We all know that even today email marketing is one of the highest performing marketing channels in terms of ROI. As budgets for social media migrate to Paid Social and Influencer Marketing, some are wondering where else you might find ROI with an Organic Social program. For some companies, they have already found that in what some consider to be the most compelling of Facebook features: Facebook Messenger Marketing utilizing Facebook Messenger bots.
Facebook Messenger Marketing is something that there seems to be a lot of buzz around, but there are still many businesses that haven’t jumped on the bandwagon. I also wanted to find out more about what I might be missing, so I was lucky to catch up with Larry Kim, Founder and CEO of the leading Facebook Messenger Marketing platform MobileMonkey, and ask him some questions as to what my readers might be missing out on.
My questions are in the large bold headers.
You left Wordstream to launch MobileMonkey a few years ago. What made you see the potential for the future of Facebook Messenger Marketing at that point in time?
I think that, just as there are marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot or Marketo, we could completely re-imagine those platforms using mobile and chat as the communication mechanism.
People spend a lot of time on their mobile devices; people are with their smartphones for 3 hours and 10 minutes per day.
And people use messaging apps frequently — Facebook Messenger has over 1.3 billion users!
In order to best market to our audiences, we need to meet them where they are.
That means on mobile and on social media.
Facebook Messenger Marketing is a perfect combination of the two.
It’s meeting your customers where they are — on messaging apps — and making the entire experience more efficient for them.
It allows you to reach them on a mobile-friendly platform that everything can stay confined to, which in the end increases the conversion rate because you won’t be directing users to websites that are clunky on mobile.
OK. I’m already doing email marketing. Do I really need to be doing Facebook Messenger Marketing as well?
What are your email open rates? If they’re not too good, then it probably makes sense to diversify your marketing. Not just to Facebook Messenger, either; but to web chat and SMS, too, all of which are supported in MobileMonkey.
The average email open rate in 2019 was 17.92%, while the average click-through rate was 2.69%.
That’s abysmal.
Meanwhile, Facebook Messenger has 88% open rates and 56% CTRs.
One of these is going to give you better results.
And since learning how to build a Facebook Messenger chatbot is so easy, it doesn’t make sense to stick with email marketing alone when it’s got such poor ROI.
What is the ROI you are seeing in Facebook Messenger Marketing compared to email marketing as well as other types of marketing?
Here’s the thing: using Facebook Messenger Marketing as opposed to email marketing, organic traffic, etc. improves ROI.
Other types of ads, like Lead Ads or Traffic Ads, are more expensive, the conversion rate is low, and you can’t immediately engage with leads.
Email marketing is similar — poor click-through rates and bad ROI.
Remember what I said before?
In 2019, the average email open rate was 17.92% and the average click-through rate was 2.69%.
Those aren’t the results you want to see for the time and money spent on email marketing campaigns.
Using Messenger marketing and Facebook Messenger ads allows you to easily gather leads that you can immediately interact with, because they’re already in the Facebook Messenger chat window with your bot.
Having to wait to interact with your leads makes conversion rates fall.
You want to catch them right after you’ve sparked their interest; isn’t that what this is all about?
Immediate interaction is a major factor that makes Messenger marketing have a better ROI.
If you show a user an ad and then don’t interact with them, they’re quickly going to forget.
If you start to interact with them and then drop the ball, they’re not going to convert.
That’s why automating this process results in such positive outcomes; chatbots are awake at all hours of the day, functioning 24/7.
That means, no matter what time a user opens a message or clicks through, they are able to be immediately engaged by the bot.
OK – I want to get started with Facebook Messenger Marketing – how to begin?
You can get started by building a chatbot in 10 minutes or less for free with MobileMonkey. We offer Facebook Messenger automation, web chat, SMS automation, and more.
You can even start with a MobileMonkey chatbot template to get some ideas for your business’s bot.
We have chatbot templates for a number of different industries that you can take from with our easy-to-use drag-and-drop chatbot creation tools.
Chatbots are incredible Facebook tools that allow for automation with a number of things, and building one is the best way to get your foot in the door of Messenger marketing.
Use chatbots to engage your customers, push surveys, sell products, recommend products, answer frequently asked questions, and more.
62% of US consumers like using chatbots to interact with businesses.
