Angela Skowronek

Use cases

Customer support

<p>Here’s the story of MyDreamChat — a startup that created a Facebook Messenger mental health chatbot for dream analysis. It grew to over 12,000 users in the first five months with under $5,000 in marketing spend. It brings powerful therapy experience as part of a larger project to create a separate app for this purpose. Tackling the minimum viable product creation, they ended up using the Messenger chatbot practically and creatively.</p>
<h2><strong>The brand helps to start your mental health improving journey</strong></h2>
<p>Sansan Fibri, the founder of the startup, has always believed that our dreams have the power to help us uncover and deal with emotional challenges. However, most of us need the proper guidance to start this mental-health journey. That’s where Sansan’s AI chatbot MyDreamChat comes in.</p>
<p>It’s a guided self-therapy tool that helps users analyze their dreams in a conversational, quiz-like format. The goal is to lead them towards a resolution at the subconscious level for more sound mental health.</p>
<p>While Sansan started on this concept in 2018, it’s become more relevant than ever in the COVID-19 era. Sansan and her team surveyed over 10,000 MyDreamChat users a few months into the pandemic. They found that 40% of customers used words like “feeling trapped,” “hopeless,” or “powerless” to describe their coronavirus-era dreams. But after dream analysis via this mental health chatbot, 82% of respondents reported gaining new insight, which led to feelings of hope and optimism.</p>
<h2><strong>The iOS app for the MVP proved to be way too pricey</strong></h2>
<p>Sansan explains that “effective mindset change and lasting healing occurs when we become conscious of our unconscious patterns and triggers. Those drive 95% of our decision-making and behavior.” Dream analysis is an effective tool on this journey for mental health, which is why she founded a startup called <a href="https://wakefully.io">Wakefully</a> in 2018.</p>
<p>However, to build the complete product she dreamed of, Sansan needed investors. And to attract investors, she knew she needed to start with a minimum viable product (MVP). The purpose of the MVP would be to validate market interest and cultivate a motivated and engaged core audience.</p>
<p>So she started by commissioning an iOS app for her MVP in 2018. But “it turned out to be an expensive user interface that was not really usable and most definitely not scalable,” Sansan shares, since she was doing all the analysis work behind the scenes.</p>
<p>After that experiment, Sansan knew she needed a cheaper and more automated solution for her true MVP. “That’s when I realized that the conversational nature of the app I envisioned and the Q&A in branching logic lend themselves pretty nicely to a chatbot,” — she says. “It seemed like a more affordable and scalable solution to test market interest. Thought at the time, I had no clue that I, the visionary/non-technical founder, would be able to build it myself!”</p>
<h2><strong>Chatbot has it all</strong></h2>
<p>“In the past, I used lead quizzes that would send people to my landing page waitlist. No more! I saw how I could streamline the entire funnel: ad → quiz → landing → dream analysis using a Facebook bot.” She was sold when she learned that she could use chatbot marketing to drive traffic, capture leads, retarget, and deliver value. “Our entire value proposition, all in one chatbot!” says Sansan.</p>
<p>She turned to Chatfuel for this project right away. Sansan tells us: “In my research, Chatfuel kept coming up as the platform that can enable someone like me, lacking any coding skills, to build an awesome Messenger bot. Using just Chatfuel and its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1_z5c5UnMJ0waRJ8Bx1cFg">videos</a> and <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en">help docs</a>, I built and launched the first version of MyDreamChat in about two weeks. I continue to learn, grow, analyze, and iterate due to the vast amount of information and tools Chatfuel provides.”</p>
<p>Here’s how MyDreamChat chatbot for mental health works:</p>
<ol>
<li>The user selects their dream type (being chased, falling, or feeling trapped).</li>
<li>They take a personalized quiz about the details of the dream they can remember and the feelings they associate with it.</li>
<li>The chatbot generates a personalized analysis of the user’s dream. The analysis explains what it “means” or symbolizes in the context of that person’s life experience.</li>
</ol>
<p>“It delivers this dialogue using positive psychology to help reframe their thinking about this and other dreams in a therapeutic, healthier way,” explains Sansan.</p>
<figure><img alt="dream analysis_chatbot_02_fb.png" src="/cms/static/blog/6284e7e20b365968858cadc2_f580c5676729fe3ca1f114506c1cfd8d7f33590b2f1aee2b722fc1c2229b61414bad8bd38b7954c1c8d95c1e166cbd48791a43618caf0c04cd10ae954096a470c13fcd2343c4a59cb4c1e993242181ac0ffde47120e23a184d88e8cbae29babf8e743711.png" height="1168" width="2080" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAI0lEQVR4nGNgkIyff/Fv2vJrDJr5DAyq+af+/w/s38YgEgQAi4gKuW+t9roAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Positive psychology in action</figcaption></figure>
<h2><strong>Satisfied customers and high conversion</strong></h2>
<p>Sansan originally built her Messenger chatbot as an MVP for her separate app. She intended the Messenger bot to be a temporary solution but now decided to continue using Chatfuel as the top of the funnel with her own app. “The experience is so optimal for customer acquisition,” she says.</p>
<p>This decision is based on the incredible results she’s seen with her chatbot for mental health and dream analysis so far. Take a look:</p>
<ul>
<li>The chatbot has an 82% user satisfaction rating based on exit polls seamlessly integrated into the chat after an analysis.</li>
<li>The average engagement rate for users is 3 times more in the first week.</li>
<li>30% of users share the bot, and 25% of page likers share MyDreamChat ads, making for a virality factor potential of 50%.</li>
<li>Sansan and her team identify 53% of users as highly likely to convert (to download their separate app) and 33.5% as likely to convert to paid subscribers in the app.</li>
</ul>
<p>MyDreamChat illustrates how the use cases for Messenger chatbots are practically infinite. Most any scenario that would benefit from a personalized, back-and-forth conversation can be created in Messenger. It’s not just e-commerce retailers or brick-and-mortar businesses. As you can see, chatbots that provide mental health care or guidance work incredibly well in Messenger. They are using no-code technology to help people live better. We love to see it!</p>
<p>Wakefully is currently offering a promotion to their Facebook chatbot subscribers: a pre-order discount on membership once their complete, separate app is released.</p>
<p>If you are ready to build your own project in Chatfuel, <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">get started for free</a> to boost your sales.</p>

How e-commerce brand create a Messenger mental health chatbot for dream analysis and increase engagement rate x3

