Nick Scott, Head of Digital at MSF Spain, writes about how the organisation had nice success with the implementation of chatbots because the COVID-19 pandemic unfold internationally. Together with Toni Matas, director at Persualia, Nick spoke about their expertise at #FRO2021 from The Useful resource Alliance.
In March final 12 months, our world modified from sooner or later to the following. At MSF Spain, we knew that the lives of our confined audiences had modified vastly. Their days lived on-line. Work on-line. College on-line. Even events on-line.
It was an opportunity for us to strive a brand new advertising technique: inbound advertising.
COVID-19 would require us to launch digital-only advertising campaigns. Most of those could be campaigns primarily based on interruption by way of adverts, by which communication with a possible donor was fast, and the response we sought – a donation – was fast. And we knew they’d work, as a result of emergency campaigns do work effectively on digital. There’s urgency, the problem is well-known, and the necessity is obvious.
However there was additionally a chance to strive one thing totally different. For the primary time ever, the factor that the majority pursuits MSF – medical-humanitarian motion – was additionally the factor that a majority of individuals in Spain. These have been individuals who have been residing by way of a medical-humanitarian emergency in their very own nation, and these shared pursuits are the core of sturdy communication.
4 days after the primary lockdown was carried out, we acquired one thing sudden by electronic mail. It was an inner doc, containing a collection of suggestions to assist workers handle their emotional and psychological well being within the face of the pandemic.
With the arrival of this doc, we noticed a singular alternative. We already knew that psychological well being was a key theme for our audiences. A collection of movies we’d launched providing recommendation on psychological well being in a pandemic was getting attain we hardly ever noticed with our content material, being seen by tons of of hundreds of individuals. We noticed the chance to create a marketing campaign that doesn’t ask for one thing however somewhat gives it. A marketing campaign that doesn’t chase, however attracts.
An opportunity to strive a brand new software: chatbots
We additionally had an opportunity to check a brand new kind of channel that we knew had the capability to be extremely participating: chatbots. We have been already in negotiations with an company that specialised within the space of chatbots and conversational advertising and had been satisfied of their potential. Why chatbots?
- They’re very versatile. You should utilize them to adapt to the wants and responses of every person with totally different journeys, and work with totally different aims with every chatbot (consciousness, engagement, conversion, and so on.)
- Customers perceive the chat format. Chatbots really feel just like extensively used instruments like WhatsApp and, not like with touchdown pages, customers solely should course of one piece of knowledge at a time when participating with them
- They’re extremely optimisable. Each click on is a knowledge level. It’s straightforward to grasp the place persons are being engaged and the place they aren’t so as to shortly and simply adapt and alter each piece of textual content and each level of interplay
- They’ll comprise many types of media and content material. Customers don’t want to go away the chatbot to expertise all the pieces from textual content and video to video games, knowledge seize, and extra
Introducing our chatbot for psychological well being in lockdown
We launched our chatbot at the start of April in 2020. The “bot” was really certainly one of our staff members: Maria Cecilia from our psychological assist unit – we even included her image to reassure customers and make the expertise really feel private. The content material she delivered was primarily based on MSF’s inner psychological well being assist doc, however rewritten as a collection of tales within the punchy conversational textual content type of chatbots. It provided recommendation on eight potential types of emotional stress, with numerous illustrations to interrupt up the textual content and convey it to life.
Moreover, we created a downloadable lockdown package that provided recommendation and steerage primarily based on the information contained throughout the chatbot expertise, together with different assets. Customers who give their contact particulars to obtain the package are registered for a follow-up electronic mail journey, which is the inbound advertising a part of the equation. Those that gave their particulars have been additionally given an summary of MSF’s operations and the possibility to make a direct distinction by donating to assist the struggle in opposition to COVID-19.
We added the newly-created chatbot to our coronavirus internet pages. Attributable to their excessive rating in Google for the search phrases “epidemic” and “coronavirus”, these pages have been receiving hundreds of distinctive guests every single day, making certain sturdy preliminary engagement with the chatbot. We additionally posted concerning the bot on our social media channels, understanding we may count on enormous attain on any content material regarding psychological well being and COVID-19.
Along with electronic mail advertising, we additionally developed Fb adverts to advertise the chatbot and attain an viewers past our most conventional supporter base. Inside the first three weeks, we achieved very promising outcomes:
- Over 100,000 arrived on the level of first interplay
- 71,000 noticed one of many emotional suggestions
- 7,700 leads (2,000 exterior Spain)
- 78 donors (€3,350 donated)
- 33 common donors
One of many bot’s biggest successes was WhatsApp, the place it was shared tens of hundreds of occasions. On one event, a message despatched by me and one other member of my staff to highschool dad and mom teams on WhatsApp went all over the world; hundreds of individuals from Guatemala and Mexico have been reached by forwarded messages. Months later, we heard from our psychological assist staff that we’d had sufferers from a centre in Guatemala congratulate our medical doctors on the chatbot!
The chatbot has since been tailored into totally different languages and contexts. However, as lockdown has change into much less strict and the viewers utilizing the unique bot in Spanish has dropped, the price of adverts has continued to rise. So, now we have continued to optimise and now have to revisit our technique to plan how we’ll use the bot in an always-on method, in a time when COVID-19 is not going to be such an element.
A primary (of many) forays into the world of chatbots
In our digital response to COVID-19, we didn’t cease at only one chatbot. Throughout 2020, we went a little bit chatbot-crazy, releasing a number of bots to fulfill a wide range of totally different aims: peer-to-peer fundraising, engagement, recruitment, common donor acquisition, and extra. Throughout our discuss at #FRO2021, we talked delegates by way of the seven superpowers of chatbots and the way MSF Spain employed every one to check this newest software in our arsenal.
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