It provides simplicity in terms of getting what they want; immediate responses to questions, fast and efficient solution of problems, etc.
It also saves you money to have a chatbot — it lessens the amount of money that you need to spend on massive customer service and sales teams and allows you to communicate with potential customers and gather contact information outside of business hours.
Essentially, by using a chatbot, you can be gathering leads and converting customers in your sleep!
How do I begin to increase Facebook Messenger followers?
There are a lot of ways to increase Facebook Messenger followers by building Facebook Messenger contacts.
You can use sponsored messages, Facebook auto responders, and more.
One of the best and most effective ways to build your Messenger contact list is by using click-to-Messenger ads.
These are just like typical Facebook Newsfeed ads, except they direct the user to a Facebook Messenger window with your chatbot.
These are great tools to help you increase your Messenger contacts (and other contact lists, like email, as well).
You’ll want to make sure you’re posting a compelling ad — it has to be eye-catching and relevant so that folks want to click it.
Once the user starts interacting with your chatbot, they’re added to your Facebook Messenger contacts. Then you can gather data to generate a lead, remarket, etc.
The best part about using click-to-Messenger ads is that they don’t just have to be on Facebook.
You can use a Messenger chatbot for Instagram and get users that follow your business on Instagram to migrate over to Facebook Messenger.
That means you can collect leads from different platforms rather than just Facebook.
Use Instagram Ads in the same way you use click-to-Messenger ads on Facebook; use visually compelling creative with a CTA button that says something like “send message” or “contact.”
Once the user clicks the button, they’ll be directed to a Facebook Messenger window with your business’s chatbot.
It’s so simple!
What sorts of campaigns work best on Facebook Messenger Marketing as opposed to email marketing?
Lower funnel campaigns work best with Facebook Messenger Marketing.
Bottom of the funnel campaigns are generally about reaching people who have decided what they are looking for, in terms of brands they want to buy from, and now they’re looking for that push.
This means marketing to your most fervent supporters; or to help users take actions like signing up for something or booking an appointment.
It doesn’t make sense to message tons of random people.
You want to message the people most likely to convert — or the people that have already converted and now require follow-up or further engagement.
Messenger marketing is great in terms of remarketing: reaching out to people who have used your services or purchased from you in the past.
Typically, these people are already on your Facebook Messenger contact list, so you can reach back out to them to re-engage.
This is a great tactic for driving Facebook engagement rates and customer lifetime value.
Can you share any other best practices with us?
One thing that MobileMonkey has been working on is simplifying the management of Messenger marketing by releasing a unified inbox for streamlined messaging follow-up.
It’s called OmniChat, and with it, you’ll be able to use our easy conversation designer to message multiple channels at once, and then see all of the interactions within one management inbox.
It’ll even include email notification of hot leads that can be sent to a MobileMonkey app!
You won’t have to worry about juggling data or difficult data transfers from platform to platform.
You’ll instead be able to control it all within one inbox.
OmniChat will be a great tool for improving customer satisfaction rates because it’ll allow your business to provide better customer support.
Any time a customer wants to speak with a live operator, you’ll be able to see the notification — and respond — within the OmniChat unified inbox.
Improving your message follow-up will help to increase your overall conversions.
It’ll also provide you with more feedback about your business and your customers.
Conclusion
As we begin the 2nd decade of social media marketing and try to rationalize our marketing spend, its time that we begin to at least experiment with Facebook Messenger Marketing. The data and logic all point to its effectiveness. What’s holding you back now?
Neal Schaffer is a leading authority on helping businesses through their digital transformation of sales and marketing through consulting, training, and helping enterprises large and small develop and execute on social media marketing strategy, influencer marketing, and social selling initiatives. President of the social media agency PDCA Social, Neal also teaches digital media to executives at Rutgers University, the Irish Management Institute (Ireland), and the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland). Fluent in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, Neal is a popular keynote speaker and has been invited to speak about digital media on four continents in a dozen countries. He is also the author of 3 books on social media, including Maximize Your Social (Wiley), and in late 2019 will publish his 4th book, The Business of Influence (HarperCollins), on educating the market on the why and how every business should leverage the potential of influencer marketing. Neal resides in Irvine, California but also frequently travels to Japan.
@nealschaffer