Startup blasts: chatbot analyzes dreams and improves mental health

Mary Rybakova

Industries

<h2>The Brand</h2>
<p>Bonomi is a Budapest-based startup founded by marketing professionals with a passion <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbot-for-travel-industry">for travel</a>. With the industry shifting towards alternative accommodations like AirBnbs, “we realized that hotels no longer stand a chance in the race for our digital attention,” say the founders. That’s why they created a solution to help hotels stay competitive. It’s called <a href="https://bonomi.io/en/#subscribe-modal">Bonomi Assistant,</a> a customizable Facebook Messenger chatbot that acts as a virtual assistant for hotel brands of all sizes. It’s “a future-proof solution designed to enhance the guest experience by making hotels available inside popular messaging channels” like Facebook Messenger, the Bonomi team tells us.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb7b2fdeabe1_Startup-Builds-Messenger-Chatbot-to-Help-Hotels-Through-COVID-19-_3-1.png" alt="" height="512" width="1092" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAI0lEQVR4nGOQ0LFRtfFqbWyd0NLJwMAts3HP6f+ffyUkZAEAcfoKyTY3iCgAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>The Bonomi virtual assistant is a Facebook Messenger chatbot for hotels.</figcaption></figure>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s “a future-proof solution designed to enhance the guest experience by making hotels available inside popular messaging channels.” –Bonomi founders</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The Problem</h2>
<p>The founders of Bonomi recognized that hotels around the world today face two main challenges:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Competition 🏆</strong> Traditional hotels now have to compete with other accommodation alternatives. AirBnb, for example, now has over <a href="https://www.alltherooms.com/analytics/airbnb-ipo-going-public-revenues-business-model-statistics/#:~:text=As%20of%20writing%2C%20Airbnb%20has,and%20around%206.1%20million%20listings.)">6.1 million</a>  listings worldwide. AirBnb stays are typically cheaper than hotels, and direct communication with hosts makes booking them quick and seamless. As a result, <a href="https://skift.com/2018/11/14/airbnbs-growth-is-slowing-amid-increasing-competition-from-booking-and-expedia">47% of respondents</a> in a 2018 survey said they have replaced a hotel stay with an AirBnb—a number that has likely risen in the last two years. To stay competitive, hotels need new marketing tactics that will help them attract guests, convey value, and provide better customer service.</li>
<li><strong>COVID-19</strong> 😷 Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has <a href="https://youtu.be/FQ4y0avqqtc">turned the travel industry upside down</a>. In the US alone, <a href="https://www.ahla.com/covid-19s-impact-hotel-industry">six out of ten hotel rooms</a> sit empty in July 2020. US hotels have already lost more than <a href="https://www.ahla.com/covid-19s-impact-hotel-industry">$40 billion</a> in room revenue this year, and the numbers don’t look much better in most other countries. And even though travel is slowly starting to pick up again in some places, guests are cautious and hesitant. They have new questions about things like safety and cleanliness that need answers before booking. And once they arrive, a low-risk, contactless experience is extremely important.</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Solution</h2>
<p>The founders of Bonomi built a tool to help hotel owners stand up to these key challenges. Chatbot technology stood out as the ideal form for this tool to take. “After trying out and building a few chatbots, we were convinced that they are a natural extension of the mobile-first customer experience design we’ve been aiming for since 2013.”</p>
<p>So the Bonomi Assistant is a virtual assistant in the form of a Messenger chatbot. The hotel chatbot’s framework lives in Chatfuel, and can be copied, customized, and <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/3882031-chatfuel-for-agencies-and-creators#:~:text=We%20also%20offer%20an%20Enterprise%20plan">white-labeled</a> by the Bonomi team for any hotel client. (Bonomi has a demo version of the hotel chatbot so you can see how it works. <a href="https://www.messenger.com/t/bonomi.io">Chat with it here</a>.)</p>
<p>The Bonomi Assistant can help hotels achieve the following goals:</p>
<p><strong>Attract new customers</strong> 👋 Chatbots can provide a personalized conversational marketing experience. They can greet prospective guests by name, tailor information to their preferences, <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbot-for-customer-service">answer their questions</a>, and remember all the data for the next conversation. The Bonomi Assistant’s demo feature shows this capability in action. The bot for a fictional hotel asks the user who they’ll be traveling with and what types of activities they like. It then recommends rooms and packages that match their needs and interests. The bot can integrate with a hotel’s existing software for booking, too. The result: a frictionless process that leads to more paid reservations.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb13c9deabe6_Startup-Builds-Messenger-Chatbot-to-Help-Hotels-Through-COVID-19-_2.png" alt="" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAMElEQVR4nGNg4LVhkPJgEHViUA5haN9+e8GZN5P2Pzj9/T8Dg5gzg4o/g5Qrg2Y4AOpyDIihCAH4AAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>The demo chatbot for Bonomi shows how it can make personalized recommendations for prospective guests to encourage them to book.</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>Upsell additional services</strong> 🥂 Once a guest is ready to make a booking, the hotel chatbot can suggest add-ons they might be interested in. It’s a completely automated way for hotels to generate more revenue through things like airport transfers, tour packages, and room upgrades.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bbe7d4deabe2_Startup-Builds-Messenger-Chatbot-to-Help-Hotels-Through-COVID-19-_1.png" alt="" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAMElEQVR4nGNgEHFikHJnkPJhMEhhWH/3/47H/3t2377+/z8DQ2Q/Q85sBrdyhtz5AA4LD4aUpy2EAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>These screenshots show a Bonomi client using the bot to upsell airport transfers to guests.</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>Provide a contactless guest experience</strong> 💬 Before COVID-19, attentive in-person customer service from hotel staff was a good thing. But during a global pandemic, contactless is the new gold standard. Hotels can use the Bonomi Assistant to automatically answer most questions guests may have during their stay. This feature helps keep guests and staff at a safe distance, since guests won’t have to approach the front desk for every question or concern. It also gives the staff more time to focus on other tasks.</p>
<p><strong>Follow up with prospects and customers</strong> 🗓️ After a user has chatted with a hotel chatbot once, their basic information and conversation history are saved there. This benefits the hotel in two ways:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>More bookings</strong>. If a user starts the booking process but doesn’t finish, the Facebook chatbot can send them reminder messages <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/5627483-types-of-reengage-messages#h_b8201a2718">within the next 24 hours</a>. If the guest simply got distracted, these follow-ups can bring them back. If they abandoned the process because they had a question, the bot can answer it and move them along the funnel.</li>
<li><strong>Repeat business</strong>. Hotels can pay to contact past chatbot users again later, too. They can send a <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/sponsored-messages-guide-to-reengaging-chatbot-subscribers">sponsored message</a> letting former guests know about deals and promotions. The users can get more information and <a href="https://youtu.be/9jGuWa1sgAw">book right in the bot.</a> That means more repeat business for the hotel, all on autopilot.</li>
