The 21st century has opened the doors to limitless opportunities in terms of business development strategies. These strategies range from old school promotions to automated digital marketing. If you own a business and you’re looking for the most affordable, yet personalized channel to send your messages, then you should consider using Facebook Messenger as your platform to supplement your Facebook advertising campaigns.
Messenger monetization are still in its early stages but they have shown incredible potential. According to Sheryl Sandberg, who spoke during the Facebook 2nd Quarter 2018 earnings conference call, here are some Messenger statistics you should know about:
- 3 billion monthly active users with organic growth on business-to-customer engagements
- 8 billion messages, inclusive of automated messages, were sent between businesses and customers
- Chatbots like the Lego bot has had 3.4 times higher return on investment from Click-to-Messenger ad popups compared to ads that link to the Lego website, which means customers prefer directly engaging in Messenger than in a third-party website.
Why Use Facebook Messenger?
Facebook Messenger is currently used for more than just sending messages to loved ones, it is a great business tool to integrate with current marketing strategies. According to research conducted by Facebook IQ, customers feel more positive about the business (63%) when they are able to chat with a representative.
Chat, as a method of communication, enables a more personalized experience with your clients and customers, so they are more likely to trust your company. It’s a good idea to anchor your social media strategy on developing meaningful connections rather than just blasting your ad through as many channels as possible.
Facebook Messenger Marketing Strategies
If you’re aiming to improve conversion rate, here are 15 ways Facebook Messenger can help you achieve that:
1. Deliver your content
One Facebook Messenger marketing strategy you can do is delivering content to your customers through chat. Instead of going through the traditional method of asking customers to fill out forms for newsletters and emails, you can use Messenger prompts and scripts. With chat bots like ChatFuel, you can create newsletter opt-ins without coding knowledge. Sendpulse, for instance, lets you design a messenger chatbot for free.
After four weeks of testing, HubSpot found that using Messenger resulted in an open rate that’s higher by 242%, as well as a 619% higher click rate.
2. Help your followers find the most relevant content
Aside from pushing your content to your followers, you can use Messenger to allow them to pull content for themselves. You can refer your users to relevant information in your fan page or website. The Food Network uses a chat bot that allows followers to ask “What’s for Dinner?” with their respective ingredient options.
This strategy provides you with a non-intrusive way of delivering personalized content. Here are some things to keep in mind when using this strategy:
- Use it as you would content marketing, with selling taking the backseat.
- Make sure your site is mobile-responsive as most people use Messenger on their phones.
- Include browsing menus whenever possible to make it easier for users to find content they like, even when they don’t know what they’re looking for.
3. Distribute your content to a wider section
Chatting is a good way to communicate more relevant information with your followers. If you’re planning to spread more of your content, Facebook Messenger can be used for distributing products and services to more customers, and not just the ones who open your integrated mobile driven business website.
You can reach out to users who do the following activities on Facebook:
- People that use a relevant hashtag of your brand
- Users that engage with your promotional posts
- People who like supplementary products
- People who show interest in your company’s partners and affiliates. One of the best ways to distribute your content is to target those who follow your partner’s content, as well.
4. Advertising on Facebook Messenger
One of the most recent integrations with Messenger is the function that allows relevant companies and brands to put ads in the platform. Messenger also has a discovery tab that enables users to look at the different pages and send them messages. There are a lot of options that are available brands in the chat platform such as text-based or gallery ads.
Here are the different Messenger ads available for your brand:
- Home section ads
- Sponsored messages
- Destination ads
These ads are not only designed to drive engagement and sales, they’re also excellent at initiating conversations.
5. Welcome conversation
If you own a physical store, you’d want your sales personnel to greet the customers and prompt an interaction. Using the same principle, you can benefit from doing the same thing with your Messenger campaign. Make sure that your welcome message includes a call-to-action that entices customers to further interact.
6. Comment guards
A comment guard is a script that automatically sends private messages to users that comment on your posts. You can use comment guards to create leads out of those that interact with your posts. The key is posting relevant and engaging content that invites people to comment on them.
Here are the recommended types of content you should that put a comment guard on:
- Surveys as people are known to enjoy answering polls
- Controversial topics because people are prone to comment on those kinds of posts
- Riddles or quizzes especially those that say only a small percentage of people can get the correct answer
After enticing people to comment, give a simple selection and a call-to-action that’s easy to do.Below is an example of a post using a comment guard.
Here are some of the benefits of using comment guards:
- They’re free. Unlike click to Messenger ads, you don’t pay per lead.
- They’re a great list-building tactic as anyone who engages with the bot automatically adds themselves to your list.
- Facebook rewards posts that are getting comments, so not only do you have the opportunity to engage with users via Messenger, your post is also prioritized in the newsfeed.
7. Inform your followers about your business event
A business event is one of the best ways to tell people about your brand. One of the things you can implement in your Messenger strategy is inviting people who are interested in your Facebook event. If you want to step up your Messenger game, you can do a countdown or a creative video that engages your audience.
