Chatbot Marketing with Tonya Hofmann

With 68% of people still opening their chat messages on Messenger, adding chatbots to your marketing efforts is the next sensible thing to do for your business. In this episode, Tonya Hofmann, the CEO and Founder of the Public Speakers Association and Wowdible, and CMO and Co-Founder of Botmazing, shares her tips on tricks on maximizing the power of chatbots campaigns while maintaining that human touch with your audience. She reveals common mistakes that annoy your customers as well as the right mindset for a successful approach that converts conversation into sales. Take note of the tools she provides and you can move your way through this relatively new tactic of chatbot marketing.

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Chatbot Marketing with Tonya Hofmann

Our guest is Tonya Hofmann. She is the woman of all things. She’s the CEO and Founder of the Public Speakers Association and Wowdible. She is also the Chief Marketing Officer and Cofounder of Botmazing. She’s a globally sought-after speaker. She’s been on the cover of five magazines. She’s the bestselling author of seven international books and the winner of multiple national and international Industry Association Awards. She’s the host of Tonya Hofmann’s Wow TV Show. Welcome, Tonya. You presented me with some ideas about bots. I haven’t been a huge fan of bots because people use them in the most obnoxious ways on Messenger. What is a chatbot?

When I say, “Are you using chatbots?” a lot of people say, “No,” because they’ve had that experience. A chatbot is an automated message. We use it through Facebook Messenger. Once we found out that 68% of people still open their chat messages on Messenger, that’s so much better than the 5% on email.

That’s a great point. This is why I wanted to talk about it is because people are exhausted by email. They’re not open to get anymore.

With Gmail now and a lot of the other systems, they all go in all of these buckets. Most people delete it. They never even see that you set on something. For me and all my businesses, I was struggling with how do I continue a conversation with someone? That they have an opportunity to hear about something eventually. My friend, Alicia, said something about chatbots and she goes, “The little messages that people pop up.” I thought, “There’s got to be a better way,” because I haven’t been impressed with what’s been out there. It is a little message that you get in your Messenger box when you have Messenger or Facebook and it’ll pop up.

What makes it different from the email that nobody’s opening and text marketing because that’s something new as well?

Even text messages, they’re finding only 10% even open that. Traditional emails are like newsletters. Something that you send out to everyone to catch them up on something, to sell them something or to get them to opt-in to something. That’s the traditional way of trying to gather new clients. We went to text messaging because we’re like, “People have got a phone. Let’s text them,” and then quickly people got annoyed.

You get annoyed by it, especially the ones that don’t have that opt-out.

We’re looking for an option. When we came up with chats, we thought, “What makes it different?” It’s more of a conversation versus most people were doing text messages like mini-emails. It’s an actual conversation that we’re having or a, “You need to know about this.” It could either be a big announcement or an actual conversation versus a traditional email.

Give first. Stop with just wanting to sell. Click To Tweet

Over the past couple of years, emails have become very standardized. I know when I get joint venture emails, I don’t even open them because they all say the same thing, “Look at this great product my best friend, Tonya, has.” Most of the time you barely know Tonya, you’re just trying to make money. That burnt people out, not only the joint ventures but the drip campaigns looked all the same. Two emails about how did you like my download and then by the sixth email, they’re selling you something. It wasn’t a relationship.

We were talking to people. That’s what attracted me to the chatbot idea. It’s something new. It isn’t something that everyone’s been bombarded by already. It’s still new enough that you stand out. You’re not in the noise with everybody else. I know you’re going to wait until it’s at the end of its cycle versus the upswing. This time, get in on the upswing.

I have seen so many bad chats. I know there was one guy who was in assessment marketing which only started a chat strand when he was about to launch a product. It annoyed me because it made me feel he didn’t want to talk to me in between. I was running one of my friends’ social media while she was out of the country. You’re not going to believe this, Tonya. There were 147 chat messages from the same person she had subscribed to. There was a pattern to it as I read them, it was a week-and-a-half of, “Do you like this? Do you like that?” and then a sale, a pitch. This went on for almost half-a-year of everyday chat. I have to tell you, I don’t think those are good chats. What makes a good chat?