</ol>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb3034deabe4_Startup-Builds-Chatbots-to-Help-Hotels-Survive-COVID-19-and-Compete-With-AirBnb--2.png" alt="" height="1168" width="2080" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAIklEQVR4nGNYPKWdIW81g1Qmg0wWw/8/nxlsChkEkxjE0wB4UwhsRYm/FAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<h2>The Recipe</h2>
<p>Bonomi’s founders chose Chatfuel for this project for a few key reasons. First, they wanted a developer-friendly platform so they could integrate their own back-end systems into the bot. Second, the <a href="https://chatfuel.com/pricing">flexible pricing plans</a> were important for them, “as it enabled us to build a startup in a scalable way.” And third, “we must mention the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/chatfuel">Facebook community of Chatfuel users</a> from all over the world; it’s a big plus. It’s great to see so many talented people sharing tips and tricks, exchanging ideas.”</p>
<p>Finally, the following Chatfuel tools and features were crucial in the process of building the Bonomi Assistant:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Synced Cloning.</strong> The Bonomi virtual assistant is a hotel chatbot framework that the Bonomi team will copy and customize for different hospitality clients. Synced Cloning makes this process easy. In one click, the Bonomi team can copy a block or an entire bot to a new client’s account instead of having to recreate each piece manually. Plus, if the team makes a change to the master template, it’ll be updated in all the copies too. That’s why Synced Cloning is a key tool for brands and <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/3882031-chatfuel-for-agencies-and-creators#:~:text=We%20also%20offer%20an%20Enterprise%20plan">marketing agencies</a> that <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/marketing-agency-uses-messenger-bots-to-deliver-high-quality-leads-for-clients">sell customizable bot frameworks</a>, or that manage chatbots for multi-location businesses.</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb4e6adeabe3_Group-1522.png" alt="" height="764" width="1034" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/AHeDlLC2wdbb4Ozt7gDBw8cAJUYAEzvZ3OEA7Orr4OLj/v7/7u7v03UZ1CUa0rQAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Chatfuel's Synced Cloning feature makes it easy to copy and customize all or part of a bot framework for multiple clients.</figcaption></figure>
<ul>
<li><strong>Customer Chat plugin.</strong> It’s what allows you to <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/add-a-messenger-chatbot-to-your-website">add a Messenger chatbot window</a> to your website in just four steps. Bonomi uses this plugin on their own website, so guests can chat with their bot and learn more about their virtual assistant. Most of their hotel clients also use this plugin (and <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/create-click-to-messenger-ads-to-drive-traffic-to-your-bot">click-to-Messenger ads</a> too) to engage and convert traffic. (<strong>2021 update:</strong> The Customer Chat plugin is now the <a href="https://youtu.be/yb2yCJshWV8">Customer Chat Entry Point</a>, which is even easier to use!)</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb4482deabdf_Startup-Builds-Messenger-Chatbot-to-Help-Hotels-Through-COVID-19--1.png" alt="" height="887" width="1498" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAIklEQVR4nGMwdAjkUdDvnjwvtaiRQcXYhYFFOiaz4tP//wBf/QkZVJB68QAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Bonomi uses the Customer Chat plugin so that a chatbot window appears on their website to engage prospects.</figcaption></figure>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/828883-keywords"><strong>Artificial intelligence (AI).</strong></a> AI is another crucial component of the Bonomi virtual assistant. When users type in their own messages (instead of selecting a button or quick reply), AI helps the chatbot understand the intent behind the message and respond accordingly. Bonomi uses the JSON API to integrate this technology (in the form of a custom NLP agent) into their AI-enabled chatbots, but there are no-code ways to do this in Chatfuel as well.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>“We must mention the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/chatfuel">Facebook community of Chatfuel users</a> from all over the world; it’s a big plus. It’s great to see so many talented people sharing tips and tricks, exchanging ideas.” — Bonomi founders</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The Results</h2>
<p>The Bonomi team tells us that “the response from hospitality professionals [to the Bonomi virtual assistant] has been very positive.” You can see a summary of the results from their first six clients in the graphic below. The most impressive of the stats for these Bonomi hotel chatbots include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>3,367 users who showed intent to book directly through the chatbot</strong> 🏨 It’s a key result because “we emphasize how the Assistant can get more users to book directly through the hotel instead of through online travel agents. For a lot of mid-sized hotels, this is quite important,” the Bonomi team tells us. It means all the profit for the reservation goes directly to the hotel, and the booking experience is fast and uncomplicated.</li>
<li><strong>2,835 automatically answered questions</strong> ❓"That comes in really handy for big and popular hotels,” the Bonomi team explains, as the automation gives their staff more time to focus on other tasks. That benefit is clear in the statistic below that lists how much time the Assistant saved these initial clients: over 140 hours!</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>“We emphasize how the Assistant can get more users to book directly through the hotel instead of through online travel agents. For a lot of mid-sized hotels, this is quite important.” — Bonomi founders</p>
</blockquote>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb6b43deabe5_Startup-Builds-Chatbots-to-Help-Hotels-Survive-COVID-19-and-Compete-With-AirBnb--1.png" alt="" height="1021" width="1199" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/AKenrv/3/fbs8+ng6ACepqrm6OjV293IzdIAGyMpDhcfAAgUIigxEfsVUOkraCkAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>This graphic shows the statistics for the Bonomi virtual assistant's first six clients.</figcaption></figure>
<p>And when the coronavirus escalated into a global pandemic, the Bonomi team quickly made a free version of their tool to help struggling businesses in the hospitality industry. “We had 10 new customers within a week [of that release], and they keep coming!” It’s a good indication that this type of automation is what hotel owners are looking for during these times.</p>
<p>What does the future look like for Bonomi? Expansion. “Right now we’re close to getting new investment so we’ll be able to work on new integrations with other hospitality technologies, and work on the <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/create-a-multilingual-chatbot">multi-language feature</a> and the infrastructure to support 100+ clients.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We had 10 new customers within a week [of that release], and they keep coming!” — Bonomi founders</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Chatbots helping brands in a changing world</h2>
<p>Thanks to an evolving hospitality market and a global pandemic, hotels around the world are scrambling to pivot in order to stay afloat. No-code tools like Bonomi’s Messenger chatbot framework are helping them attract new business and delight guests with safe, seamless experiences.</p>
<p><em>It’s not just the hospitality and tourism sectors: <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/top-9-reasons-your-business-needs-a-chatbot">Businesses across industries</a> are turning to chatbots to help see them through the pandemic. To explore the possibilities of no-code Messenger chatbots for your brand, <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">sign up for a free account today</a>, then scale your users (and access priority support and other exclusive perks) with a <a href="https://chatfuel.com/pricing">Pro account</a>.</em></p>

