Demo B2B chatbot connects micro-moments, converts leads

Two tape reels over molten lava with the gap going in between both – almost breaking. To illustrate "lead decay."

If you are a business to business (B2B) marketer, the chances are you have read Google’s research on micro-moments. You optimized your content for I-want-to-know moments. But are your salespeople arriving quickly enough when prospects want to talk to a human? This article is about closing time gaps between I-want-to-know­ and ­I-wanna-talk-to-a-human moments so you can convert more leads from your website.

Two tape reels over molten lava with the gap going in between both – almost breaking. To illustrate

Imagine 10 prospects are on your website right now. Each is typing her name, email, phone number and clicking ‘Contact me.’

Then what? iPhones will ding! Colleagues will knock on doors. By the end of the first hour, your sales people will people dial­. And 9 out of the 10 prospects will hit ‘reject call’ according to this study from InsideSales.com.

I have a term for this; I call it lead decay.

Lead decay operates in the time gaps between I-want-to-know and I-wanna-talk-to-a-human moments. If you could close these time gaps, you could have a major opportunity to stop lead decay and grow sales. That is what a chatbot can do; this article shows you how.

How a B2B chatbot helps a real human

Step with me into a parallel universe –

You work in marketing for SureCourse Business Solutions, and I am a project manager in the marketing department for a bank in Dallas. Here is how your chatbot helps my bank become a customer:

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What’s the value of a head start?

Horse crossing finish line
A head start along with 1 – 2% productivity growth becomes a sizable advantage

Early this morning, I was running on the treadmill and listening to an economics lecture by professor Timothy Taylor.

He said the year 1870 kicked off our modern era of economic growth. If you take the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of productivity, of the richest countries in the world in 1870 and compare them to the poorest countries, the ratio is 9:1.

By 1990 and the ratio widens to 45:1.

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Duplicate Data: Performing quantitative risk analysis for lead generation

Neon blue, red, yellow, dark blue, orange, green white polkadotted blurs on a background
Duplicates in your Salesforce.com CRM cause mirky lead attribution, poor results.

As I blogged on on February 28, I met a gentleman whose lead generation agency is tasked with generating leads for a healthcare services company.

I asked him, “Does your client have a master data management strategy?” The answer was no.

The client is a large organization. They have millions of records of legacy data in Siebel and they are migrating to Salesforce CRM and Pardot. This legacy data could be a great asset if the client had a master data management system in place. The client does not, and this poses a risk for the lead generation agency.

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How many phone numbers does the average person have in the USA? 1.65

Blue, purple, orange, red pixelated mosaic over night sky background showing constellation gemini

The average consumer in the United States has 1.65 phone numbers. Here is how I crunched the numbers:

Landlines for every 100 U.S. people  38
Population of U.S.  319,000,000
My calculated landlines in the U.S.  121,220,000
Mobile subscribers in U.S. by top 7 carriers  406,375,000
Mobile + landlines divided by population  1.65

This 1.65 figure is valuable for forecasting the impact of duplicate data in a customer relationship management system (CRM) like Salesforce.com.

Why did I calculate this?

Today, in a co-working office called GeniusDen, I met a gentleman whose lead generation agency is tasked with generating leads for a healthcare services company.

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What does Business Systemization mean to you?

Diagram showing business process maps to charts, people and documents

Somebody asked me this question yesterday. Here is my answer.

In the fall of 2015, I told the CEO of my company, Eric Januszko, that it was time for me to move from San Diego to Dallas.

“Not so fast,” he said.

I started the business and designed its sales, customer service and operations processes. I couldn’t just walk out the door without leaving behind a manual.

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Why do I leave money on the table? It’s for the long run.

Leave money on the table

One rainy morning in 2005, I walked out of class in Popovich Hall on the campus of USC. Next to the Starbucks coffee cart, I saw a floor sign, “Dennis Bakke. CEO of AES. Speaking at 11am.” I followed the arrow to an auditorium packed with MBA students. I was an undergrad, and I had happened upon something great. I found an open seat. What I heard next made an impact on me that has lasted to this day.

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Why is “Closer” by The Chainsmokers popular? External triggers.

why-closer-by-chainsmokers-is-popularI was running on a treadmill the first time I heard the song “Closer” by the Chainsmokers. The pre-chorus came through my headphones. Wow! I started to run faster. I wanted to sing along.

So did millions of others. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards in 2017. The music video has been watched more than 1.1 billion times – more than Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself which had an 8 month head start and received two Grammy nominations in 2016.

If you’re a marketer paying $0.30 a view to YouTube then wouldn’t it be nice to trade metrics with the Chainsmokers? People are finding the “Closer” video and clicking the play button all by themselves. The band isn’t paying YouTube for these views.

This post is about one technique you can use to stand on the band’s shoulders and increase views of your stories. The technique is adding imagery. The Chainsmokers used 10 pieces of imagery in “Closer” which propelled it to the top of the charts.

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[Video] How ‘Continue from’ works in IBM Watson Conversation

In this video I demonstrate how the order of dialogue nodes affects the Jump to… or Continue from… feature in IBM Watson Conversation.

Continue conversation button from in IBM Watson Conversation
This button goes by several names including Continue from and Jump to.

Until just now, I was unclear about the Continue from / Jump to feature. I followed the car tutorial provided by IBM and the feature worked. Then I created my own chat bot, and it sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.

Why was Continue from / Jump to not behaving consistently? Because I did not realize how the order of the nodes affects it.

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1 Valuable Marketing Tip from Godiva’s Box that Keeps Giving

Godiva’s Box That Keeps Giving is lighting up the advertising trade press. The campaign is a valuable example of using the product to spur a habit. The habit here is food gifting.

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