8. Engage participants during event
Speaking of events, another creative spin on your Facebook Messenger campaign is using it to engage your audience during an event. For example, you can ask them to participate in a Messenger-only game so that you can both generate leads and create a memorable activity. You can hide Messenger codes under participants’ seats or in their programme, and these codes can be scanned on their mobile devices.
During one of HubSpot’s events, they allowed users to sign up for the event thru Facebook Messenger (which is more convenient than filling up a form). Those who signed up got reminders with links to add to their calendar apps. Throughout the event, users also got updates about the day’s talk and were sent links to watch the session.
Messenger is an excellent way to add to the innately engaging nature of events, and opens up a lot of room for creativity.
9. Chat Blasting
A Chat Blast is the Messenger equivalent of a Text Blast. It’s fast, convenient and guarantees a 70 to 80 percent open rate within 60 minutes. The most important thing to remember is that you can’t use chat blasting for promotional purposes; aside from that, your followers need to activate an opt-in before you can start sending messages to them.
In order to activate your Chat Blast, you need to do the following:
1. Go to Settings on your Facebook fan page
2. Select the Messenger Platform option
3. Scroll down to the Advanced Messaging Feature
You need to wait for a couple of days or weeks for the Messenger team to manually confirm or deny your request.
Benefits of chat blasting include:
- Increased engagement with your most ardent followers
- It allows your audience to segment themselves through a chat bot sequence
- Allows you to automate drip sequences for higher degrees of engagement
10. Generate high-quality sales leads
Your Messenger campaign all boils down to conversion and sales. One of the best ways to use Facebook Messenger is to generate high-quality leads by targeting the appropriate audience and demographics for your products. According to ChatFuel’s Dmitriy Kachin, Messenger engagement is as high as 80 to 90 percent, with the lower end being 35 to 40 percent.
11. Click to Messenger Ad
Speaking of generating leads, Valassis ran click to Messenger ads with location targeting for Feldman Automotive Group. When users clicked on the ad to learn more, they were directed to a Messenger chatbot that asks a series of questions (with an option to speak with a sales rep).
Within just a few months, they were able to reach more than 100,000 people, generating around 50 sales per month through the Messenger chatbot.
12. Chat widget
One of the ways you can integrate Messenger to your website is by including a chat widget that allows your visitors to send you a chat through Messenger. MobileMonkey is one of those websites that use a Messenger chat widget instead of live chat because it’s more convenient for a user to keep track of the conversation in the Messenger platform.
Here are tips on how you can optimize your chat widget:
- Personalize your greeting by including your customer’s first name.
- Let the visitors know that the conversation can be continued on their Messenger platform.
- Make sure that your bot asks for important information that could be of use to your lead generation in the future.
- Provide simple and concise options that are easy to understand.
- If you have live operators (an actual human), let your customer know about that option. Some people might want to interact with another human for their concerns.
13. Re-engage potential customers
In order to create a recall in the minds of your consumers, you can add an option for your brand to engage with them through Messenger. For example, PayPal offers to send a customer’s receipt into his Messenger to possibly generate leads for the company’s Facebook Messenger campaigns.
But if you want to engage with those who haven’t done business with you yet, you can use the aforementioned click to Messenger ads, or sponsored messages, which allow you to initiate conversations with those who have messaged your Facebook page before.
For example, you can target your ads to those that have checked out your pricing page or those who’ve previously asked about your products on Messenger. Sponsored messages have been found to be able to get a read rate of 67 to 90% – a great number for any communication channel.
14. Reach your target audience one-to-one
Instead of doing a generic Facebook newsfeed ad, you can do a more specific one that is targeted to your audience. With Messenger, you have a chance of getting a better conversion rate because your ad is shown individually with little competition for space and attention. The people who like your ad will be more interested in engaging with your company directly.
In order for your ad to appear on Messenger, you can select Home in the Messenger option.
15. Provide fast customer support
These days, people value having fast customer support the most. According to a study by SproutSocial, customers hate being ignored with 29.3% of those compelled to talk to a competitor if a company didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry. Because of the statistics, it’s imperative that your business adds a bot to your Messenger campaign so that your customers immediately get quick service.
For example, the Lego bot does a good job of assisting customers who are looking for a gift by asking prompt questions like the location and age of the giftee.
Facebook Messenger Marketing: You should be doing it!
There are no hard and fast rules for Facebook Messenger marketing, but these 15 strategies should get you started on your very own campaign. With constant improvements in chatbot technology, artificial intelligence, and other applications, the sky and your imagination is the limit.
Share your Facebook Messenger strategies in the comments section below!
[Images – Main Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels; other images by the author or from their respective websites and/or social platforms]
I am a professional web designer and inbound strategist for Grit PH. My goal? Come up with innovative ideas, create good art, and to travel all the best places in the Philippines. You can follow me on Twitter @easyvince