Chatbots vs. Mailing Lists
Key similarities and differences you need to know
If you’re a marketer, chatbots can be an effective new channel for connecting with customers. But every single chatbot expert — the people who build bots with big followings — will tell you that it’s critical to treat them as a unique form of communication, rather than just routing your Twitter posts through your bot, too.
The closest marketing channel analogy for chatbots isn’t Twitter, or Facebook pages, or apps. It’s the trusty old mailing list, which tech pundits neglect but marketers rely on. Adapting your mailing list mojo to a bot requires you to understand how the two media channels are the same, and how they’re different.
Let’s walk through the list. We’ll stick to Messenger bots on Facebook for simplicity, since Messenger has more regular users than Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat combined, and because Chatbots Magazine has great connections to Messenger bot masters through our publisher, Octane AI.
How Chatbots Are Like Mailing Lists
People sign up to be contacted
Facebook bots are only allowed to contact members who’ve proactively clicked Follow to stay in touch, or who have posted to their page. They can terminate the connection anytime without even having to go to an unsubscribe page. So you can trust that recipients are interested in what you have to say.
People don’t consider being messaged a distraction
Did your team deploy a smartphone app? Did a lot of people who downloaded it turn off notifications? It’s not you — it’s the perception that an app is an impersonal piece of software, a machine.
By contrast, a chatbot’s direct message is perceived as a communication from another human being, even though recipients know it’s a bot. It’s like a mechanical friend, if you do it right.
People respond to CTAs — calls to action
You might have trouble believing the click-through rates (CTR) for Messenger bots: 15 to 60 percent is the official Octane stat. Compare that to mailing lists, most of which work hard to get a five percent CTR, and whose managers throw their arms up in victory at ten percent. Even premiere newspaper publishers would consider a 20 percent CTR a sign that their reporting system might be broken.
But right now, chatbot users are quick to tap on a link messaged to their phones. In fact, most responses occur within the first ten minutes of sending.
This is why so many marketers haven’t abandoned last year’s bots. There was a rush of irrational exuberance for chatbots in 2016, especially on Messenger. The bots still aren’t as AI-smart as many made them out to be. But there are brands and organizations who get as many responses from their chatbot audience as they do from their ten-times larger Facebook audience. And many use chatbots to court Millennials and younger customers, heavily-connected consumers to whom email and website ads are for old folks.
Be aware: The disdain for email and Web ads among the young is partly thanks to misuse of them by advertisers. The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s official assessment in 2015 was, “We messed up.” The marketing risk for chatbots isn’t that their natural language processing won’t get better, it’s that short-sighted campaigns will chase everyone away again.
Finding the right amount and frequency of content to send is a craft
Every audience has a sweet spot, or a zone, within which they’ll enjoy being contacted. Too few, and they may have lost interest by the time you show up on their phones again. Too many, and you’ll be dispatched with one thumb.
How Chatbots Are Not Like Mailing Lists, and This is Important
No one will complain that they didn’t sign up
Facebook, at least, is ruthless about its rules for whom a bot can message, when, and how often. One reason mailing list CTRs are so low — one in twenty-five people clicking a link — is that many mailing lists are padded with recipients who didn’t realize they signed up while making an online purchase, or whose names were bought or rented. The list provider may be stuffing the list with addresses they collected from the Net without asking, or bought from another vendor. Look at your inbox for proof: “You are receiving this message because you signed up to receive …” No, you didn’t.
By contrast, Facebook blocks bots from messaging members who have not messaged them first, or at least posted or commented on the bot’s associated page. This is one reason chatbot CTRs are in another dimension from mailing lists.
Most people read your messages immediately
Within ten minutes! Imagine a mailing list where half your recipients clicked the link you sent them as soon as it hit their inbox. That changes how you can and should use the chatbot channel. It’s great for getting instant feedback, or drawing an audience to a live event.
But you also have to consider whether your message will make sense as one that demands instant attention. Do you have a friend who sends you constant political posts while you’re trying to work? Do you quietly despise them for it? It’s like that.
Clockwork messaging looks like spam
Unless you’re a news publisher, sending everyone a message at the same time every morning is a good way to lose your audience. It’s like your friend who sends you a link every morning at about the same time, because they’re procrastinating at the office again. You agreed to connect with them, but expected real conversations. Your nagging annoyance at their predictable morning here’s another thing about Trump is exactly the feeling you don’t want to inspire.
But spontaneous updates are welcome
The Wall Street Journal chatbot’s daily news digests sometimes irritate me, because they’re not something I need to read right this second. I want them, but I flinch when they pop up on my screen during a business call. They would be much more welcome as an email.
On the other hand, the Journal also allows me to subscribe to alert messages the bot will send immediately when there really is important breaking news. Those are great — if the WSJ says I need to know something right now, I probably need to know it right now. I may not need to act, but I’ll understand the impending flood of vague social media posts and offhand comments in Slack about whatever news is going around.
Chatbots are Interactive
This one is last, because while it’s a major difference, it’s one that marketers are still feeling out to see what works. Email, by definition in globally-agreed standards, has to be viewable and reliable everywhere, even on old or unpopular devices. Messenger, WeChat, Kik and Snapchat only need to work for users who’ve installed the app on the phones and computers where it is supported. That has enabled them to add features much more quickly, and without international consensus across corporate and academic giants.
A chatbot can display a photo carousel, a live video, or a 5-question quiz (keep it short) that displays a score at the end. It can initiate a realtime back-and-forth conversation that in email might linger untouched for days, or forever. The possibilities are both exciting and a bit scary.
How to Treat Your Chatbot Differently from Your Mailing List
Read How to Write for a Bot to get started.
Speak to the recipient as a friend
Mailing lists have standardized on newsletter and digital-magazine voices. You wouldn’t email your list, “I would LOVE to hear ur feedback. ❤️ Down?” But that’s exactly what Christina Milian’s chatbot just wrote me. Cool.
Wait until you’ve got a message worth interrupting them
The majority of your recipients will at least glance at your message immediately, because it will pop up on their screens over whatever they’re doing, or in the middle of whatever they’re doing. Is it a must-read-now message? If not, consider waiting.
On the other hand, if you really do need a response or action right now, don’t wait. “We’re going on Conan in ten minutes!” is way better than getting a message about it the next morning. The Dunkin’ Donuts app that sends a coupon for your local store’s daily special right before you leave the house, when you’re thinking about breakfast? That would be awesome in a chatbot.
Don’t broadcast — Interact!
Again, think of that friend who sends you messages but doesn’t seem to be trying to have a conversation with you. Ugh. Email marketers for several of the fourteen websites I had to sign up with for my current job send me email every single day trying to deepen my bond with their products. But they’re one-way conversations: Tips and tricks, features I should try, incentives to share the site with others. Were these sent through Messenger, mingled with my realtime conversations with real people, I’d unfollow them and hope I still got paid.
A chatbot is not a newsletter. A chatbot is not Twitter. A chatbot is not a captive audience by a long shot. You, the serious marketer — I assume, since you’re still reading this — have a chance to connect with an interested, engaged audience a fraction of the size of your mailing list, but potentially far more responsive than the customers who downloaded your app or Liked your Facebook page. You can get a surprising amount of attention from them. But you’ll have to earn it.
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