Messenger Bots: Help Businesses Attract and Retain More Customers As A Conversational Designer

Today I wanted to share with you some thoughts that I think will help many of you to become aware of the real value that you're offering to the marketplace, get more confident in yourself and stop selling yourself short.

 But before getting into the meats and potatoes of the discussion and start talking about what you need in order to provide the best messenger marketing services possible, I want you to consider these other more traditional or at least more established marketing and business services that have been out there for years now.

I’ll share some of my own figures along with these services with the only purpose of giving you a fair idea of what kind of money they command in the business world.

 And don’t worry: you’ll understand the relevance of this information when I tie it all together further down in this article.

 So, let’s get started:

 

Business Strategy: This is a really valuable consulting service where a business strategist advice a business on the best approach to run a specific promotion, introduce a product to the market, build joint partnerships, run the financials of the company, and many more. E

 Each individual business strategist will most likely specialize on one or a select few areas among the whole universe of business strategy.

 When I used to do this -I hardly do it anymore since I invest 99% of my time in my own projects these days - I was charging $350-$500 for 1 hour of consulting.

Marketing Consulting: similar to business strategy advice but focused on marketing. Things like how to launch a new product or how to grow your list, or how to get PR for your company/services, salesfunnel consulting, video-marketing consulting, traffic generation consulting, conversions consulting a much more fall under this broad category.

 My prices for this kind of consulting were pretty much the same as my business strategy consulting’s. Some people charge a little less, some charge a lot more.

 

Copywriting: This is a really valuable service and pro copywriters usually charge anything from $500 to $50,000 or more for a salesletter. In fact, the best-paid copywriter in the world charges $1MM PER PAGE!

 I'm a copywriter myself and on top of using my copywriting skills for my own businesses, I used to provide these services to clients some years ago. My prices were most of the time within the $10k-$25k range for a full salesletter.

 I'm only mentioning this because I want you to understand how valuable copywriting is in the real world.

Now, salesletters aside, a decent copywriter will charge you $250-$500 for EACH email in an email follow-up sequence or any other similar promotion.

 Consider that most emails are 300-500 words in length, it's not the word count you're been charged for, IT'S THE STRATEGY AND THE PSYCHOLOGY DISTILLED IN EACH WORD, WHICH LEADS TO CONVERSIONS.

 And this is, by the way, an important distinction to make if you want to stop undermining your own value and selling yourself short: you're not charging for the physical amount of work that you perform or the time it takes you to do it. YOU'RE CHARGING FOR YOUR EXPERTISE.

 

This reminds me, if you forget me for the digression, of an imaginary anecdote that goes something like this:

 A computer technician is called urgently by a company whose main mainframe had stopped working.

 Once there, some employees witness how, after observing the computer for a few minutes the technician pulls out a hammer, and hits it with it!

 All of the sudden, the mainframe comes back to its senses and starts working normally.

 Everybody celebrates our technician!

 At least, they celebrate him until he hands over the invoice for his services: A whopping $10,000 for a 5-minute job!

 When questioned about that (“Hey, you only hit the darn thing with a hammer buddy!”) the technician asks for his invoice back, pulls out a pen, and discriminates the charge among the following items:

 The Hit: $1?

 Knowing where to hit it: $9,999

 Hopefully you start getting my point now…

 

 Funnel Builder: This is kind of a new field that has exploded in recent years.

 Being a copywriter and an expert in conversions, it was just natural for me wanting to get into the action a few years ago.

 Most people charge $3,000 to $10,000 per funnel, and they usually use ClickFunnels or a similar tool for the building.

 

Of course, any integration with other systems like Infusionsoft or other CRMs goes on top of that.

 Some smarter people either charge monthly ($10k/mo to $25k/mo) or take equity in the company.

 

I used a combination of both approaches, charging a one-time fee in the low-medium 5-figure range or a monthly retainer if the customers needed my ongoing help with the campaign.

 

Just one more thing I want to add on funnels: A funnel IS A FLOW.

 And most of the time, it’s a pretty short, STATIC flow.

 

 Now, let’s get back to bots…

 

What’s a bot, I dare to ask you?

 The first thing that comes to mind is AUTOMATION.

 And that’s a big one for businesses. There are whole companies built upon the automation concept, including many of the SAAS platforms we all use.

 There exist “Automation Consultants” too and they drive as high fees as any of the other professionals we discussed above.

