Whether it’s a film, brochure, web infographic, website, sales tool or app, there’s one thing they all have in common, and that’s content.

While the objectives for content can have different goals when considered in the broader sense of its strategic value to the brand, it’s about giving authority and credibility to be the leader in their space.

Much is written on how to create an effective content strategy. Using a systematic approach and creating a strategic framework can be a great place to start. 

However, when our personal belief systems influence us, this means the content strategy we build, can sometimes be shaped by our biases, and when high stakes are involved, the risk-averse follow through with conventional wisdom by looking at what the leaders of the pack are doing.

Content Marketing is showing signs of fatigue. In a report commissioned by BuzzSumo, 50% of content articles are getting eight shares or less. Factors include the explosion in content being generated by brands and consumers, while consumption of content remains at a constant. Poor quality and lack of research are among the main reasons for the lack of engagement.

So, what has all this do with Chatbots?

As humans, our natural language is to chat, and we enjoy it, whether it’s with our friends, family or at work. 

Chatbots were created to offer automated customer assistance by using natural speech patterns and powered by artificial intelligence so that more customer queries are answered at scale with natural dialogue for brands 24/7.

But their promise offers much more. Chatbot technology can be used to inform content strategy for brands in a variety of ways. 

Implemented on a website, comms platform or application, they can be programmed with guided questions and answers to help inform:

• Information design. (hierarchy of content)
• Subject matter, the topics that your audience want to see and hear.
• Visual aesthetics such as user interface design.
• Onsite Sales funnel and sales conversion.

For brands, the natural conversations collected through chatbot technology means that this data can be combined with other forms of analytics. Qualitative data such as search intent, and interactions with the brand’s existing content as well as qualitative insights through market research and analysis of the questions and answers collected through chatbots. When combined they can offer more in-depth insights to inform and guide decision-making. Our natural biases, instincts can be validated, and conventional wisdom replaced with new approaches developed for content strategy.

And the best part is that we’re listening to our target audience, really chatting with them about their preferences. 

As part of the customer-centric approach at Aviva, a bot has been introduced to provide help to users in the “Contact Us” page. By allowing users to chat in natural language, the bot can quickly understand their needs and provide them with relevant information. By analysing conversations, Aviva gains valuable customer insights which are used to improve the customer experience.

Stratis Valachis, Senior User Experience Designer at Aviva, makes this observation:

The natural language understanding that powers some bots can also power other types of interfaces such as graphical user interfaces (GUI). One of the most interesting aspects of using bots for research purposes is to see how a feedback module using a conversational approach could resonate with users and the type of insights it would lead to compared with traditional forms.

With so many chatbots available, risk and expenditure can be minimised by creating small incremental tests with chatbots to inform content strategy. 

Creating conversations with our audiences can lead to a great deal of insight and value. Chatbots, once you get the hang of them are surprisingly useful.

Try the sentiment analysis demo tool from Microsoft, here you'll be able to enter a sentence and let the AI analyse the sentiment from the text. 

Let’s be brave and let’s chat.

 

This post first appeared on Linkedin on 7 November 2017