Chatbot has become a new buzzword in marketing with the surprising upward trend. It is estimated that there are 300.000 active chatbots with over 8.000 billion messages per month just in Facebook Messenger. With the vast coverage of this modern tool, there exists a big question mark: Will chatbots finally replace Email marketing?
Benefits of Chatbot over Email Marketing
Chatbots have a significantly higher CTR than Email Marketing
Chatbots have an average CTR of 20% — 60% while email marketing’s is around 3% — 4%. These statistics would shock even those working in the industry as the gap is extremely huge.
The reason for this big difference is: Chatbots allows personalization. Messages from chatbots are resulted from analyzed users’ action to give out tailored content, which reaches the right targeted audience and ensures their engagement. Chatbots surpass Email Marketing when it comes to relevance.
Chatbots generate active users
Customers actively turn out to the chatbots to start the conversation, showing their true interest in the product. On the other side, many emails are spontaneously and evenly distributed. Have you ever received newsletters from a brand that you don’t even remember how you got to know it? Probably a lot. We are quite used to getting spam emails. It is common, but ineffective and frustrating.
Chatbots increases engagement and response rates
Chatbots are programmed to learn customers’ interaction and their preferences. Bot builders and marketers can make use of this valuable information to craft relevant marketing messages. As we are living in the social media world, we tend to spend more time interacting with a bot on social sites than reading traditional emails
With all of the reasons above, Chatbots are a perfect tool to notify people of a new campaign, attract potential customers and automate the buying process.
Is there anything Email Marketing can outperform Chatbot?
Email marketing touches a wider range of customers
Many researches show that more than half of the middle age won’t shift to other social sites apart from Email. Older people have lived a long time with emails, and they are not willing to change to another soon. Considering this popularity, email is definitely taking over chatbots in marketing methods to 55+ aged customers.
Email is a primary communication tool
While not everyone has a Facebook account, almost everyone has an email address. Email was originally created to look for potential customers, and has been running on a solid platform for a long time. Meanwhile, chatbots are a new tech tool and can be adapted to various software, such as Messenger or WhatsApp. Each social channel aims at particular user types and requires specific techniques to build a bot on. Therefore, email is simpler and better in the operating process.
Email is much more shareable
Chatbots are user-initiated. However, when the chat is over, there is nothing holding them back and can be passed on to other users. On the other hand, people can easily share an email by simply forwarding and cc tagging. This helps promotional emails widespread and improves the retention rate.
Should I use Chatbots or Email Marketing?
Emails increase market share
Big brands tend to rely on email marketing due to its wide audience scope. Emails are a truly standalone marketing asset, and are preferable to share in-depth content and splendid design.
Chatbots, in contrast, are great for Millennials who know their ways around phones and the Internet. Chatbots engage users with messages without tapping into the full spectrum of marketing elements like emails. It’s all about conversation, and young people like to have someone to chat to.
Chatbots boosts interaction
AI chatbots are well loved for their flexibility and responsiveness. If people raise a question to your bot, it can get back to them instantly. There’s no one slowing down the process. Companies, after receiving a reply, can adjust the message to suit people’s needs. Chatbots work perfectly for tech companies who want to integrate technology into customer shopping experience.
To sum up:
Both chatbots and email marketing have their own pros and cons. It’s important to find out which one is a good fit for your business. If possible, consider combining both chatbots and email into your marketing strategy to get optimized impacts. You can attract visitors with chatbots pop-up, then engage and nurture them with email marketing for a long term commitment. Another example is providing customers with product recommendations, then using chatbots for consulting and finishing the orders.
Here are some chatbot and email platforms that I highly recommend you to try: BotStar, Mailchimp (they all have FREE versions!) Hope this blog gives you some ideas on chatbot and email marketing and helps you decide the most suitable one for you.