Messenger Marketing for the Future
Messenger marketing is all about interactivity.
It is a fact that marketers today are moving away from a more ‘conventional’ marketing channels such as emails and phone calls. With the rise of the popularity of smartphones and mobile devices, more consumers are utilizing messenger apps as their primary communication channels to connect with their friends and family. So, if there’s one thing that has always been true in business is: to communicate with your audience in channels that they are already using.
It’s predicted that in the future, 85% of customer-business relationship will be conducted via technology. Therefore, it only makes sense for brands to utilize messaging apps to not only provide swift customer service, but also drive sales. At such, it’s time for business owners to start developing if not perfecting their messenger marketing strategy.
Messenger Commerce
Back in 2018, conversational commerce becomes one of the hottest trends in marketing. Anchored by Facebook Messenger’s chatbots, it took industries by storm and soon acknowledged as the future of effective e-commerce marketing.
So, how does Facebook Messenger marketing work?
Friendly and Timely Reminder
Imagine you’re a customer searching for tablet on your phone. You found one that you like but you are not sure yet whether you want to purchase it. Hence, you put the item on your cart and leave the page. Well, one of the good things about messenger bots is the ability to save and store your cart item, should you choose to give the app access, and serve as reminder for you later on.
With this approach, brands can utilize the most direct way to reach out to their potential customers. With traditional marketing, these reminders are usually sent via emails, which could potentially fall into customers’ spam folders, but with messenger, the follow-up is sent directly to them via in-app chat. Additionally, messenger bots can also remind people to attend daily events as in live broadcast or webinar. Getting an alert on phone via chat for an event that’s about to start is more compelling and timely than an alert via email, because by the time audience check their emails, the event could be over and brands are losing potential clients.
Integrated Purchase and Subscription
Another great thing about messenger bots is its ability to tuck any landing pages that brands want to direct their customers or potential customers to. For instance, continuing from the example above, messenger bots can send the reminder along with the link to your checkout page without leaving the app. No new tabs need be opened, no navigating to the spam folder, and above all, no difficulty in figuring out where to go.
On another side, messenger bots can also be used to maximize audience base. When brands post video, live broadcast, podcast or send out coupons, they can easily include a messenger subscriber link for potential customers to download the video, podcast transcript, even obtain promotional code. By including different messenger subscription methods, business can easily increase their audience base.
Conversation as Customer Experience
The best thing about messenger bots is the ability to make a conversation with customers in a non-robotic way. For example, say that customers reach out to know the delivery timeline of their purchase. In conventional marketing, if there are customer service staff working 24/7 on the clock, it’s possible to immediately assist them, but if not, most of the time, customers will only receive a ‘someone will get back to you shortly’ generic response.
Instead, brands can utilize messenger bots to pick up keywords such as ‘delivery’ to immediately give a relevant response. Naturally, this will require brands to give its bots a sort of personality. A fun way to create a relationship between audience and bot is to design a character for the bot that represents the brands and use its personality to guide potential clients on a unique customer journey.
Follow-up and Ads
Messenger bots are a great way to let customer track their purchase. For instance, as soon as customers made the actual purchase, messenger bots can send a message outlining their purchase, receipts, delivery date confirmation, as well as the tracking information.
Furthermore, brands can put a Click-To-Action ads on direct chat with messenger bots. The CTA, in this case, can be in the form of “Learn more” or “Send a Message” buttons as well as discount code or follow up deals for customer’s next purchase.
Customer Feedback
Finally, it’s never been easier for brands to gather valuable feedback and ratings from customers with messenger bots. The bots can automatically send a message asking for their reviews via direct chat, which easily prompt customers to type down their experience with the products and services from the brands.
The bots can then place these testimonies and ratings to the brands’ product page as valuable social proof for other potential customers.
The Future of Business Messenger
As technologies continue to develop, there will be even more opportunities for businesses to take advantage of Messenger marketing. Incorporating AI to the bots, for example, will easily help brands advertise their products and services as well as increase awareness and sales.
Ultimately, messenger marketing’s ability in integrating all communication in a single channel is what sets it as the future of e-commerce. It allows brands and customers to nurture a more intimate relationship via direct channel. People want an engaging, immersive, and interactive experience and messenger marketing is the answer.
