7 Effective Ways To Use Facebook Messenger To Promote Your Business
With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the biggest social networks available worldwide. Many businesses, including big brands, are using Facebook marketing to promote their businesses. Facebook Messenger has grown into a venue for small and mid-sized businesses to connect with customers. According to research, more than 20 billion messages are exchanged every month through Facebook Messenger. Since customers prefer messaging over any other means of communication, it is essential than ever for your business to use Facebook Messenger to drive results across the customer journey. Whether you’re a big company or a small ecommerce store, you can leverage Facebook Messenger’s marketing strategy to create brand awareness and secure sales. In this post, we’ll be highlighting some of our tried-and-tested Facebook Messenger marketing practices to promote your business. Reasons To Use Facebook Messenger For Business
MessagingIsOnTheRise The trend of messaging is on the rise. Here, the key is to identify channels where your customers are more active. According to Flurry Analytics, “time spent on social media and messaging increased a staggering 400% last year. Businesses are starting to realize that they need to communicate with users where they already are, and that chat provides a superior experience: email is spammy, the text is very limited and phone calls require someone’s undivided attention.” If you offer a product or a service that targets millennials or teens, then there is no marketing channel as effective as Facebook messaging. MessagingIsMuchMoreThanASimpleCommunicationChannel Messenger bots are constantly evolving. They now come with more advanced and complex features like native payments, complicated UI, location sharing, and more. In other words, today, messaging bots are much more than a simple communication channel. People are not only using these bots for their everyday communication needs, but they’re also using them to promote their business. FrictionlessExperiences Businesses that use mobile apps to reach their audience need to create a personalized app for different operating systems. Also, they need to get those apps through the app stores. That’s a lot of friction. A Forrester research highlights that smartphone users spend 85% of their time using apps. However, most of them use not more than 5-apps on average. With Facebook Messenger, businesses can now reach their customers using the platform they already use. YouCanCreateAViralUserAcquisitionLoop Unlike single-player apps, Facebook Messenger can help businesses create a viral user acquisition loop. Facebook is also testing different AI tools to read and interpret user’s messages and deliver relevant prompts. Benefits Of Using Facebook Messenger For Business ProvidesExcellentCustomerService Customers have many questions. And they expect your business to be online and available 24/7 for their assistance. One of the global surveys conducted by Facebook revealed that more than 70% of customers expect to connect with a business through a messenger. According to that survey, more than 81% of respondents use Facebook messenger to contact businesses to inquire about their products and services. Also, 75% and 74% of respondents use Facebook messenger to message businesses for support or to make a purchase. BuildsTrust
Businesses that are open to dialogue are easier to trust. The majority of people who message businesses for information say that the instant messaging feature builds trust and helps them feel confident about a brand. Let’s suppose you have to purchase a high-ticket item for yourself. If you have to choose between a brand that offers 24/7 Facebook support and another without, you would obviously go with the one having a support feature. AcquireMoreCustomers Facebook messenger helps businesses to simplify customer acquisition by providing means to potential buyers to connect with the business and make a purchase. When a prospect reaches out to you on Facebook messenger, it creates an opportunity for your business to convert them with regular follow-ups and constant support. Each message you exchange with your potential client is a chance for your business to know more about a customer. You can then use this information to build a long-lasting relationship with your customers. ShowCustomersThatYouCare Integrating a Facebook Messenger marketing strategy into your customer service framework enables buyers to communicate on their terms. In addition to that, it represents the professional and customer-friendly image of your business. It’s also a great channel for conversations that customers are shy to discuss publicly. Now that you know why Facebook Messaging should be an essential element of your customer service strategy, we can now have a look at seven effective ways to use this channel to promote your business. SevenEffectiveWaysToUseFacebookMessengerToPromoteYourBusiness 1.UseItAsAContentMarketingTool While many businesses prefer to use email to deliver content to their target audience, Facebook Messenger is a better alternative. So instead of asking your customers to fill out a form, you can send content through Facebook Messenger. You can also use this channel to help your target audience pull content to themselves. Let’s take an example of a prominent website Techcrunch that has used Facebook Messenger to help its readers find out their required articles. Yes, creating a chatbot for this strategy is a little more complicated, but you can take hints from different guides and templates available online to get started. 2.SendImportantInformationAndRemindersAboutEvents Another way you can use Facebook Marketing to promote your business is to send relevant information and event reminders to your registered users. Many online businesses have implemented this strategy and witnessed much higher results than email.