Marketing professionals from Budapest-based startup created a customizable Messenger chatbot that helps hotel brands of all sizes.

Startup Builds Messenger Chatbot to Help Hotels

Read on to find out what an ecommerce chatbot can do for your online store, and find out how to get started building one.

9 Reasons your eCommerce business needs a chatbot

Bojana Vojnović

Platforms

<p><em>Missed an episode of Chatfuel School—the podcast where we cover hot topics in the world of bot-building and marketing? Don’t worry; we took notes for you.</em> 🤓 <em>The topic for April 16, 2020 was how to optimize your ecommerce sales funnel using</em> <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/facebook-ads"><em>Facebook ads</em></a><em>. Our expert guest this week was Facebook ads expert Jason Smith of Spotlight Social, a marketing agency in Los Angeles. Here’s the full episode.<em>👇</em>Keep scrolling for a recap of what you missed.</em></p>
<figure><iframe allowfullscreen src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tjKqCie3IsA"></iframe></figure>
<p>Over Q1 of 2020, as the coronavirus morphed into a pandemic, <a href="https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2020/Facebook-Reports-First-Quarter-2020-Results/default.aspx">Facebook reported</a> “a record number of people using [their] services.” People worldwide have been quarantined at home, spending lots of time scrolling social media for both news and entertainment.</p>
<p>COVID-19 has affected different ecommerce niches and their Facebook ads in different ways. But there’s no denying that there are more eyes on Facebook feeds than ever. If you’ve got the resources to experiment with ads to (ethically) boost your ecommerce sales right now, read on! Jason Smith knows a thing or two about Facebook ad sales funnels. (He turned $30,000 into more than $170,000 for his small business clients! 👀)</p>
<p>Here’s a summary of his tried-and-true strategy for using Facebook ads to ignite your ecommerce store’s sales, whether you’re selling on Shopify, WooCommerce, or any other major ecommerce platform. It all begins and ends with this master chart. 🤓 👇</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bbb32fdeabb2_How-to-Build-and-Optimize-Your-Sales-Funnel-Facebook-Ads-Strategy-2020.jpeg" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/47c5559d-f2f3-4b9e-a608-2a47a6f2bfe3/jasonFBadsPdf.jpg" height="1080" width="1920" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAI0lEQVR4nGP4v2mtPgPDtEi35fUpDP9fPPXnE77YkPH/xlYAm6sMzt9cCWcAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<h2>The two sections of the Facebook ads funnel</h2>
<p>As you can see on the far left side of the chart above, Jason divides the ecommerce funnel into two parts based on how much of your budget you should spend on each.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Prospecting: the upper part of the funnel</strong> 👥 According to Jason, ads for this part of the sales funnel should account for 60-90% of your budget. They’re intended for <strong>prospecting:</strong> getting the attention of people who have had little to no interaction with your page yet, but that fit the characteristics of prospects you want to target.</li>
<li><strong>Retargeting: the lower part of the funnel</strong> 👤 The ads in this section of the funnel should account for 10-40% of your ads budget. They’re meant for <strong>retargeting:</strong> recapturing the attention of lukewarm or even hot leads who have had some interaction with your page. Note that retargeting isn’t a process for small budgets, Jason explains. If you’re only spending $1k on ads total, for example, you likely won’t have enough users to successfully retarget.</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Prospecting</strong> 👥</h2>
<p>In this stage of your Facebook ad strategy, Jason recommends focusing on:</p>
<ul>
<li>dynamic ads</li>
<li>Lookalikes/narrow interests</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>Dynamic ads</strong></h3>
<p>Dynamic ads (catalog sales) on Facebook let you pull data from a specific product catalog on your ecommerce site and automatically insert it into ads. The Facebook ad will either showcase your most popular products, or product (s) a particular user viewed or even added to their cart. You’ll save time this way, since you don’t have to come up with the ad creative.</p>
<p>There are two ad-set targeting options Jason recommends for ecommerce shops here. (You should use the <em>purchase conversion</em> objective for both.)</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>The broad audience.</strong> In this case, you don’t target anyone in particular. Instead, you let your website’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/help/952192354843755?id=1205376682832142">Facebook Pixel do</a> that for you based on the purchase data it has gathered.</li>
<li><strong>Interests.</strong> In this case, you <a href="https://adespresso.com/blog/guide-facebook-ads-interest-targeting-research-easy-advanced-methods-exposed">target users with specific interests</a>. And contrary to popular belief, the best practice is actually to clump all of your interests together in one campaign. The Facebook system works better with the data this way, according to Jason, and it’ll target more people.</li>
</ol>
<h4>👉 Jason’s tips on improving your dynamic ads</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Exclude the right people</strong> 🙅🏽 Audience exclusion is an important factor in any successful Facebook ad campaign. For dynamic ads, you want to exclude anyone that could overlap with your next ad-set targeting. That means excluding those who have interacted with your Facebook page or your <a href="https://youtu.be/v2F1uXt2AlQ">click-to-Messenger ads</a> in the last 30 days. You will target these people later on down the funnel. (You can see all the audience exclusions for each step in Jason’s chart above).</li>
<li><strong>Choose automatic placements</strong> 🔀 Jason recommends always using <em>Automatic placements</em> when setting up your ads, instead of selecting manual placements on only Facebook or only Instagram. With automatic placements, your ads will appear for users on both platforms, based on their behavior. It makes your ads more likely to be seen by the right people.</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bbe73ddeabb6_How-to-Build-and-Optimize-Your-Sales-Funnel-Facebook-Ads-Strategy-2020_.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/bac9fbd0-460b-4e2b-878d-853e6a48ec7e/Screen_Shot_2020-06-01_at_10.13.39_AM.png" height="314" width="683" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAIklEQVR4nGNgY2cvLCz68+fP6dOnGTg4ufQNDHNy83Jy8wCFRQn38QbHtgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<ul>
<li><strong>Choose the right campaign goal</strong> 🥅 You’re after conversions, so <em>Conversion</em>s should always be the campaign goal you choose for these ads. Otherwise, Facebook will show your ad to users who may click and engage with it, but aren’t necessarily likely to convert.</li>
<li><strong>Run one campaign with two ad sets</strong> ✌️ Run an ad set for the broad audience and one for the interest-based audience. It’ll help you learn how different creatives perform for different groups of users. (Remember: Make sure to exclude the targeted audience of one set from the other set’s targeting, and vice versa. Otherwise, you risk fatiguing users with too many ads.)</li>
</ul>
<h3><strong>Lookalikes/narrow interests</strong></h3>
<p>An ad targeted to a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/help/164749007013531?id=401668390442328">Lookalike audience</a> means it’ll reach users who are similar to your existing highest-value customers. Use purchase-event data from your Facebook Pixel for your Lookalike audiences.</p>
