Memo - The initial implementation of a chatbot as a marketing assistant for page authoring

Introduction

In this episode, we have advanced the development of an early version of a chatbot tool. This initial work follows, to a certain extent, the general vision of Meplex as tool, a marketing assistant, which helps professionals with authoring of web content within marketing goals. See an overview of Meplex marketing assistant chatbot from 2022. You may also visit our marketing campaign that connects a printed business card with a minimalist site.

Given that we want to address complex interaction scenarios (such as when an assistant helps the professional to create a landing page), we realized the need to simplify the project. As an example of a complex scenario, a communications assistant may offer an conversational experience to help a professional, say a psychologist, to create her website. This is case that is complex and also arbitrary. Or, she may want to create a landing page, which is a case of a web page with a purpose, with an audience and an objective, for example to convey the prospect towards contacting the professional.

To simplify even more, we consider another use case: when the professional wants a minimalist site that conveys a set of hyper links to her other pages, for example her Instagram account or her professional site (LinkedIn page). This kind of experience is known as a bio site. This is the use case we used.

The bio site experience in the context of marketing

The experience known as "bio site" was created by the company Linktree. In terms of user needs, the solution was well-accepted based on a need for a minimalist site with multiple links, driven by the popularity of Instagram and the limitation imposed by Instagram - one a single link per bio. Linktree addressed that user need, enabling users to point to a single link - a minimalist web site - and then, once there, to include more than one link. We also recognize that such experience sets the user's user into a professional context which is different from the Instagram experience. In other words, once the user enters this page, the user is conveyed by the rethorical elements controlled by the professional. As an example, the user understands specific destinations, such as purchasing a book of that professional. From a marketing perspective, it is also helpful to see that the professional's communicative experiences published on Instagram serve to channel users to the top part of the funnel. As the user finds the link bio, the user advances through the funnel, such as towards a landing page, which supports the user with the forward decision which may end up resulting in a purchase, as an example.

Creating a bio site with links

A solution for creating this type of minimalist site already exists. For example, the professional can choose Linktree or several other platforms that provide such functionality and service. Our challenge is to provide functionality that assists the user in creating this type of content experience through a conversational interface. In this case, we chose WhatsApp, a conversational experience provided by a chatbot, to a professional user, a psychologist, in the Brazilian market.

User flows

• Greeeting experience and engaging.
• Sending links
• Sending a photo
• Customizing the design

Context - the user is interested in creating a bio site

Here we assume that the user has to show an interest to create the bio site with links. A professional may have seen a bio site from others. To some extent she knows that a bio site has links. The actual need to make a bio site might rise at the moment when a professional knows that she has more than one link, and that people may be lost in terms of what she does, plus the need of guiding the user towards a flow of her interest - such as to be part of a course, a group, or conveying her users to purchase a product or service.

Starting with a visit to a psychologist, Larissa, her instagram profile. You will notice, at the top, a link to her site at WePlex platform:

When her users click, they are directed to her bio site, showing multiple links:

The above is an example of the site developed with a professional assistant, a human, Marcio S Galli, a web designer, a marketing professional. Now, next, let us consider the experience via our initial version of the chatbot.

Flow - the greeting experience

The professional, knowing of her interest and knowing that a chatbot tool would do the job, enters a conversation. Although the following is not what is expected - you will see commands, yet the so-far experience has given to her options, a menu with options such as "send a photo", "change the background color" and options to add a link.

Flow - sending links

The user starts with sending links. For each link sent the chatbot responds with a confirmation:

Flow - sending a photo

Now the user asks for help again, and decides to send a photo:

Flow - changing the design style

The user decides to change the background color, informs his preferred color:

Flow - checking

The user checks details, zooms in.

Again:

Flow - changes, additional customizations to the design

The user likes but also sees a problem, and decides to send a better photo. It may be so the case here that this is where the cycle repeats. This idea can be confirmed by the Jobs To Be Done theory of Tony Ulwick and Ted Thayer. It may be also the case that depending on the tasks, guidance is appropriate.

Flow - conclusion

The step of conclusion, might be temporary or permanent (from the perspective of an action). As an example, the user may give up. Or may send to a colleague for a review. Or she may publish. It may be so that after feedback from others, then she revisits the flow.

The above experience is limited from the point of view of marketing, indeed. In other words, you will likely see a dissonance between what is written with what is seen - as the images shows an experience which can be considered poor. This is not a problem, for now, for this team. It matters for us that we are closing the gap and at the same time learning about the user experience expected.

Learnings and thoughts

• Roger has mentioned that the user may be satisfied with the minimalist site printed as text, with ASCII art.
• Roger mentioned that the hyperlink to the actual temporary site is a must.
• Roger and Marcio had understood that the conversational experience happening is one that is framed within a goal context, the "bio site" which may have specific complexities which may require guidance. If we go back to the vision of WePlex, we recognize that what seems simple may be quite complex. One example, we may be interested in guiding the user to take a nice photo.