 

And of course, you can use a bot not only to automate things but also to CONNECT SYSTEMS making them talk and interchange information with each another.

 THIS IS HUGE for businesses that run their processes online and you can make a lot of money just providing integration services to them. Think: ClickFunnels-InfusionSoft integration, Autoresponder-CRM integrations, etc.

 Zapier has built a multi-million-dollar business just based on this concept of making third-party software applications talk nicely to each other, so there’s no doubt that the whole integration business is a goldmine all in and by itself.

 

Bots can do this for businesses.

 

But messenger bots are more than that.

 

A messenger bot can provide a new kind of experience, an experience that, until now, was impossible to automate: human interaction.

 And yes, I know that bots are still stupid, basic preprogrammed entities -something is bound to change really soon- but even at their current incipient stage they’re still 1 million times better than websites or even salesfunnels!

 

Think about it: so far the whole internet economy had been driven by static websites (and no, those flashy things flying around in some “web 2.0” style websites, do not count for “dynamic”).

And we all know how much money the Internet has been spitting out for businesses over the last couple decades, in despite of that.

 

But human interaction, or even just plain bot interaction, trumps any static website.

 

That’s why the idea of funnels revolutionized the industry 10 years ago.

 It’s not that much about the upsells -which everybody hates anyway- but it’s about THE INTERACTION.

 All of the sudden it looks like websites are less static and a bit less stupid; it looks like they now can react to customer’s decisions (even if in a really rudimentary YES/NO fashion).

 

Bots will change the marketing world. They’re the new salesfunnels and they’re a thousand times better!

 They’re not mainstream just yet -what just makes them more effective- and most people are still not totally aware of their existence, but in a few years not having a messenger bot for your business will be as unthinkable as it’s today not having a website or a facebook business page. MARK MY WORDS.

 

But messenger bots are quite more useful than websites.

 A messenger bot can, for instance, automate processes that before would require workforce. Customer Support and Follow Up are big case scenarios for this kind of application.

 

But there’s more: Now you can embed your whole customer experience in a bot, in such a way that it feels like a natural conversation to prospects, instead of an alien, impersonal machine designed to suck more money out of their pockets, which is basically what a salesfunnel is.

 Salesfunnels don’t engage with people. They tend to create more distrust and suspicion among today’s savvy internet users than real goodwill, and we all know how important marketplace’s goodwill is for a brand.

A messenger bot, on the other hand, is not alien at all. It’s just right there in our familiar messenger app opening for us a new conversation opportunity, one among hundreds we have every week, there, in the exact same environment.

 We know we’re not talking to a real person, sure. But you know… most young people don’t really want to talk to a real live person anyway…

 And for both, millennials and baby boomers, bots bring a massive advantage attached to them that makes up for all their drawbacks: THEY PROVIDE INSTANT RESPONSES.

 

For good or for bad, we live in a world of instant gratification.

 We want answers, and WE WANT THEM NOW. Businesses, more than anybody else can’t afford the luxury of waiting…

 

And that’s where you, Conversational Engineers and Messenger Bot Builders come into the picture.

 

Now, did you noticed that I used the word “Conversational Engineers”?

 

This is what you need to become: a Conversational Engineer first and foremost.

 

Building a bot is not that hard.

 In fact, pretty much anybody can do it with platforms like ManyChat or ChatFuel.

 ManyChat, for one thing, is really user-friendly and any person can learn to use it to build a messenger bot in an afternoon.

 

Although there still are a few things that you may want your bot to do that will benefit from a programmer or, at least, from a seasoned bot builder. Special mention here to any kind of integration work.

 

But what makes a messenger bot effective or not from a business standpoint – the kind of effectiveness that can be measured in terms of more engaged leads, higher conversions through the funnel, more new customers and more satisfied returning customers- IS NOT THE TECHNOLOGY that powers it. It’s the soul behind it.

 

The good thing about being able to “insert” your customer journey right inside of facebook messenger is that the environment is so normal, so familiar to your users, that the technology layer suddenly becomes irrelevant. It vanishes. 

As Steve Jobs famously put it: “The best technology is that that’s invisible to the final user”.

 

 Consequently, when the user engages with your bot, there is only one experience: THE CONVERSATION.

Like in real life, if the conversation comes out awkward, you won’t get a lot out of it.