<p>💡<strong>Tip</strong>: Want to create a Lookalike audience based on your most valuable chatbot users? Export user data from the <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/1575151-people-tab"><em>People</em> tab</a> to Facebook Ads Manager in one click with Chatfuel’s Segment Sync feature.</p>
<figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O5HmJtC1A4M?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.chatfuel.com" allowfullscreen></iframe></figure>
<p>Create four different Lookalike audiences and a narrow interest-based audience within your campaign. Jason shares that your Lookalike audiences should be:</p>
<ul>
<li>10% Lookalikes of your highest value customers,</li>
<li>5% Lookalikes of your highest value customers,</li>
<li>3% Lookalikes of your highest value customers, and eventually</li>
<li>1% Lookalikes of your highest value customers</li>
</ul>
<p>Follow the same rule you followed for dynamic ads: Exclude the targeted audience of one set from the other set’s targeting, and vice versa. You should also exclude customers who have purchased from you in the last 30 days. The reason behind both tactics is to avoid irritating users with too many ads from you.</p>
<h4>👉 Jason’s tips on improving your Lookalike and narrow-interest ads</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Trim the fat</strong> ✂️ When it comes to exclusions, think about how long your product lasts. Make sure to exclude customers who have already purchased from you and won’t need more of your product yet. Also exclude anyone who has already viewed or interacted with your page. That way, you don’t risk wasting ad dollars and annoying users by showing them ads that don’t fit where they’re at in the customer lifecycle. The chart at the beginning of this article will tell you which people to exclude (look to the <em>Audience exclusions</em> column).</li>
<li><strong>Experiment with the creative format</strong> 🧪 As Jason says, “Facebook is a testing platform.” Experiment with carousels, single-image ads, video ads, etc. to see what works best.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Retargeting</strong> 👤</h2>
<p>In this stage of your Facebook ad strategy, you’re doubling down on the warm users who have already had some kind of interaction with your page. Jason recommends focusing on:</p>
<ul>
<li>static retargeting</li>
<li>dynamic retargeting</li>
</ul>
<h3>Static retargeting</h3>
<p>With static retargeting, you want to reach people who aren’t yet hot leads, but aren’t cold either. That means you’re looking to target those who have viewed or engaged with your page in the last 30 days. These users know who you are, but maybe haven’t seen a specific product of yours yet. That’s why this is a great time to use a specific catalog of your popular products in carousel form.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb7082deaba9_Simple_Sales_Marketing_.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/d5439ea6-3726-46e0-af59-9733f2e39c50/Green_and_Black_Simple_Sales_Marketing_Presentation.png" height="1080" width="1920" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAI0lEQVR4nGP4+/3jwWUrzm/d+vbtCwYHZwcpBjZlAcHYuAgAz3cMKvzEpzEAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>A static retargeting ad can show some of your most popular products in a carousel to get users interested in your store.</figcaption></figure>
<p>💡<strong>Tip:</strong> Static retargeting can also take the form of a <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/sponsored-messages-guide-to-reengaging-chatbot-subscribers">sponsored message</a>. If you go this route, make sure your chatbot is equipped to sell from there. Optimize your <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/welcome-message-best-practices">Welcome Message</a> and set up your bot to <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/whisky-brand-triples-conversion-rates-with-gift-recommendation-chatbot">get conversions</a>.</p>
<h4>👉 Jason’s tips on improving your static retargeting</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Don’t have too many ad sets per campaign</strong> 🛑 The best practice is to have between four and six ads per ad set active at one time. More than that may confuse the system, says Jason. Monitor your ads closely. If any aren’t performing well, you can turn them off and replace them with new ones you want to test.</li>
<li><strong>Exclude the right people</strong> 🙅🏽‍♀️ Again, look to the image at the start of this article for which audiences you should include from your static retargeting ads.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Dynamic retargeting</h3>
<p>Dynamic retargeting ads are personalized. If a user views a product or adds it to their cart on your site and then abandons it, a dynamic retargeting ad will show them that specific product again.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb9a55deabae_How-to-Build-and-Optimize-Your-Sales-Funnel-Facebook-Ads-Strategy-2020-Chatfuel.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/a8f929c3-8167-4add-97b0-6667303969ff/Green_and_Black_Simple_Sales_Marketing_Presentation_(2).png" height="1080" width="1920" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAI0lEQVR4nGO49ejxp7//Vy2cvmZKI0NfT1duXp6tmZGcADMA2PsM9GMTm64AAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Dynamic retargeting ads show a product(s) the user has already viewed on your site to entice them to come back and buy.</figcaption></figure>
<p>Jason recommends targeting people who:</p>
<ul>
<li>viewed one of your products in the last 60 or 90 days</li>
<li>viewed one of your products in the last seven days (however, you may want to skip this one if you’re not going to spend enough to create substantial traffic for this)</li>
<li>added one of your products to their cart in the last seven days</li>
<li>purchased one of your products (so that you can to upsell or cross-sell)</li>
</ul>
<h4>👉 Jason’s tip on improving your dynamic retargeting ads</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>Listen to Facebook</strong> 📣 Facebook AdsManager will tell you if you have the audience for a particular ad set or not. Pay attention to those notifications. (And remember, as with the others, to exclude the right audiences so you don’t show too many ads to any one group.)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Facebook ads + Chatfuel</h2>
<p>One last tip: You can harness the power of your Chatfuel bot to make the Facebook ad campaigns for your ecommerce company even more effective. We already mentioned sending data from the <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/1575151-people-tab"><em>People</em> tab</a> to Facebook Ads Manager with Segment Sync to improve your targeting. You should also know about the Click-to-Messenger Ads Entry Point. It’s the easiest way to link ads to your Chatfuel bot.</p>
<figure><iframe allowfullscreen src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v2F1uXt2AlQ"></iframe></figure>
<p>With Jason’s guidance and your Chatfuel bot, you’ll be on track to run more successful ecommerce ad campaigns than ever! 📈 Not yet a Chatfuel user? <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">Sign up for a free account</a> today to access ALL our powerful tools and features. Then, <a href="https://chatfuel.com/pricing">upgrade to Pro</a> when you’re ready to enjoy unlimited users, priority support, and other exclusive perks.</p>
<p><em>Learn more about Jason’s agency, <a href="https://www.spotlightsocialadvertising.com">Spotlight Social</a></em>.</p>

Get this expert's strategy for using Facebook ads to ignite your ecommerce store's sales.

The Secret Recipe for Optimizing Your Ecommerce Funnel With Facebook Ads

The game-changing tool that'll help your nonprofit save time, get new donors and volunteers, and expand its impact: a Messenger chatbot.

