Chatbots are becoming a standard in digital marketing strategies.
If they are setup correctly they can improve your online success. For example you can use chatbots for customer help, promotional purporses, help for online commerce, create games/quiz, make a contest.
Chatbots can be developed for various platforms: Telegram, Skype, Facebook Messenger, etc…
You need to know programming languages to build a chatbot, most used are Python, PHP, Java, NodeJS (JavaScript), C#, Objective-C, Swift, and Go.
If you don’t have these technical skills you can easily create bots using some services that offers basic features for free and paid plans for advanced features.
Facebook Messenger is the most used platform worldwide, in April 2017 had 1.2 billion monthly active users worldwide.
Tools to build a Facebook Messenger bot without coding:
Botsify – has clients such as Apple, Shazam. The free plan allows to create 1 chat bot, upto 100 unique users, free integrations, unlimited messages.
Chatfuel – claims that you can build a chatbot in 7 minutes. It’s free, if you plan on hitting more than 500,000 monthly active users you must contact them for a Premium plan.
Flowxo – offers a wider array of features and integrations than most other bot builders. A visual editor allows to easily creato bots. The free plan allows 500 interactions, 5 bots or active flows.
ManyChat – the free plan offers unlimited broadcasts, 2 broadcast sequences, 4 tools to convert subscribers into Messenger subscribers, 10 tags, 3 custom fields.
SnatchBot – free unlimited bots and messages.
To create a fully functional and successful bot keep in mind these tips:
Give it a unique name that helps it stand out.
Give consumers hints on how to get started, don’t show just a blank page (eg. setup automatic prompts).
Use a natural conversation flow
Don’t reveal all features at the same time, Chatbots can have an array of functions, however, revealing all of them at once can overwhelm users.
Optimizing and maintaining your chatbot by monitoring and optimizing them in order to increase performance.
There are various ways you can promote the Messenger bot after you have created it.
You can use the direct bot link m.me/{username}, where username is the name of the Facebook page, and share it in your existing social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc…).
Use “Send Message” and Checkbox plugins to add a Send to Messenger button in your site or Facebook page.
Place a “Share” button in the Messenger Persistent Menu or at the beginning of the bot’s flow so users can easily share it.
Create a Messenger Code that can be scanned by camera in Facebook and Messenger mobile app to instantly lead a user to your bot.
You can also submit your bot to various Bot Stores: BotList, There is a bot for that, ChatBottle.