 But if the conversation is engaging, brilliant or, even better, FASCINATING, you’ll have won a new customer for life.

 

Now, not everyone reading this article will be a marketing expert, a copywriter or a human psychology professional, but we all know a fair bit about conversations, don’t we?

 We all have had the opportunity to be part of great conversations -just a few, but we still remember them-, interesting conversations, thought-provoking conversation and… yes, a thousand dull, boring-as-hell conversations where we’re impatiently looking at the watch and desperately seeking for a nice excuse to get out of there!

 

(Good news: With messenger bots, if you get bored -or you bore your customers to death- there is no need for excuses!)

 

So, if you’re getting into the business of building messenger bots don’t get too stuck with the technology stack.

 You can use anything you want, there are even tools like the ones I mentioned before that will allow you to build bots without having to write a single line of code. Yes: all modern drag-and-drop magic!

 

What you should be really focusing on is in becoming a great Conversation Engineer/Designer.

 Create great experiences that customers will enjoy.

 

Remember: YOU are the Ghost Behind The Machine. It’s not AI what will turn your messenger bot into a memorable experience for the prospects and customers that interact with it: It’s YOU.

 

And by the way, remember the disciplines I mentioned at the beginning of this article and the figures attached to them?

 I did that with a purpose.

 

If you’re to become a Conversational Engineer you will be providing all of these services, all neatly packaged inside your brand-new messenger bot.

 

That’s right: you absolutely need to know a lot about MARKETING and HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY. That’s what this whole business boils down to.

 You will need to sit down with a business owner, or the full directory if needed, and provide them with solid and insightful MARKETING & BUSINESS ADVICE in order for them the get the most out of this investment.

You will also need to STRATEGIZE the most effective way to lead that business’ target audience through a carefully designed experience that’s going to help the brand to achieve its CUSTOMER ACQUISITION & CUSTOMER FIDELIZATION's goals.

 

And after you have done all of this foundational work, you will need to put on your copywriter hat and start crafting a full series of interactions specifically designed to take a cold prospect and convert them into an engaged paying customer.

 

But contrarily to a traditional copywriter, you will have to be much more casual and a lot more inviting, friendly and interesting along the whole flow of the conversation.

 

And contrarily to a funnel builder, you won’t be dealing with a single, simplistic flow, but more likely with DOZENS of flows that interconnect with each other and use logic decisions along with smart tagging and custom fields to ensure that the conversation will always flow in a way that makes sense for each particular prospect.

Even more: your conversation design needs to include the right questions and interaction points, and set them at the right time, to ensure that each prospect is promptly moved to the exact flow they need to be in accordance to their input and feedback.

 

That’s where messenger bots, and the dynamic conversations they make possible, trump salesfunnels any day of the week. But it’s YOU, the conversational designer, WHO CAN MAKE IT OR BREAK IT.

Not the technology stack, not the platform you're using to build your bots, not the programming language that you will likely won't need anyway, BUT YOU.

 

In other words, YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO DESIGN A MASTER CONVERSATION THAT PLAYS ITSELF IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS, adapting intelligently -your intelligence, not AI’s- to each prospect’s needs and the stage he or she is at in the customer’s life cycle.

 

That’s why I invite you to become a master conversational designer before anything else.

 

I invite you too to understand how much value you’re providing to businesses of all kinds and sizes and how bright is the future for conversational designers and engineers.

 

Just one last word of caution: DON’T SELL YOUSELF SHORT.

 

If you do, you’re hurting not only yourself but the whole industry.

 

To whoever tells you: “What? $3000/mo for a bot? I can do it myself using ManyChat!” answer: “Be my guest!”.

 

Or take our technician’s approach, get your invoice back, pull out your pen and write:

 “Bot Programming” = COMPLIMENTARY

“My Conversational Skills” = INVALUABLE!

 

Now brush you up, get out there and get some clients!

 

Leonardo

 

PS: If you’re a business owner smart enough to get it and are actively looking to build the most effective bot possible for your company, I only have a small piece of advice for you: YOU MORE LIKELY DON’T NEED A PROGRAMMER.

 Most programmers are usually socially-awkward people who can’t keep a conversation flowing in real life after all.

 They’re awesome at integrating systems, making an app talk smoothly to another app, not so great at connecting people with other people in the real world nor at designing meaningful conversations.

PSS: Of course, if you can get a programmer that’s great with words… you’ve hit the jackpot!