9 Reasons Your Nonprofit Needs a Chatbot

<p>A chatbot is your business’s Swiss Army knife: a multi-purpose tool that can help you with all kinds of different tasks and goals. Looking to cut costs, save time, boost sales, or delight customers? A Messenger chatbot can help with all four. And the best part is: You don’t need to be a tech expert or have coding knowledge to build one! That’s what no-code tools like Chatfuel are for. 😎 So allow us to dig a little deeper into the question of why your business needs a chatbot. Your business can benefit from chatbot technology in the following nine ways, because bots can help you…</p>
<h2>Cut business costs</h2>
<p><em>What company would turn down an easy opportunity to cut expenses? A Messenger chatbot for your business can help do this in two key ways.</em></p>
<h3>#1. Qualify leads automatically to reduce operational costs. ✅</h3>
<p>Simply by asking questions in its natural, conversational style, a chatbot can automatically sort prospective customers into categories. They can narrow down which prospects would be a good fit for your services, for example. Or, they could separate out those who seem more prepared to buy your products than others. Check out these real-world examples of Chatfuel users who have found success with their lead qualification chatbots:</p>
<ul>
<li>A car dealership saw a <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/nissan-sells-cars-using-messenger-bot">3.5x increase in qualified leads</a> and a 10x increase in sales in the first month, thanks to a bot that qualifies test-drive leads</li>
<li>An astrology brand was able to <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/cut-operational-costs-with-messenger-bot">cut costs by $25,000/month</a> and reduce their staff by over half once they launched a chatbot to qualify leads, since their employees no longer had to waste time talking to unqualified prospects.</li>
</ul>
<h3>#2. Improve return on ad spend. 📈</h3>
<p>Let’s say you run a Facebook ad that directs users to your ecommerce store, your <a href="https://chatfuel.com/templates/restaurant">restaurant’s</a> menu, or <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/6-reasons-marketing-agencies-should-offer-chatbot-services">your agency’s website</a>. Once the user arrives, they’re on their own to browse, and <em>hopefully</em> convert.🤞 But <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/create-click-to-messenger-ads-to-drive-traffic-to-your-bot">direct them to a chatbot on Messenger instead</a>, and they’ll get personalized guidance right down the sales funnel. Your bot can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfmQvqtJN9Q">recommend products</a> in your store, answer questions about your food delivery, or qualify leads for <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/3882031-chatfuel-for-agencies-and-creators#:~:text=We%20also%20offer%20an%20Enterprise%20plan">your marketing agency</a>’s services. The result? More conversions and a better ROAS for you.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb7d52deab29_image-3.png" alt="click to messenger ads" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/APX39e7w68/Q0NXW1gBiY1EACwDc4tz+/P0A9/b24OHf5Ofo7u7uGTIcTWOLmqQAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>You can create <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/create-click-to-messenger-ads-to-drive-traffic-to-your-bot">click-to-Messenger ads</a> that drive users to your chatbot. Once there, your bot can move prospects down the sales funnel towards a conversion.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Save time</h2>
<p><em>The less time your employees have to spend on repetitive questions and tasks, the more time they’ll have for other value-adding projects. Here’s why you should consider chatbots as a business solution for saving time.</em></p>
<h3>#3. Automate your overflowing inbox. 📨</h3>
<p>Are you or your staff spending countless hours responding to Facebook messages from prospects and customers? Good news: Chatbots and customer service are a match made in heaven. In fact, a well-built Messenger chatbot can answer <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/chatbots-customer-service">up to 80% of routine questions</a>.</p>
<p>In a couple of hours (and with no coding involved!), you can <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbot-for-customer-service">build a chatbot to answer FAQs</a> instantly, 24/7. (You can also use a no-code integration to add AI to your chatbot to make it even better at answering user questions!) See for yourself: Chatfuel client HelloFresh built a customer support chatbot and <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/hellofresh-reduces-support-wait-times-with-chatfuel-messenger-bot">cut their response time by 76%</a>! Customer satisfaction went up, and HelloFresh’s support team now has more time to focus on other tasks.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bbd96cdeab70_image-15.png" alt="messenger chatbot" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/APb09CEiIyouMvv6+gDi4uIPEBA/Q0Xt7ewA8/Pyam1wXWJm9vT0ipEVQvd2MZoAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>You can easily set up a Facebook Messenger chatbot to answer customer questions and save your team time.</figcaption></figure>
<h3>#4. Launch quickly and cheaply. 🚀</h3>
<p>Chatfuel is no-code tool for building Messenger chatbots. That means you can launch a simple chatbot for your business in a couple of hours, or a more sophisticated bot in days or a few weeks. <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/4237017-how-to-build-a-flow">Our Flow Builder interface</a> makes building a chatbot a visual, intuitive experience. (Video tutorial below. 👇) Plus, all our most valuable Pro tools are now available to all Chatfuel customers. Our free trial plan gives you the perfect opportunity to test your concept with 50 users. Once you’re ready for unlimited users, priority support, and other perks, <a href="https://chatfuel.com/pricing"><strong>upgrade to Pro.</strong></a></p>
<figure><iframe allowfullscreen src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HX-zA-DkPaU"></iframe></figure>
<h2>Boost conversions and sales</h2>
<p><em>Need another reason to adopt a chatbot for your business? We’ve got two words for you: more sales.</em></p>
<h3>#5. Gather valuable lead information. 👥</h3>
<p>Your business needs a chatbot if you rely on leads for revenue! (For example: <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/marketing-agency-uses-messenger-bots-to-deliver-high-quality-leads-for-clients">Chatbots for marketing agencies</a> and chatbots for real estate brokers are especially popular use cases.) First, bring users to your bot from your website or Facebook ads. Then, your chatbot can qualify them and gather contact information in a casual, conversational way. It can ask for their zip code, job title, or whatever data would be useful for your business. Then, with the Save User Email and Phone Number plugins, the user can share their contact information with the chatbot in one click.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb0defdeab63_image-16.png" alt="generate leads" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/APHx8RcXFyEhIvb29gDX1tY8PD1GR0fc3NwA9/f2GxseFBYX9/f2eNsTXEF2RCcAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>The Save User Email and Phone Number plugins will auto-populate the user's contact information, if available. It makes it easy for them to share their details in one tap.</figcaption></figure>
<h3>#6. Convert followers and website visitors into customers. 💰</h3>
<p>Businesses can use chatbots to turn lukewarm leads into a warm leads or even customers. Meet prospects where they are, and use your chatbot to guide them towards a conversion. For example, you could:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Add your chatbot to your website.</strong> Don’t leave visitors to browse your products or services alone! Have your friendly <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/add-a-messenger-chatbot-to-your-website">chatbot pop up on your website</a> and offer to answer their questions, make a recommendation, or guide them to the right resources. Take the case of a large English university, for example. They added their Chatfuel bot to their website to generate and qualify leads and doubled their conversion rate, facilitating $3.1 million in new enrollments in one day!</li>
<li><strong>Set your chatbot to respond to Facebook comments.</strong> The Comments Autoreply Entry Point in Chatfuel makes this a breeze. You can have your Messenger chatbot respond to comments on every post or only one post, and all comments or just those that contain keywords. Once this feature is set up, your bot will send commenters a message instantly and tell them more about your contest, offer, promotion, product, etc. Just look at what Chatfuel client DECEN Muebles did with this tool: They got almost <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/decen-baby-brand-generates-80-of-total-sales-with-messenger-bot">4,000 qualified leads</a> from a single post!</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb9897deab60_image-17.png" alt="generate leads" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/AFU9igQAXqafrrS0sgBaKlEpACOro6q2ursA//32/Pfyq62vnJ2gUJgUh6k5LCMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>It takes just a few clicks to set your bot to automatically reply to comments on your Facebook posts.</figcaption></figure>
<h3>#7. Gather key customer data. 📊</h3>
<p>The more you know about your audience, the more effectively you can sell to them. Lucky for marketers, chatbots make excellent data-gathering tools. You can set your chatbot to save the data it collects from users via its back-and-forth, conversational style. The data will be stored in Chatfuel in the form of user attributes, which are like tags. From there, you can:</p>
<ul>
<li>View and export all user data from the <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/1575151-people-tab"><em>People</em> tab</a> in Chatfuel.</li>
<li>Create user segments in the <em>People</em> tab, and sync them to Facebook Ads Manager in one click. Then, use the data to create Lookalike audiences to reach valuable new prospects, or custom audiences to reengage existing users.</li>
<li>Use data from customer actions in your bot to visualize your chatbot sales funnel. (The Send Analytics Events plugin makes it easy.) Then, you’ll be able to clearly see if there are any drop-off points in your flow, and make adjustments to maximize conversions.</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb3e76deab66_image-18.png" alt="funnel conversion" height="676" width="2000" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAABCAIAAAB2XpiaAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAFUlEQVR4nGOQZjDJjaj9/u3H33//ASHDB3Fi3NmRAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Use the Send Analytics Events to Facebook plugin to visualize your chatbot's sales funnel.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Create a dazzling customer experience</h2>
<p><em>Finally, a chatbot for your business can be the “wow factor” that delights users and keeps them coming back to your brand for more.</em></p>
<h3>#8. Personalize the experience</h3>
<p>It’s flattering when someone you’ve met before remembers details about you. It shows you that they were truly listening to what you had to say. That’s exactly the feeling your chatbot can give your audience. Your bot can incorporate two types of user data to personalize the conversation:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Data from their Facebook profile.</strong> Chatbots on Facebook Messenger have access to a user’s basic profile details. That means that—without asking for the information—your chatbot can greet prospects by name, or customize messages by their location or time zone.</li>
<li><strong>Data from past conversations.</strong> Chatbots can store data from previous chats as attributes, and use those to customize future conversations. A chatbot could tell the user about new products related to one they showed interest in last time. Or, a chatbot could show locations or shipping availability for a user’s specific area based on the zip code they shared in a past conversation.</li>
</ul>
<p>Personalization make users feel seen and special, which helps build brand trust. Plus, <a href="https://us.epsilon.com/pressroom/new-epsilon-research-indicates-80-of-consumers-are-more-likely-to-make-a-purchase-when-brands-offer-personalized-experiences">80% of users say personalized experiences</a> make them more likely to buy. That means this feature of Messenger chatbots can benefit your bottom line, too.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb7705dead80_iPhone 11.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/AObn5+Li4mhpam1xdAD29/fMzMtUWFhSW2EA6Ojo7u7uAAEAFBUT15UVAKncI8gAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Use user attributes to personalize the conversation. It'll help build customer trust and can increase conversions, too.</figcaption></figure>
<h3>#9. Delight users with a fun, engaging conversation</h3>
<p>There’s so much room for creativity when building a chatbot for your business. You can add videos, quizzes, and trivia to your chatbot. Sprinkle in GIFs and emoji to draw the eye and break up the text. Translate your <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/craft-a-brand-voice-that-converts">brand voice to your Messenger chatbot</a> to make users comfortable and build trust. <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbot-names">Choose a chatbot name</a> and persona to keep users interested. Use the opportunity to create an interesting, interactive experience that your users will remember.</p>
<p><em>Ready to jump aboard the “chatbots for business” train? 🚂 We can help with that. <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">Sign up for a free Chatfuel account</a> today and start building a chatbot for your business—no previous experience or coding knowledge required. (Once you’re ready to scale, <a href="https://chatfuel.com/pricing">upgrade to a Pro account</a> for unlimited users, priority support, and other exclusive perks!) Run a marketing agency? Check out <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/3882031-chatfuel-for-agencies-and-creators#:~:text=We%20also%20offer%20an%20Enterprise%20plan">our Premium Agency plan</a>. Enterprise customer? Get more information about <a href="https://chatfuel.com/pricing">our Premium plans</a>.</em></p>

