - When you want to create personalized conversations to engage visitors, SmartLoop lets you do that with straightforward point-and-click functionality. It's quick and very easy to master.
- Bot-to-human handoff - One crucial feature that you get with SmartLoop is the bot-to-human transfer feature. It comes in handy when your customers' requests supersede the bot's vocabulary or functionality. Seamless transitions from bot to human make chatbots even more useful.
- Custom channel integration - Whether you need a bot on Facebook Messenger, Viber, or WeChat, SmartLoop makes it easy to create one and customize it for a specific environment.
- Live chat support - Start a Live Chat feature within your website that interacts with customers via their Messenger accounts.
- Push notifications - SmartLoop also supports push notifications, so you can send out periodic reminders to your client base when you have a new product or discount to advertise.
Why use SmartLoop?
There are two major reasons to use SmartLoop to build your chatbot.
First, its conversational AI makes interactions smooth and human-like. Your customers will respond better to it as opposed to a bot that seems too robotic and impersonal.
Secondly, you can use automated messages to target leads at various stages of the purchase cycle. Upsell previous customers or re-engage cold leads and get a lot more conversions through perpetual automated messages that work for you 24/7.
Where SmartLoop falls short
Although you can create Facebook Messenger bots with SmartLoop, you can only use them on a selected handful of channels. Therefore, your reach may feel a bit limited. Pricing is a big issue for businesses that cross the 1K subscriber threshold. There are far more affordable options available.
2. MobileMonkey
For most digital marketers, MobileMonkey is the kind of all-in-one platform that provides everything you need to capture leads on multiple channels. It supports some of the crucial elements, such as live chat, Facebook Messenger, SMS, and webchat. It even supports omnichannel marketing, so in all respects, it is a powerful lead generation tool for businesses of all kinds.
Features of MobileMonkey
- Multi-channel bots for web and mobile apps - When you need bots on both your website and mobile platforms, MobileMonkey is one of the best options available.
- Live team - MobileMonkey has one of the most advanced live team features in the market.
- Extensive support - It supports Facebook Messenger, SMS marketing, and even native web chat. It allows you to use customized chatbots across multiple platforms, gaining you a wider reach.
- Unique chatbot builder - MobileMonkey utilizes a visual flow builder and editor, so creating bots is one smooth process.
- Different chatbot templates available - You can customize your chatbots using a number of pre-made templates that are available within the software.
- Multilingual support - Chatbots can communicate in multiple languages depending on the needs and reach of your business.
- Mobile-friendly - You're not sacrificing any mobile-friendliness by choosing MobileMonkey chatbots, which are mobile-friendly right out of the box.
- AI-powered bots - The chatbots here are powered by AI, so they're capable of routing requests to human operatives and offering automated responses for the repetitive FAQs.
- Custom handoff triggers - You can set custom triggers for live chat bot-to-human handoffs, which allows customers to get human assistance when the bots can't provide further assistance.
- Analytics - Analytics and reporting are part and parcel of the MobileMonkey software. You have tons of insight into the effectiveness of your chatbots, which allows you to customize them based on what works while removing what doesn't.
Why Use MobileMonkey?
MobileMonkey is a pretty handy chatbot tool to use because it brings everything together under one platform. It happens to have a long list of pros:
- A whole suite of tools for chatbot building and automation
- A dedicated mobile chat app that comes with advanced support features
- Seamless and straightforward functionality-it is simply straightforward to use
- Visual workflows for building and customizing your chatbots
- Superb integration across multiple platforms. It also aggregates all your interactions into one inbox.
- All plans offer unlimited leads and contacts.
- Both web and mobile inboxes support live chat bot-to-human handoffs.
- MobileMonkey is backed by a massive user community.
Where MobileMonkey falls short
The platform needs constant updates due to the immense number of new features being added onto it. Although that means more downtime, it's not necessarily a bad thing because you're ultimately getting better functionality with every update.
3. ZoConvert
ZoConvert is a platform that allows digital marketers to create a messenger bot on Facebook. It is hyperfocused on optimizing marketing strategies on Facebook, so don't go for this option if you're looking to get leads through other marketing channels.