It’s a great question because we’re still in the experimental stage. What I always look at is what do I resonate with? That’s where I always start when I do anything myself. I’ve been experimenting with things. The first chat that I sent out was a bust. It was too long. People stopped about halfway and no one ever finished to the point of, “You need to go further. That’s the part that’s good down there.” I then went to, “What are other people doing that I liked?” One of the ones that I am gravitating to is a beautiful graphic. Something that catches your eye and a little message that goes along with the graphic. It could be an inspirational quote.

It could be a free offer. Free offers are awesome where they get something. Give first. Stop just wanting to sell. Give something that they want. I have a conference coming up. I sent out a graphic of a microphone, really beautiful, really vibrant. I said, “I’m looking for speakers like you. Click here and get started.” I had all those people coming over and then it was converting well to get people over to the website. It was something specific to a specific group of people that I knew they wanted. What I’ve found works even better is to give them something for free, warm them up and continue that conversation. It’s about that drip campaign. You’ve got to figure out what would somebody want and then how often.

I was getting one from a lady like you were talking about. She sent something out every single day. It was a long text. After the second one, I stopped reading it. I unsubscribed. That’s what people need to understand that in Facebook Messenger, you have to be graphical. People like seeing a cute puppy or a cute kitty on his belly. Get them attracted first. Get them attracted by what is your offer in this conversation? Make sure that your system, whatever system you use, you will be able to talk to them. Some systems are automated and you can’t respond to it.

That is a great point. It is all automated. You can’t actually jump in and have that conversation. That’s what’s so important these days is people are craving that personal connection again. We’ve had too much click and we considered that a relationship and it’s not. I’ve got 4,500 friends on Facebook, but I probably know 10% of them. It’s not a relationship. When I die, I don’t want anybody at my funeral going, “She was so popular. She had 4,500 friends,” because I don’t. That’s the impression that we had with social media over the last several years.

The problem too is that we attack things in an old manner. We’ve got to get up now. We’ve got to look at what do people want. If you look at Pinterest and Instagram, it is a perfect example. People want funny. They want cute. They want to giggle. They want to laugh. If you become the go-to person where they’re laughing every day because you send them something that made them laugh. Something that you can use it in your own special way. You are taking a selfie of yourself, doing something silly, even doing a silly little face. I love doing that. You could do stuff like that. You can even ask them questions, but don’t make it feel like they’re sales question. You have to get them in a conversation. It’s got to be something that they want. Not everybody is a cute cat person. You have to remember that there are different personality types too.

Chatbot Marketing: People get tired of long messages. Send a beautiful graphic instead and a little message that goes along with that graphic.

Especially on social media. On my personal page, I post a lot of funny memes. I have people walk up to me at events and say, “I take a break every day to look at your stuff.” None of it is sales-related at all. People know I have a quirky sense of humor.

You can even give tips. I am not a fan of the quote. I’ve seen it from everybody. We read all the quotes already. Let it go. Do something yourself. Make people go, “That’s great.” Get them to connect to you. When you post something and you’re going to give away something for free to have a conversation, they will listen. That’s the story behind it. You’ve got to build that story of who you are and why they love you.

Here’s a perfect example of that. Several years ago, I posted a very funny cartoon of a teenager saying, “If I put all my tweets together,” and her dad’s in the background going, “Yeah, we used to call that a book in my days.” It was very funny. I got over 700 likes and shares and I thought, “My business is finally taking off.” That social proof didn’t translate into pocketbook proof. You have to watch out for that when you’re posting those things. What have you seen in the marketplace besides the bots that you find compelling and interesting and that people should take a good look at?

If you go to Botmazing, that’s been the amazing go-to opportunity and it’s free. You take three months on the business level and get it for free. You can try it out, that’s always great. If you go to Botmazing.com, it makes it easy to get started and do follow-up campaigns. That’s one of the things that you need to think also. Start with the first idea, then think about what will be cute two days from now or what will be cute six days from now. Spread it out because realistically, even if you did it four times a month, you usually come up with something and have it set.

When you do have a holiday coming up and your business correlates to that somehow, then you can offer some type of specials and say, “I know this has nothing to do with funniness.” We can also do it in the same manner. You can still have a good costume. If you sell lipstick, “You need your orange for Halloween, grab it today.” Think about how the messages and even your ads that you’re trying to sell correlates with your messages you’ve been sending out that people are already opening and viewing.