Looking to cut costs, save time, boost sales, or delight customers? A no-code Messenger chatbot can help with all four.

Top 9 Reasons Your Business Needs a Chatbot

<p>You already know that Messenger bots are powerful tools to help businesses increase sales and automate support. Now, there are two new use cases to add to the list: chatbots as tools for freelancer job training and economic development. 💹</p>
<p>Our story begins in a small country in West Africa called The Gambia, which has a population of just over two million. <a href="https://theodora.com/wfbcurrent/gambia_the/gambia_the_economy.html">Three-quarters</a> of those citizens rely on agriculture for their livelihood. So when unpredictable events like droughts impact the output of that industry, the country’s entire economy is at risk. To help diversify the Gambian economy and build up other sectors, international organizations have set up certain programs—and one of them runs on chatbots.</p>
<p>In 2018, the International Trade Centre (ITC) planned one such initiative. The ITC is a global agency linked to the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and the European Union, and one of their objectives is to promote economic growth in certain countries. They came up with a plan for The Gambia and partnered with a Danish marketing agency called <a href="https://www.growthbond.co/#lp-pom-block-2030">GrowthBond</a> to implement it in 2018.</p>
<p>GrowthBond is a member of <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/3882031-chatfuel-for-agencies-and-creators#:~:text=We%20also%20offer%20an%20Enterprise%20plan">Chatfuel’s Premium Agency program.</a> We spoke to their CEO, Ferdinand Kjærulff, to find out how his team used a Chatfuel bot to help promote and organize this unique project.</p>
<h2>A plan to empower Gambian young people and small businesses</h2>
<p>Kjærulff explained that the ITC identified a two-pronged problem in the Gambian business world. First, most small- and medium-sized businesses in Gambia don’t have the resources to harness the power of modern digital marketing. Very few have in-house talent with enough experience in the digital marketing space, and not many have room in their budget to hire outside help either.</p>
<p>Second, young people in Gambia lack opportunities to break into the world of digital marketing work. It’s nearly impossible to be competitive in the international freelance market without proper training, experience, and a strong portfolio. So with no local certifications, internships, or similar programs available to Gambians, their chances of breaking into the freelance marketing world were slim.</p>
<p>That’s where GrowthBond came in. They worked with the ITC to create a program to equip young Gambians with in-demand marketing skills. Then, they granted ITC funding to SMBs in the country so they could afford to hire the newly trained freelancers. That way, the businesses could get free marketing and the freelancers could gain experience—a perfect win-win! 🏆</p>
<h2>The six-step program (chatbots included!)</h2>
<p>Over a period of six months, GrowthBond was responsible for “the selection, training, and supervision of the digital marketing students, as well as digital marketing consulting and local mentorship.” Here’s an overview of how the program they developed worked:</p>
<p><strong>#1. Lead generation via Facebook ads 👋</strong> The first order of business was to spread the word about the program to promising young Gambians. GrowthBond set up Facebook ad campaigns advertising their digital-marketing training program for aspiring freelancers.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb142fdeab67_image.png" alt="facebook ads sample" height="1023" width="1600" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAALklEQVR4nGOQEBc5d+7CuXPnNm/ewiAqJvbx48erV68eOHCAQVtb6w4YHD12DACdphcAmEyMwAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>A sampling of the Facebook ads GrowthBond ran to get students for their new program.</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>#2.</strong> <strong>Lead qualification via chatbot ✅</strong> Of course, not every Gambian Facebook user would be the right fit for the program. So those who <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/create-click-to-messenger-ads-to-drive-traffic-to-your-bot">clicked the ads</a> were redirected to Messenger. There, a chatbot that GrowthBond set up asked them lead-qualification questions to find out if they were eligible to participate. The group that made it through this round was whittled down even more after that with an in-depth questionnaire GrowthBond sent them next.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb3b26deab20_image-1.png" alt="messenger chatbot" height="354" width="422" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAALElEQVR4nGPYu3tvbmaWkaHx/PnzGbKycoWFxVVUVLy9vRn+g4GHh0dpSQkAOkoQ4yUfaZ0AAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>GrowthBond set up a chatbot to qualify leads for the training program.</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>#3. Course reminders via chatbot 🔔</strong> The students who applied and were approved then received messages via chatbot with important information about the training courses, including reminders and helpful hints.</p>
<p><strong>#4. Online training 👩🏻‍💻</strong>The students could go through some of the freelancer training at their own pace in Thinkific. For the rest, GrowthBond hired two local mentors to run live trainings on Facebook. They reminded students about the trainings via chatbot and via email.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bbd481deab5b_image-2.png" alt="conversation rates" height="234" width="678" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAABCAIAAAB2XpiaAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAFUlEQVR4nGN48vz53r37opISjKwtADY5Bqx6B/GPAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Stats for one of the live trainings GrowthBond's local mentors held for students on Facebook</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>#5. Email outreach ✉️</strong> To get local SMBs on board with the project, GrowthBond reached out to many via email. They offered these businesses $50 USD in Facebook ad credits, plus $200 USD worth of freelancer work to help get them set up.</p>
<p><strong>#6. A Facebook group and in-person meetings 👥</strong> GrowthBond also created a Facebook group for students who completed the course. They shared extra tips and advice there for their budding freelancers. The group also served as a place where the students could get feedback on their pitches and profiles, and share their success stories. In addition, the local mentors GrowthBond hired held in-person meetups where students could get support and input on their work.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb4b2fdeab5d_image-3.png" alt="chatbots for freelancers" height="1067" width="1600" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAL0lEQVR4nGNQ01D7/fsPBwMDDw8ngxwDg5muVqSPjaaSDENVaFh7fkZ6YvTa+VMBv5wLCphlHakAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>One of the in-person advice and feedback sessions GrowthBond set up for its students</figcaption></figure>
<p>Once the students finished the training and gained experience working for the SMBs, they were ready to launch their careers as freelance marketers. The GrowthBond team continued to support the students for the first two months of their new adventure, to help them put what they’d learned into practice. 🙌</p>
<h2>The role of Messenger bots in the training program</h2>
<p>GrowthBond’s training program focused more on the basics of Facebook advertising than <a href="https://youtu.be/D4n6VLQHE5U">the basics of chatbot building</a>. However, they did use Messenger bots to promote their program at different stages along the way. As a result, many students got their first exposure to chatbots. Plus, the bots helped the program grow and assisted the students in staying on track. GrowthBond used their Messenger bot for:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Lead generation</strong>. To generate leads and get students to apply for their freelance training program, GrowthBond ran a series of Facebook ads. They were <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/create-click-to-messenger-ads-to-drive-traffic-to-your-bot">click-to-Messenger ads</a>, which meant that users were directed to a Messenger chatbot after clicking the CTA.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Lead qualification</strong>. Then, the marketing agency took advantage of a chatbot’s back-and-forth, conversational style to gather more information about program applicants. Based on the user’s answers to the questions, the bot could automatically approve qualifying students to move to the next round. It then saved the responses from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNBeoGF90PY">qualified leads</a> as attributes, and <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/2708726-export-data-from-chatfuel-to-google-sheets">exported them to a Google Sheet</a> automatically so the GrowthBond team could easily access the information.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Reminders</strong>. Once students were enrolled in the program, the GrowthBond agency used a chatbot to keep them on track with their studies. This program ran in 2018, well before Facebook’s 2020 policy changes. So although GrowthBond used a sequence of messages then to remind students about upcoming live classes, there are still several ways an agency could do this with a bot now. You could still set up a sequence that engages students daily, to keep reopening the 24-hour contact window. You could have students sign up for <a href="https://youtu.be/vTwdLHar6pI">One-Time Notifications</a> to remind them about the classes. Or, you could use <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/sponsored-messages-guide-to-reengaging-chatbot-subscribers">sponsored messages</a> to send reminders and other important course info.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb6d09deab69_image-4.png" alt="chatbots for recruitment" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/AJ+fn42Oj3h9f/P09QDo6Ojv7esADxyttb4An5+fWVpaMDIznJ6fvJcU+ldDL54AAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>GrowthBond used a Messenger chatbot to generate and qualify leads, and to send students reminders about their coursework.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Success stories from GrowthBond’s freelancer training program</h2>
<p>GrowthBond got 370 applicants for their freelance marketing program initially. Of those, 180 showed up to the first online course sessions. From that group, GrowthBond chose 50 of the most promising candidates to move forward. Out of that group, 30 completed the course and started working as freelancers.</p>
<p>10 of them are currently generating revenue, “and are expected to make it as online freelancers,” according to Kjærulff. Considering that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users">less than 20%</a> of Gambians are internet users (compared to over 75% of Americans), these numbers represent a great start.</p>
<p>One of the program’s top success stories is a young man named Bakary Fatty, who earned $515 in freelance income during the program. His story “proves that, with proper education and motivation, anyone can reach his or her targets,” Kjærulff says.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb0bfbdeab64_image-5.png" alt="chatbots for freelancers" height="1165" width="1058" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAAECAIAAAAmkwkpAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAP0lEQVR4nAE0AMv/AMDY7rLR3rrI3Ii+4gBXsN87UVZJQz/A7v8AXbTgFyo2BQMWwOH3AKXS9vj7//b0/63N8hp0H4CScc9KAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>To keep the program alive even after its six-month span, GrowthBond ran Facebook ads to companies in Africa to promote the services of these freelancers. After receiving interest from 130 companies, they turned off the campaign and got to work connecting them with students from the program. “We expect to continue receiving a constant flow of companies lined up to hire freelancers in the future,” says Kjærulff.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb1a2cdeab21_image-6.png" alt="facebook ad copy" height="459" width="402" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAAECAIAAAAmkwkpAAAACXBIWXMAAAsSAAALEgHS3X78AAAAP0lEQVR4nAE0AMv/AMLK5uvr6/v7+v///wC5uK2trrCvsbbc39wAMjk4FRQaAwAObXR4AEdSWQ8PFA0ME3+FiU6GGSTkDfY2AAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>GrowthBond continued to run ads after the program was over to get more opportunities for the freelancers to build experience.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>The power of Messenger bots for education and training</h2>
<p>This story serves as a timely reminder that chatbots are <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbots-for-universities">powerful tools for education</a>. And while Messenger bots have always been <a href="https://academy.ied.eu/blog/elearning-digital-media">effective learning tools</a>, their potential is even clearer during this global pandemic. Bots can help people build new skills from the safety of their own homes, whether those skills will help them complete a degree, explore a new field, or learn to bring in money remotely as a freelancer. It also reminds us that agencies and nonprofits will continue to be crucial players in how we recover and rebuild pieces of the economy that COVID-19 has damaged.</p>
<p>👔 <strong>Businesses:</strong> Start <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">building a Messenger bot for free</a> to keep your customers informed, automate tasks, generate revenue, and more.</p>
<p>💼 <strong>Marketing agencies:</strong> <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/3882031-chatfuel-for-agencies-and-creators#:~:text=We%20also%20offer%20an%20Enterprise%20plan">Book a demo</a> with us to learn more about how our<a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/3882031-chatfuel-for-agencies-and-creators">Premium Agency program</a> can empower you to exceed client expectations and make a difference, like GrowthBond did.</p>
<p>💙 <strong>Nonprofits:</strong> Learn <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/9-reasons-your-nonprofit-needs-a-chatbot">how your org can benefit from a bot</a>, then get information on our <a href="https://chatfuel.intercom-clicks.com/via/e?ob=ztQDpK3PbBuSXQ9E9J2xuj%2FY46kabynWNpmbS699JLJ7FlFGf5hjsBuwd25s1ieveLsx10ajwhwHIguNgyVgT7irAeOFbbjiHJTaw4y8meU%3D&h=2f7945ea5a3937b3ceac168b68622d1194f4d4f7-mca3oa0n_26925251929">Bots for Good program</a>, designed to support the nonprofit organizations that support all of us.</p>
<p><em>Learn more about what Chatfuel is doing to help businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.</em></p>

