Marketing automation takes a more and more prominent place in the online strategies of marketers. With the rise of chatbots, artificial intelligence, and other automated possibilities to get in contact, Gartner expects that 85% of all the customer relations management is done without talking to a person. At Sterc, we noticed that more organizations make use of virtual assistants. Take a look at the growing functionalities of Google Assistant, Alexa, or Siri, but websites of smaller organizations implement a virtual assistant too. Do you offer your customers some virtual assistance?
What is a virtual assistant?
You can think of a virtual assistant as a personal assistant, but digital. Virtual assistants make your life and the one of your customers easier. Google Assistant and Siri already show this in terms of turning the lights on and off, turning the heat up, looking up recipes, and so on. The possibilities are endless, and you, as a company, can use it too!
Chatbot and navigation in one
You can use a virtual assistant on your company’s website to help your customers with their customer journey. For example, you can ask your customers a few questions to help them get to the right page that answers their questions. Does the visitor still end up not finding the answer to their questions, you can integrate chat software or WhatsApp. This way, a real employee can take over the conversation and still give the visitor the answer he was looking for.
Take obstacles away and enhance conversions
Marketing automation is all about taking obstacles away for the visitors of your website, so it makes it easier for them to do a particular task. This can be a request, an online purchase, or find more information. The virtual assistant can help you with that. For example, by redirecting your visitors to that page where they can easily convert or by making sure your visitors have to leave their personal information to download a PDF. After this, this information can automatically be added to a marketing automation software like MailChimp, HubSpot, or the CRM software you use. This way, you can start retargeting or send them the right information in, for example, a newsletter.
The virtual assistant of Hooghoudt
As you might have read, you can use a virtual assistant to get more conversions. Want to know how you can use a virtual assistant for your organization? We built one for Dutch distillery Hooghoudt. This virtual assistant helps their visitors navigate through their website. Hooghoudt tries to make their virtual assistant a little more personal by showing their host Laurens and by asking several questions relevant to their organization. This way, the virtual assistant Laurens can help you find information, Hooghoudt’s address, or even cocktail inspiration in just a few clicks! Hooghoudt can fully manage their virtual assistant themselves, so they can change, add or delete content and put the virtual assistant on every page. This way, the virtual assistant is up-to-date and keeps on helping their customers where they need it most. Want to see how it works? Take a look at www.hooghoudt.com.
