99% of B2B Marketers Say AI Chatbots Increase Their Lead Conversion Rates
Discover how AI chatbots are impacting demand generation, how marketers are leveraging the tech, and what results they are achieving using chatbots.
Companies today employ various technologies and strategies to elevate customer support and experience. One such technology is AI-powered chatbots. To understand how these chatbots are impacting demand generation, how marketers are leveraging the technology, and what kind of results marketers are achieving using chatbots, Botco.ai conducted a study.
In today’s fast-changing digital landscape, forward-thinking companies have employed various technologies, tools, processes, and solutions to enhance their marketing strategies, elevate their sales funnel, and enhance their customer support and experience. One such solution is a conversational automation agent, often referred to as a chatbot. These chatbots are being used as a crucial element in assisting B2B businesses across a wide range of industries to deliver seamless experiences, engage online visitors better, and convert more prospects into customers. These chatbots have become essential to influencing the entire marketing funnel as well as transforming how businesses and customers interact.
To understand how conversational marketing technology is improving B2B demand generation, how marketers are leveraging conversational AI, and what results are achieved, Botco.ai recently conducted a study. The following are a few key findings.
See more: Chatbots Increased Business Sales by 67%, Reports Intercom
Most B2B Companies Are Leveraging AI-powered Chatbots
The study showed that many B2B companies realize the need to create a customer journey that generates high-quality leads and, ultimately, better ROI. About 85% of respondents who conduct demand generation campaigns like lead capture, lead nurturing, and pipeline acceleration leveraged AI chatbots to support their demand generation efforts.
Personalized chatbot experiences engage prospects better and help B2B businesses identify high-value website visitors and engage with them instantly, quickly gathering data-rich leads to capture specific audiences. Engaged audiences drive better conversions.
AI chatbots deliver more relevant and comprehensive customer information, such as timelines, product/service interests, budgets, and more. This gives sales teams greater context and improved ways to prioritize the prospects to contact.
Email Is the Most Leveraged Channel To Support Demand Generation
Getting more high-quality leads is a top priority for marketers, but finding effective strategies to do so may not always be easy. This is because different channels and campaign types are not ideal for all businesses. So, what are the top demand generation channels B2B marketers prefer to expand their reach, build credibility, and generate better leads?
According to respondents, email is the most popular channel (76%), followed by social media (70%). These were followed by paid search engine marketing (used by 55%), digital advertising (53%), organic SEO (39%), content marketing (35%), and webinars (27%).
AI Chatbots Help Marketers Increase Lead Volume
A crucial component of a business is generating new sales leads. Keeping the company’s lead gen pipeline full ensures the business will continue to grow and expand. More companies are increasingly leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), big data, and machine learning (ML) to empower their lead-gen teams. About 83% of respondents said that chatbots increased their lead generation volume by at least 5%. About 58% of respondents said that chatbots increased the volume by at least 10%, and 15% said the lead generation volume increased by at least 30%.
How chatbots have increased companies’ lead generation volume
Source: The State of Chatbots in B2B Demand Generation
Chatbots Significantly Influence the Middle of the Marketing Funnel
AI-powered chatbots are crucial to creating a powerful marketing funnel, as they engage at every step of the funnel. Hence, very few leads fall through the cracks.
The study’s respondents feel that chatbots can influence the marketing funnel most effectively in the middle of the funnel (MOFU) for things like webinar sign-ups and newsletter subscriptions (43%) and the top of the funnel (TOFU) to boost content downloads or lead generation (36%). Most respondents say chatbots are the least effective at the bottom of the funnel. Yet, 20% believe chatbots can effectively influence buyers by inducing high-intent leads to take lower-funnel action, such as booking a demo or beginning a free trial.
To prevent leads from jumping off right at the TOFU, marketers should engage them wherever they land on the company’s website. Guiding users quickly to the page they are looking for or leading them directly to the sales agent via live chat are a few strategic tactics chatbots can streamline. Essentially, chatbots can connect prospects from where they come to where the business wants them to go.
Chatbots Increase a Business’s Lead Conversion Rate
The lead conversion rate or sales conversion rate indicates how effectively a business converts its qualified leads to customers. The metric is critical to evaluating a sales funnel’s performance and is used as a KPI of a sales team. Further, it can be used to compare the effectiveness of a company’s various marketing channels.
Almost all (99%) of respondents said chatbots increased their lead-to-customer or lead conversion rate. Among them, 56% said chatbots increased the conversion rate by at least 10%, and 17% said chatbots increased the conversion rate by 20% or more. About 14% said the conversion rate increased by at least 30%.
Most Marketers Use Chatbots to Understand Their Audiences Better
There are several reasons B2B marketers use chatbots. According to 57% of respondents, they use chatbots to understand their audience better. About 55% use chatbots for lead generation, 43% use them for educating prospects, and 42% use them to qualify leads for the sales teams. About 42% also use chatbots for audience segmentation or stronger customer relationships.
How B2B marketers think chatbots can benefit demand generation programs
Source: The State of Chatbots in B2B Demand Generation
Industry-leading marketing teams are using chatbot insights to make better decisions. These use cases demonstrate the range of benefits of chatbots as part of a demand-gen program. Being scalable and high-performing, chatbots allow marketers to easily keep up with changing customer behavior while their budgets stay under control.
See more: Why Chatbots are Powerful Tool For Consumer Engagement
Email and Chatbots Are the Most Effective Demand Generation Combination
When it comes to delivering value faster, automating customer support, and providing immersive experiences, B2B marketers understand the importance of a multi-tech approach for effective demand generation.
Looking at 13 different options, 46% of respondents claimed that the combination of email drip campaigns and chatbots on their website or landing page is the most effective way to obtain qualified leads. This was followed by email campaigns with embedded video (41%), email drip campaigns (40%), social media posts on Instagram and Facebook (35%), LinkedIn ads (31%), and webinars (30%).
Conclusion
The study shows that the excitement about chatbots hasn’t waned. Demand generation has become a critical marketing strategy for B2B companies today, and most are finding that AI chatbots can help boost their demand generation programs significantly. Chatbots are not a novelty anymore. They are an increasingly prevalent digital marketing funnel automation tool, providing B2B companies with a better way to engage with customers and prospects, pre-qualify leads, and improve sales. B2B companies that deploy a demand generation program can benefit significantly by incorporating chatbots.
The findings from the survey show that chatbots provide various benefits to demand generation. B2B organizations can expect a bright future with various benefits and opportunities AI-powered chatbots provide.
Have you used AI-powered chatbots in marketing? How has it impacted demand generation? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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