Here are two new use cases for what chatbots can do: They can be tools for freelancer job training and economic development.

How This Marketing Agency Used a Bot to Help Empower Freelancers and Small Businesses

<p>The goal of any fitness business is to help people stay healthy by providing three things:</p>
<ol>
<li>guidance 📝</li>
<li>motivation 💥</li>
<li>a sense of community 👥</li>
</ol>
<p>But the coronavirus pandemic has forced gyms, boxing clubs, yoga studios, and CrossFit boxes around the world to close their doors for the time being. As a fitness-business owner, how can you continue to achieve your goal without a physical space?</p>
<p>After all, there’s no lack of demand right now. Many people are feeling stir-crazy at home, and look to physical fitness for stress relief and health more than ever. So how can you continue to provide these three elements to your members at a distance?</p>
<p>The clear answer is to shift to an online model for now. But what’s the easiest way to convert your gym or studio into a digital operation—without investing lots of time or money?</p>
<p>An elegant solution to this challenge is the Facebook Messenger chatbot. Bots can offer the guidance, motivation, and sense of community your members are missing right now. Best of all, Messenger chatbots are <a href="https://youtu.be/D4n6VLQHE5U">easy to build with Chatfuel</a> — no coding knowledge or previous experience required.</p>
<p>Let’s start by diving into the specifics of what a chatbot can do for your fitness business during these times, and what it can offer your members.</p>
<h2>#1. A chatbot can keep your community informed</h2>
<p>Your first task as a gym owner or marketer in the times of coronavirus is to keep your community up to date. Information and regulations for businesses during this time change often. It’s up to you to keep members informed on how your gym or studio is affected.</p>
<p>Here’s the good news: Building a gym bot that shares this kind of information and <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbot-for-customer-service">answers FAQs</a> is easy. Plus, updating it whenever you need to takes seconds! Here’s a quick tutorial on how to create a bot like this.👇</p>
<figure><iframe allowfullscreen src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A499Eeq9Lq8"></iframe></figure>
<p>Make sure to put the most pressing, relevant information front and center in your bot. Don’t start out with <em>About us</em> information that details how your gym was founded. That’s not the information most people are looking for right now.</p>
<p>Instead, they want to know if you’re open, when you’ll reopen if not, and what you can offer them in the meantime. Put these details first; don’t make users have to dig to find them. Make your bot a hub for the most up-to-date information about your business right now, and highlight how the latest changes affect members.</p>
<h2>#2. A chatbot can provide personalized workouts for users</h2>
<p>Get this: Consumers are <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/01/ads-that-dont-overstep?autocomplete=true">40% more likely</a> to view items that are recommended based on personal information that they’ve shared with a brand. It stands to reason, then, that gym members will be more likely to actually do the at-home workouts you share if they’re personalized to them. A chatbot makes it easy for your fitness business to offer this type of customization.</p>
<p>The key is conversation. It’s how chatbots communicate with users, via back-and-forth chat. It’s also how your bot can gather information about a user’s needs or preferences in order to make custom recommendations.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have to be complicated to build out this type of functionality, either. Here’s an example of how you could set up a personal trainer chatbot to recommend custom workouts for users:</p>
<ul>
<li>Add a bank of a few key movements to your bot, given in manageable increments, like 10 shuttle sprints, 50 jump ropes, 25 burpees, and 20 push-ups, for example. Create a gallery with videos showing how to do each one.</li>
<li>Set up your bot to quiz the user about their preferences for the day’s workout (like duration, equipment they have available, etc.).</li>
<li>Based on their responses, the bot can create a workout for the user, made up of the different movements you’ve given it to work with.</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb5f3adeab59_Why-Gyms-and-Fitness-Studios-Should-Be-Using-Messenger-Bots-Right-Now.png" alt="chatbots for gyms" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/ALW1tra5u05OTQ8ODQDk5eXL09lzdHVcYGQAxcXFqKuryszP9ff4kZMWlUJJHegAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>You can equip your bot to put together workouts for users based on their desired duration and the equipment they have on hand.</p>
<p>You could do the same thing with yoga poses or boxing sequences, too—whatever movements your gym or fitness center specializes in. It’s minimal work for you and maximum benefit for your users. This is just one of many ways you could use a gym bot to share your online workouts. You could also:</p>
<p>📆 Create a gallery with one card for each day of the week, and have the respective button link to a full video workout for that day.</p>
<p>🧘🏽‍♀️Ask users what benefit they want that day (relaxation, energy, stress relief, etc.) and have the bot send them instructions for a yoga flow that will help them achieve it.</p>
<p>There’s lots of room for creativity when it comes to sharing workouts via chatbot. Think about what format would best serve your users, and go from there.</p>
<h2>#3. A chatbot can help you run contests and promotions to boost engagement</h2>
<p>One element gym-goers are missing most right now is the sense of community your business provided when it was fully open. Use a chatbot to help promote community engagement still, even while your members can’t physically gather together. It can help with:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Contests.</strong> You could encourage users to log their workouts in the bot. Your bot can save them as attributes. Then, you’ll be able to easily find who had the fastest time or the most reps for that day, and reward them with a gift card or some merch. Or, you could use the logs to track who is most consistent in their workouts over a month, and give them a prize and a social-media shoutout.</li>
<li><strong>User-generated content.</strong> Your bot could ask users to submit photos of themselves, their workout space, or the makeshift weights they’re using to do your exercises at home. It’s an easy way to gather user-generated content to feature on your social media to boost community morale and motivation.</li>
<li><strong>Giveaways.</strong> If you’d like the added bonus of gaining new bot subscribers, you could run a giveaway on your Facebook page. Create a post on your business page announcing a giveaway of a prize, instructing users to comment to enter. Set up the <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/how-to-turn-facebook-post-commenters-into-customers">Comments Autoreply feature</a> so your bot will automatically reply to every entrant. It can start conversations with those who don’t win, encouraging them to check out its other resources on Messenger.</li>
</ul>
<h2>#4. A chatbot can sell your merchandise</h2>
<p>Does your gym or fitness studio sells merchandise like workout clothing, fitness equipment, or supplements? A chatbot can help you maintain this revenue stream during the pandemic (and beyond!). If your gym isn’t set up to sell online yet, check out this quick-start <a href="https://www.oberlo.com/blog/how-i-launched-my-ecommerce-store-in-less-than-30-minutes">guide to opening an ecommerce store.</a> Once your gym has an online shop ready to go, here are a few ways a bot can help boost its sales:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Answer questions about products.</strong> This is where a chatbot’s handy FAQ function comes into play again. You can equip your Messenger bot to answer questions about everything from apparel sizing to shipping costs and times. If a customer is hesitant to buy because they have a question, the bot can answer it and close the deal.</li>
<li><strong>Recommend products.</strong> Through the same question-and-answer style, a bot can gather information about a user’s needs or preferences. Then, it can recommend products that would be the best match. If you sell protein powder, for example, the bot could ask users how many grams of protein they want per serving, what flavor they prefer, etc. Then, it could show relevant products with links to purchase on your store website.</li>
</ul>
<figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RSi6QWd0Sek?feature=oembed" allowfullscreen></iframe></figure>
<ul>
<li><strong>Send abandoned-cart reminders.</strong> If a user adds one of your products to their cart but leaves without buying, your Messenger chatbot can send them a gentle reminder. It’s important to not be too aggressive with these, especially in these times. But a quick message that simply asks the user if they have questions or offers a discount can go a long way. Use our Cart Reminders plugin to set up these automatic messages in minutes.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Other benefits of using a chatbot for your gym or yoga studio</h2>
<p>Now you know what a chatbot can help your gym or fitness center achieve. Here are a few other reasons why using chatbots for fitness brands is a wise move during this time:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>They’re easy to build</strong>. As we mentioned before, you don’t need any special skills or experience to build a fitness chatbot with Chatfuel. Our platform is user friendly, and we offer tons of support resources to help you on your way (listed in the last section of this post).</li>
<li><strong>They’re part of the Facebook ecosystem</strong>. Facebook Messenger has over a billion users, so it’s safe to say that most of your fitness clients will be familiar with the interface. That means there will be no learning curve for them to get value from your chatbot, and no need for them to install a separate app. It also means you can get more users to your bot <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/create-click-to-messenger-ads-to-drive-traffic-to-your-bot">with Facebook ads</a>, if desired.</li>
<li><strong>They can be your business’s central hub.</strong> A Messenger chatbot can become a one-stop shop for all information related to your business during the pandemic (and after!). You can equip it with all relevant information for members, so they know that it’s the place to go when they have a question or want an update about your business. Plus, you’ll be able to instantly update information yourself—no need to contact your developer, as you may have to for changes to your website.</li>
<li><strong>They can help you achieve your business goals.</strong> Bots can help you provide guidance, motivation, and a sense of community to your members, as we discussed. But they can also help you keep up engagement and even revenue during these times to keep your business afloat.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Examples of fitness chatbots powered by Chatfuel</h2>
<p><strong>Boosty.Coach</strong>, platform for finding live workouts</p>
<ul>
<li>Boosty is a French website that makes it easy for fitness enthusiasts to find workout videos and live coaching sessions to follow at home. They’ve generously made their platform free for the duration of quarantine. 💙 Their workout chatbot guides the user through the process of finding the right video for them, whether it’s about exercise, meditation, or nutrition. The bot makes it easy for users to find workouts and other fitness information that suits them.</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bbb804deab57_Messenger-chatbot-for-fitness-Boosty-Coach.png" alt="chatbots for coaching" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/AF5cV15eXeXm5////wAkFgAZDACZoqvIyckAhYSEcXFxyMnK6urqbzsUcut0LRkAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p><strong>Planet Fitness,</strong> national chain of fitness centers</p>
<ul>
<li>In the times of COVID-19, Planet Fitness’s Messenger chatbot provides only the most crucial information for members. That includes FAQs about gym closures, and information about the online workouts they’re offering. The exercises aren’t available in the bot itself, in this case. However, users can click a button and will be directed to the gym’s Facebook page where they can join in on live, guided exercises.</li>
</ul>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb5adcdeab5c_Planet-Fitness--national-chain-of-fitness-centers_Chatbot-for-gym-and-workout.png" alt="chatbots for fitness" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/ACIjIwwRFNXW1v///wBGR0c3PUFXXmKrq60AUVFSQUVHqqqr19fXK04RAGy34pIAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<h2>How to build a Messenger bot for your fitness business</h2>
<p>To help you learn how to build a gym chatbot, we’ve collected some resources for you. Your first step is to sign up for a <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">free Chatfuel account</a>. Then, get acquainted with our platform and some bot-building basics:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMA97c2a6Mw">Connect your Facebook page</a> to Chatfuel</li>
<li><a href="https://youtu.be/D4n6VLQHE5U">Build your first chatbot</a> in three minutes</li>
<li>Use a template to <a href="https://youtu.be/A499Eeq9Lq8">set up a bot to answer FAQs</a></li>
</ul>
<p>You’ll find quick-start tips and advice on our blog, too. Check out how to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Avoid the most common chatbot mistakes</li>
<li>Make sure your bot complies with Messenger policies</li>
<li>Use built-in stats to monitor your bot’s performance</li>
</ul>
<p>Finally, we recommend that bot-builders of all levels join <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/chatfuel">our Facebook community</a>, where you can get advice, find inspiration, and ask questions.</p>

What's the easiest way to convert your gym or studio into a digital operation during COVID without investing lots of time/money? Chatbots!

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