What are some typical industries where people can utilize this well? Are they product-based like physical products, intellectual products?

As long as they feel like they’re talking to the actual person. I think companies like Nike may have a harder time because people don’t feel they’re actually talking to Nike. I’ve got a bot that I did. I play games on my phone all the time. I’m a phone game person. They send me free coins. If I go and open up my little chat, they have a beautiful little image. They got a little game I play. I choose which one and then I get 1,000 new coins. They do that every day, but I’ve noticed that I stopped doing it. A lot of times you have to change it up. They’ve been doing the same type of thing every single day for several months. When you see your numbers starting to slip, you need to change it up a little bit.

That was one of the things that we talked about when you told me about Botmazing. Inside, there is a good measure of analytics in there.

Pinterest and Instagram are the perfect examples of 'giving what people want.' Click To Tweet

You can see how many people are viewing it. You can also see who opened it and then you can chat with that person directly in Botmazing. That way you can send them a message and answer it. You can do something instantly and send it to a group. You can group people. It’s very cool the way it’s completely set up. It’s easy.

We all need that because tech is so out of hand. It’s everywhere.

It is because some of these systems, I always use Salesforce as an example. It’s tried to be something for everyone. Now, it’s so huge and complicated that no one can use it. I try to find these companies that are easy to use because they have one focus. This is what they do. They do it well and I don’t have to think about anything else.

I’m going to change it up a little bit. Tell us a little bit about Wowdible. You have another new product, which I’m very impressed that you have so many new products.

It’s something that I’ve been noodling since 2007. I meet so many amazing people like you. I’m like, “You could go out there and change the world, but they will never know you.” This has been my dilemma forever. How do I connect the world to all the amazing people that I know? I’ve been playing games on my phone. I also own a website, a software app development company. I hated being bored. I had one of my developers go, “You need to look at these games and see what they’re doing.” When I realized that in the games because Google Pay, Apple Pay has made it easy to purchase, people have been taught to buy in a game atmosphere and its microcells. Most people can’t afford them. They couldn’t afford their program, but they still need the info. I took YouTube. I took all the stuff we don’t like about it because I started realizing, “I go and I want that information on that training. It’s 30 minutes long and I’m zooming to try to find the five minutes I need.” Everybody does that. I found out.

Wowdible has four categories, an entrepreneurial journey, career advancement for employees, personal transformation and speaker success. You go in and you get to go on a journey and watch real training videos, but only the five minutes. It’s the good juicy content that get right to the point. You also have an opportunity to buy something from that person to help you with what they talked about. It will be like $1, $2 or $5. It would be affordable instead of their $1,000 program. It’s completely gamified. You’ll get VIP points. There are going to be clubs you can join. It is so cool.

Can you share where we can find Botmazing and Wowdible?

Go to Botmazing.com. They have a free three months on the business levels. Jump on that. They also have a free level too. On Wowdible, if you’re interested in being a trainer, we don’t have the app ready to download yet. It should be ready soon. If you’re looking for passive income and you want to be a trainer on that, go to Wowdible.com, because you know when they watch your video, they’re going to go, “Wow, that was incredible.”

Chatbot Marketing: If you have been doing the same type of thing every single day for several months with your chatbot campaign, your numbers will start to slip.

Do you have any criteria for being a trainer? Is there an application they have to fill out or anything like that?

Everybody who joins, I will have a conversation with. It’s not like, “You’re not a match. I’ll refund the investment.” It’s very small. It’s $25 to $1,000. Most people are amazing. Most people are honest and trustworthy. There’s been a few though that I thought, “I don’t think so.”

Thank you so much for being on and talking about the chats. I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Important Links

About Tonya Hofmann

-CEO & Founder of the Public Speakers Association & Wowdible
-CMO & Co-Founder of Botmazing
-Globally Sought-After Speaker
-Cover of 5 Magazines
-Best Selling Author of 7 International Books
-Winner of Multiple National and International Industry and Association Awards
-Host of Tonya Hofmann’s Wow TV Show