Marketers love it because it is easy to use, well-equipped with a suite of automation tools, and designed to boost user interaction on an already interactive platform.
Features of ZoConvert
- Automated personalized messaging - When you need to usher visitors into the next stage of the sales funnel, ZoConvert allows you the convenience of customizing automated messages so that your lead generation process is maximized.
- Analytics and reports - You can get insights into the performance of your campaigns, which is crucial for the adaptation of methods that yield the highest return on investment.
- Targeting and retargeting - ZoConvert lets you set reminders that nudge your audience to finish setting up accounts, reading content, or subscribing to your channels.
- CRM integration - You can integrate ZoConvert with your existing CRM database to include previous customers and to enable it to learn about the most frequent interactions on your channels.
- Ad integration - ZoConvert can integrate with any of your ad campaigns. That means you can use it specifically for gaining more views or leads from a specific ad campaign.
Why Use ZoConvert?
This is a platform that's designed specifically to make bots for Facebook messenger. That's the first reason why any marketer should look into it if they're serious about creating a messenger chatbot.
It is also quite straightforward to use. It allows marketers to perform a lot of things, from targeting new customers to re-targeting cold leads. That's a good way to keep growing engagement.
Finally, it integrates with specific Facebook Ads, so if you've already got a couple running, this is the perfect chatbot builder to go for. It can be built into your current campaign with as little hassle as possible.
4. OctaneAI
OctaneAI is the perfect chatbot recommendation for direct-to-consumer (D2C) businesses geared towards e-commerce. If you run a store on Shopify, that's great news because OctaneAI works primarily with Shopify stores.
Features of OctaneAI
- Facebook Messenger bots - OctaneAI has the most platform-specific bots when it comes to Facebook Messenger. If that's your main goal, look no further.
- Messenger ads - This platform allows you to send ads on Messenger as dictated by your parameters.
- Analytics (third-party) - Even though it lacks a native analytics feature, it still allows you to get the insights you need through a third-party analytics app.
- Follow-ups - Automation triggers allow you to send follow up messages to customers after a successful sale or subscription.
- Segmentation - This chatbot offers a unique feature that's bound to drum up more business. Audience segmentation lets you target customers based on their previous purchases, likes, and preferences.
- Order tracking - You can track each customer's order progress plus deploy any of the cart abandonment tools (alternative purchase options, etc.) at your disposal to increase your conversion rates.
Why use OctaneAI?
The main reason to use OctaneAI is its ready integration with Shopify. It also gives you a lot of e-commerce platform add-ons.
It is also a very robustly-built platform. Anyone with an e-commerce website stands to benefit a lot from the handful of bots it provides to improve engagement levels at different stages of the purchase cycle.
Where OctaneAI falls short
Pricing is the main problem most users have with this platform. To access all the features that are available on OctaneAI is a costly venture. Most small businesses may not comfortably afford their full suite of services.
The Bottom Line
There are literally hundreds of options available when it comes to messenger chatbots. All of them can improve customer engagement and satisfaction by providing instantaneous feedback.
The ones we've talked about have a particularly crucial feature: bot-to-human handoffs. That one feature allows them to be even more useful as customers can be transferred to human representatives when the issue is too complicated.
Usability, which is also important if you want to make the most of your chatbot software, is an important criterion as well-one that all four of the selected options excel at. They are all straightforward to use, some through the help of visual aids like flowcharts.
Ultimately, a chatbot can be a worthy investment as it grows your leads and improves your conversion rates. If you need help choosing or operating a chatbot builder, there is plenty of help available in the form of digital marketing agencies that take the work off your hands so that you can focus on growing your business.
About THE AUTHOR
Daniel Wade
After working for multiple digital advertising agencies and managing hundreds of client accounts and spending millions of dollars via Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Native Ads and Direct Media Buying, I took things out on my own and started SparrowBoost. Now, my tight-knit team and I continue to get smarter and more efficient at running our own campaigns and we share our knowledge with you.
Learn more about SparrowBoost