Frank is polite, well-informed, and always ready to chat with your visitors. He can answer most of their questions and hook them up with the right person in your company. Does someone want to schedule a demo or a call? No problem. Frank even helps them choose content to match their interests. And did I mention he always wears the same impeccable suit?
You’ve just captured leads, kept them engaged on your site, and discovered their concerns without even lifting your mouse. Frank, your chatbot, did all the work.
If you’re generating leads for complex sales, cycles are longer. Your readers need more information. And campaigns risk losing buyers in the chasms between introduction, understanding, and purchase.
Keep reading, and learn how companies are using chatbots, gamification, and white papers to bridge the gap from cold traffic to customer by enhancing communication, engagement, and education.
Chat Bots – Meet Your New Cyber Staff
Chat bots deliver automated replies, boosting profits for the businesses that use them. [1] In addition to increasing engagement, they qualify leads and inform follow-up campaigns.
Research from Inside Sales shows companies reaching leads within the first 5 minutes of engagement are 100 times more likely to make contact than after they wait 30 minutes. They’re also 21 times more likely to qualify a lead called within 5 minutes than one called at the half-hour mark. [2]
Drift studied 433 companies to find out how well businesses without chatbots measured up to the 5-minute rule. The results? Fifty-five percent of the companies took 5 or more days to respond to inquiries. Only 7% responded within the first five minutes. And every one of the 10 speediest responders used chatbots on their websites. [3]
According to consultant Brad Power, Epson gained a $2 million increase in revenue over 90 days after piloting a Conversica AI assistant. The company saw a response rate of 51%, a 240% increase from the starting rate, and a 75% increase in qualified leads over the testing period. [4]
Nota bene: Simple chat apps are so affordable and easy to install, even solopreneurs and freelancers are using them. I installed Tawk on my website and offer an opt-in to a ManyChat sequence on Facebook as part of an affiliate sales funnel (Facebook temporarily put the kibosh on chatbots, but they are now allowed and active again!).
Gamification – Beyond Monopoly
Marketers have experimented with gamification for over 100 years. The approach remains popular in e-learning and sales training. And software marketers are using its magic to transform leads into customers.
Gartner describes Gamification as “the use of the same design techniques and game mechanics found in all games, but [applied to] non-game contexts including: customer engagement, employee performance, training and education, innovation management, personal development, sustainability and health.” [5]
The research company predicted that by 2014, 80% of companies using gamified applications would fail to meet their business objectives because of poor game design. However, the forecast remains optimistic. Their more recent Gamification 2020 report predicts that gamification will have a “significant impact on customer engagement.” [6]
Early models of gamification included simple incentive programs. If you grew up in the 70’s and 80’s like I did, these might look familiar. My mom collected stamps and filled cards to exchange for pots and pans at the grocery store. One chain ran a promo with horse racing tickets; we watched the races on TV and crossed our fingers for a win. And McDonald’s handed out Monopoly game pieces. Customers collected and traded sets for free food and other prizes.
Gamification Online
The Treehouse platform awards coders and web developers with badges and points as they complete modules. One course I took marked achievement points with installments of a campy melodrama (and yes, I watched them all!).
In the past, ClickFunnels has used gamification to mobilize an army of well-paid affiliates into a lead generating machine. There is an ongoing reward of $500 per month toward a new car for every ClickFunnels affiliate with 100 active affiliate users each month. And Brunson’s free Expert Secrets book was launched with a frenzied affiliate competition for the greatest number of book requests.
ClickFunnels introduced gamification for both funnel builders and page visitors. New subscribers view their progress on a digital game board as they learn to use the software. They meet challenges and win real prizes as they build their first funnel pages and assemble them into profitable sales machines.
Kartra, a ClickFunnels competitor, followed by offering launch affiliates extravagant bonuses, including a Mercedes Benz CLA Class 4-Door and a Zero-G Weightless Experience.
Finally, Ironpaper used gamification to allow MyCheck visitors to create and save their own POS software solutions on the site. The strategy generated over 600 qualified leads in four months and quadrupled the sales leads. [7]
White Papers – Lead Magnets that Pay
White papers increase loyalty and trust with in-depth content. Case studies, industry statistics, and research from quality sources address common concerns without selling directly.
Because these high-value assets can be easily gated, they are ideal tools for qualifying leads. Online forms may ask for address, phone number, position, size of company, number of employees, and/or gross revenue. Follow-up may include a phone call, email or printed mail.
Chief Marketer’s 2018 B2B Lead Gen Trend Outlook collected responses from 205 organizations and found that white papers were one of the most effective forms of content for moving prospects through the funnel. Respondents were asked to choose their top three forms of content. White papers came in second with 37%. Articles and blog posts came in first with 49% and video came in at a close third at 36% [8]
Are White Papers Worth the Investment?
DemandWave surveyed a group of 179 B2B marketers for their 6th annual State of B2B Digital Marketing Report. According to the results, white papers are the best digital marketing channels for driving revenue. Those surveyed indicated that whitepapers are 40% effective, with webinars reported as 37% effective, case studies at 34%, videos at 30%, and blogs scoring only 28%. [9]
Sources:
[1] https://hbr.org/2017/06/how-ai-is-streamlining-marketing-and-sales [2] https://www.hipb2b.com/blog/infographic-the-best-practices-for-lead-response-management [3] https://blog.drift.com/lead-response-survey/ [4] https://hbr.org/2017/06/how-ai-is-streamlining-marketing-and-sales [5] https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2251015. [6] https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/2226015/gamification-2020-what-is-the-future-of-gamification- [7] http://www.ironpaper.com/webintel/articles/digital-marketing-trends-for-b2b-technology-companies/ [8] http://cdn.chiefmarketer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2018-cm-b2b-lead-gen-outlook.pdf [9] https://www.slideshare.net/DemandWave/the-2017-state-of-b2b-digital-marketing-report/14
