So this blog, as the title says it all, is about carousels. In today’s blog, we’re going to see what carousels are, it’s use cases and how using them in chatbots can increase the ROI among your customers.
Carousels are basically a web design that lets you send multiple images, titles and multiple links for each element of a website. Since its launch on social media websites, businesses have recorded- 30-40% lower cost-per-conversion, 20-30% lower cost-per-click, higher engagement level and have contributed to more sales than a single-slide image. Read on to find out more on how you can use them to your advantage.
Why should we use carousels?
Well, let’s begin by saying plain conversations are straight up boring! We all like a bit of colour and visual stimulation from time to time. Now imagine your customers could cut off the task of visualising your product. And instead be able virtually see your product, read its description, title and much more information with a CTA button that directs your customer to the relevant web page.
While making a chatbot, the nicest message formats you can use is a carousel. It shows a pictorial description of your product or services as individual carousels. You can also direct them to the right place or trigger an action. Carousels increase attractiveness and increases the intent of the users to click. When you need more complex image solutions for your replies, you can use carousels. Comprise the following elements in your carousel and communicate the product better with your customers.
What are the elements of the carousel?
How can carousels be used for selling?
Some people call carousels ‘anti-pattern’ and suggest you not to use them on your website, chatbots or anywhere. I used to think the same, until I saw the research that led me to write this blog. After reading quite a bit, I came to realise that they’re much more than a method of displaying marketing information. Because all e-commerce sites design their website for mobiles, they have to balance the information density within the confinement of small screens. Hence, carousels are the perfect way of displaying maximum information, maintaining context without having the user to scroll down to read more.
When your customers open your chatbot, they can easily glance over various products through carousels. And the best part, your chatbot can personalise their content with the power of AI and machine learning. Carousels are ideal for e-commerce website bots, as the user knows that swiping through them will provide more product image. People interact with carousels way more, even though that isn’t the only form of communication used during business interactions. According to the research, 72% of the users advance the carousel at least once and 23% of the users communicate directly with the carousel by zooming in. Carousels visually please the customers, communicate your product better and create better engagement.
All combined, results in the customer purchasing your products. This helps increase sales and the customers will keep coming back for more, so the customer retention rates post-purchase is also increased.
How to use carousel to your advantage and increase ROI
Irrespective of your business type and goals, carousels on chatbots, especially the ones on social media websites such as Facebook or WhatsApp can connect to a large set of audience and reach your objectives. It provides a larger canvas for advertising your story, products or services. Carousels allow you to showcase about 2-10 images or videos in a single content, each having its own external link. Carousels can also display a post-text, headline, link description, CTA and the link to your website or a landing page.
While image carousels are already effectively boosting engagement and increasing website traffic, through video carousels you can leverage the most powerful, engaging display format. The ability to add motion and sound will naturally lure the users and help get more eyes on your message.
Businesses can increase sales and ROI through carousels as they perform engaging tasks such as- highlighting multiple products and services, showcasing more information on a single product that your customer could be potentially interested in, promoting events, explaining the process and benefits, telling your brand’s story and much more! Image or video cards are perfect for any business looking for a more creative way of expressing their products. And they don’t cost extra! It couldn’t get better than this!
Integrate carousels into your chatbot
Carousels integrated into intelligent chatbots can get your business booming in no time, especially in cases of the e-commerce industry. Carousels can send your customers images, videos, links and CTAs to push your customers down the sales funnel faster and also engage them better while depicting your product and motive in a stimulating manner.
Your carousel must be compiled in such a way that it triggers an emotional response among the customers and would want to trigger action. This is made easier with chatbots as they collect user attributes and values, and can send personalised carousel content to your users. Therefore, lifting the customer experience on a higher level, which in turn results in an increase in sales, retention rates, engagement, consumer loyalty and builds a bond with them.
To build a chatbot of your own and be able to use awesome features like carousels, visit our chatbot website.
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