How to create a chatbot for my website on HubSpot

HubSpot is able to build three types of chatbots: Qualify leads bots, Book Meetings bots and Support bots. This blog will discuss all three of these in detail, from how you can devise a strategy to going ahead and actually building one in HubSpot.

First, let’s get started with the all important bot which will help you qualify more leads…

Qualify leads bots: devising your strategy

Every company wants to increase the amount of leads they’re generating. Statistics from Source found that 53% of marketers spend half of their budget on trying to increase lead generation, every year. 

There are many different types of methods which companies leverage in order to try and increase the amount of leads which they’re bringing in, whether it’s blogging or being active on social media. However, they mustn't forget about the power of a chatbot.

What to keep in mind:

• The first thing to consider when devising your qualify leads bot’s strategy is your customers. How do you want the bot to sound? What does it need to say in order to resonate with people who land on your website?
• Your welcome message is key. This allows you to set the scene and clearly outline your bot’s capabilities. People usually turn to bots to find a solution to their problem. So, it’s important that your bot sounds willing and helpful. 

For example…

“Thanks for checking out the site. We’re experts in all things Inbound Marketing. Want to see for yourself? Why not check out our brand new Guide to Inbound Marketing?”

“If you need me for anything, I’m happy to discuss our different services and prices in further detail. Just give me a shout and I’ll get back to you straight away.” 

As you can see, this a pretty informal and friendly sounding bot. Here’s an example with a much more serious tone of voice…

“We’re solicitors who care. How can we help you today? Please choose one of the options below.” 

• What do we do?

• Find out more about our solicitors

• Legal information

• Book a consultation 

There are other areas to consider, including giving your chatbot a name and deciding which web pages your bot will feature on. However, don’t worry. I’ll cover these points later on in this blog.

Book meetings bots: devising your strategy

How do I devise a book meetings bot strategy?

Chatbots are great because they’re in operation 24 hours a day. There will be instances when people will want to book meetings with your reps outside working hours. This is where book meetings bots can be an awesome feature. 

Here’s a great example of a book a meetings bot…

Want to create a bot as awesome as the one above? Here are some things to keep in mind...

What to keep in mind:

• When you’re devising a strategy for your book meetings bot, you need to carefully think about how it’s going to look. Most companies tend to use a calendar format, where users can select a date, time and location for their meeting.
• Ensure that your sales team is getting notified when a meeting is booked in through your chatbot. This can be done through the meetings tool in HubSpot. Check out this article from HubSpot for more info on connecting your own calendar in HubSpot.
• Knowing your target markets is important when it comes to devising a book meetings bot strategy. Your bot should be there to make their life more convenient, so make sure the calendar is easy to navigate and offers appropriate meeting slots. 
• It’s important that your book meetings bot gathers a certain amount of information about the person who has scheduled in the meeting. The last thing you want to happen is for a prospect to arrive at the meeting and you have no idea what their name is.

Support bots: devising your strategy

Research from Gartner predicts that by the year 2020, 85% of all customer service interactions will be dealt with by a chatbot. Crazy figures, I know. 

If you haven’t got a support bot setup already, you should think about introducing one, and when you do introduce one, make sure that you’ve carefully thought about devising a tip top strategy to make it a success:

• First, you’ll need to develop a vision for the standard of customer care which your bot is going to deliver. Will the bot only deal with certain types of scenarios? Or are you planning to invest in a super intelligent bot which is built to deal with any customer scenario which arises? 
• Take note of the most common customer queries which your company tends to deal with. If you know that 75% of your customer queries are regarding a particular service which you offer, you can keep this in mind when you’re building the functionality of your bot. 

Here’s an example of Digital 22’s support bot, a personal favourite of mine…

These are just a few tips which should help you devise your own chatbot, depending on which type you’re looking to use on your website. Now let’s have a look at how you can actually go away and build one within your HubSpot account. 

Building your chatbot on HubSpot

The chatbot feature on HubSpot is really user friendly. You’ll be taken through a number of steps which will ultimately help you create a top notch chatbot. Let’s talk through each of these steps now…

1. Creating a welcome message

We spoke about the importance of having a good welcome message in place earlier. This will be the first step which you’ll take when building your bot in HubSpot. Try and make sure that it’s snappy and to the point, whilst also being friendly at the same time.

Here are the steps you need to take in your HubSpot account to create a welcome message:

1. Click on the welcome message panel that opens on the right hand side of the page. Then get creative and type in your very own welcome message.
2. Once you’ve done this, you’ll then need to modify the actions of your bot. This process is similar to building a workflow, as you’ll be using if/then branches to set up the flow of your conversation.
3. Some actions which you could use include ‘Send a simple message’ or ‘Ask a question’.

2. Selecting a target audience

• Everyone: This means that literally anyone who lands on your website will be able to see your chatbot. It doesn’t matter whether they exist in your HubSpot account already or not. 
• Anonymous visitors: If you decide to choose this option, then your chatbot will only be available to untracked visitors. These people will not exist within your HubSpot account.
• Tracked contacts: These contacts will already exist within your HubSpot account. You will already have some of their details saved. If you choose this option, the chatbot will only be available to these people.
• Segmented lists: This option means that only tracked contacts who meet your smart list criteria will see your bot. Check out this HubSpot article for more information on smart lists.

Defining your target market should be one of the first things you do when you’re devising your chatbot strategy. Therefore, this section of the build should be quick and easy. For tips on how to define your target market, check out this blog by Inc.

3. Deciding when your chatbot should appear on a page

You’ll need to decide which pages you want your chatbot appears on. This will vary, depending on the nature of your chatbot and what you want it to achieve. 

For example, if your bot is aiming to increase the amount of leads which your company is generating, you should aim to have it featured on your most impactful pages, including your home page, blog pages and services pages.

HubSpot allows you to trigger a chatbot to appear when a visitor loads a specific website URL, or when they load a URL that includes certain query parameters. Here’s how you can set up both:

Website URLs

If you’d like your chatbot to appear on specific website URLs, you’ll need to select the Website URL option on the dropdown menu and then decide on a targeting rule for that specific URL. These include: all pages, is, isn’t, contains, doesn’t contain, starts with or doesn’t start with. 

For example, you may want your chatbot to appear on every page on your website. If that’s the case, you would select starts with and then type in https://www.digital22.com.

Query parameters 

Query parameters are a defined set of parameters which are attached to the end of a specific URL. If you’d like to use one of these instead of a website URL, you would select the Query param option and follow the exact same process as above. 

For example, you may want your chatbot to only appear on your blog pages. You would then select starts with https://www.digital22.com/insights.

4. Customising your bots display options

The last section of the build involves you selecting your bots display options. These include sections such as giving your bot a name, uploading a photo of your bot and adding in session timeouts. 

And there you have it, that’s pretty much a whirlwind tour of how to devise a strategy for your chatbot and also how you can go about building one in HubSpot. But before you get started, there’s so much to learn about the world of conversational marketing.

Start your journey towards HubSpot success today

The value of being clued up on the HubSpot conversations tool can be huge for your business. It allows you to put the customer at the heart of all your business operations and create the added value which will ultimately make you stand out from the competition.

We’ve put together a playbook which covers everything you need to know about the tool, from how to get started to the best practices to keep in mind. Download your free copy now using the link below.