CPA Practice Advisor - 18

MARKETING YOUR FIRM

How to Leverage Chatbots in your
Firm's Marketing
By Becky Livingston

IF YOU'RE WONDERING if your firm should create a chatbot, you're
asking the wrong question. Rather, you should be asking, "When
we create a chatbot, what do we want users to gain from using it?"
Maybe you're even wondering how a
chatbot can save your firm money, time,
effort, or energy? No matter what your
reason, consider these stats:
■ 41% of people starting online chat
conversations with businesses are
C-level executives. (Drift)
■ Chatbots can help businesses save on
customer service costs by answering
up to 80% of routine questions. (IBM)
■ 67% of U.S. millennial internet users
would purchase a product/service from
brands using a chatbot. (eMarketer)

WHAT CAN YOU USE A
CHATBOT FOR AT YOUR
FIRM? HERE ARE SEVEN
SUGGESTIONS.
■ Answer commonly-asked questions and
to generate leads.
■ Increase opportunity to gain market
share.
■ Save staff time, effort, and energy on
simple tasks.
■ Increase efficiency with a mobile site.
■ Selling or promoting services.

MAY 2020 ■

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■ Marketing content through online
channels.
■ Quick access to the right products and
services versus using a site search.

HOW CAN IT BE USED IN
COMBINATION WITH
MARKETING?
When visitors come to your site, finding
the solution to the problem they have
may not seem intuitive, especially if the
firm offers a lot of services. A chatbot
can help to reduce confusion and to
direct the visitor exactly where he/she
needs to go.
Research for future content, services,
and offerings can be identified by a bot.
Let's say the people who use your chatbot
click on a few questions a lot more than
others. That data helps to inform your
content-development cycle.
Lead generation is also a good use
of bots. Bots can be programmed with
lead-qualifying questions to determine
where the customer is in the buying
funnel. If that lead meets your criteria,
you know if you should contact them,
rather than spending time on all leads
only to narrow the list down to a few
good candidates.
Data collected from a bot can be
used to personalize content for the
user. A personalized bot could work in
conjunction with your email system or
website blog to display content in which
that person has shown a prior interest.
Cross selling is also a popular
chatbot function. But how would a firm
use it? An example would be, if a visitor asked questions about inheritance
tax, the bot could be programmed to
provide a link to your financial planning

services or to lead-generation content
they could download.
Defining your target market is
sometimes difficult. Bots track demographic and psychographic data, which
can in-turn be used in other marketing
campaigns, such as social media and
online advertising. It also informs you
about other interests your frequent
users have, which you could tie into your
organic content and social media efforts.
For example, the bot identifies an
overwhelming number of people are
interested in baseball. You could write a
series of articles on some of the accounting and tax challenges professional baseball players have, including multi-state
taxes, estate planning, bonuses, fines,
and more.
Creating a chatbot can take months
to develop. Begin the process by defining
why you want one in the first place.
Once you know that, begin researching tools to help you reach your goals.
To help, Ometrics researched dozens of
tools in its "2020 Chatbot Platform Comparison Reviews." The article compares
chatbot tools by type, platform, and fees,
and then provides additional information about each.
If implementing a chatbot sounds
like something you want do, avoid the
trap of doing it just to be on trend.
Rather, define the business reason for
doing it, align it with your business goals,
identify its champion, and implement it
with intent. Otherwise, it will just be a
waste of time, effort, and money. ■
Becky Livingston has more than
25 years' experience in marketing
and technology in financial services and engineering firms. She is
the President and CEO of Penheel
Marketing, a boutique marketing
firm specializing in social media
and digital marketing for CPAs. In addition to
being a marketing practitioner, Becky is also an
adjunct professor, author, and speaker.

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