You can also use any online tool that allows you to create a subscriber list, draft a message, and send it to the entire list with a single click. 3.GenerateSalesLeads Unlike other marketing channels that are expensive and more time-consuming, Facebook Messenger marketing is a great way to grab your audience’s attention. While it may take some time initially to create a Facebook Messenger bot, it would be easier to generate sales leads when you have everything in place. 4.UseAsARe-engagementTool The biggest challenge for any online seller is to get people to talk to them on the messenger. But you can use Facebook Ads to re-engage potential customers who have visited your page but didn’t make a purchase because of some unknown reason. There are two types of Facebook Ads that you can use for this purpose.
Click-to-message Ads – You can use this type to direct prospects from the news feed to your messenger window.
Sponsored messages – enables you to engage with prospects who have messaged you earlier on your Facebook page. 5.CommunicateOne-To-OneWithYourTargetAudience If you carefully look at the Facebook Newsfeed, you’d come to know that it’s already oversaturated with ads. If you want to establish one-to-one communication with your buyers, then you must use Messenger Ads. These ads appear in the Home tab of your user’s mobile apps and will direct them to your website or messenger when they click on the ad. 6.ProvideImpeccableCustomerSupport Ecommerce businesses can also use Facebook Messenger marketing to provide impeccable customer service to their customers. Research highlights that customers prefer to use messengers to connect with brands than any other channels. That goes without saying that they expect a timely response. So make sure you have a trained and responsible team that is always there to engage with customers. 7.CreateAFacebookMessengerPlan There are multiple ways you can use Facebook Messenger for your benefit. To save time and resources, make sure you have an all-inclusive Facebook Messenger plan before getting started. Here are a few things you must consider before you integrate Facebook Messenger into your support network:
The response time you aim for
Where does Facebook Messenger fit in your SMM plan?
Will you go with automated responses or have a live team to handle customer queries? Bonus Tips MaintainYourBrandVoice If you already have a stable social media presence, you must have already sorted out your brand voice. While it’s better to keep your tone friendly while using Facebook Messenger, make sure your conversation is in line with your overall brand tone and communication strategy. There is no need to become too personal either. As a general rule, your tone should be positive and confident. Avoid sarcasm as this type of tone generally doesn’t translate well with online business communication. Do not drag conversations but the information you offer to your prospects should be relevant and complete. Avoid sending multiple messages. Be concise and try to convey your message in a single message. Personalize Personalization can go a long way as it enables you to let your buyers know that you truly care. Little things, such as calling people with their names can make a big difference. 91% of customers say that they prefer buying from brands that recognize them. Make sure you take a look at the context card when someone approaches you for the first time through a messenger. The context card contains basic user information, including location, local time, etc. You can use that information to offer a personalized user experience that your visitors will remember for years to come. Even if you’re using an automated response system, try to implement personalization as much as possible to build trust. Proofread Make sure you proofread your text multiple times before you save auto-messages or send them out to your potential customers. Typos and grammatical errors look bad when you’re having a professional conversation with your audience. EarnAVeryResponsiveBadge You must have seen Facebook business pages where it’s mentioned that they’re ‘Very responsive to messages’.
Facebook awards this badge to businesses that take their customer service seriously and reply to messages promptly. To get this badge, you have to maintain an average response time of 15-minutes or less with more than a 90% response rate. AddASendMessageCTAToYourFacebookPosts As an online seller, you can’t start a conversation with your prospects on your own. But you can persuade them to come forward and interact with your agents. How? Simply integrate a ‘Send Message’ call-to-action (CTA’s) to your posts. To add this button, all you need to do is to select the ‘Create Post’ option on your Facebook Business page. Click ‘Get Messages’ and add a description and a relevant image. Click ‘publish’. GiveFacebookAdsATry
There are different types of Facebook Ads that you can use to prompt Facebook Messenger conversation. For example, you can use Messenger Ads to quickly connect with your prospects. These ads are sponsored ads that also include CTA buttons for better engagement. Similarly, there is a Messenger Ad placement option that you can use to help your buyers see an ad in the messenger inbox. Messenger Stories Ads appear in the inbox that users can click to see a full-screen story on their cellphones. Also, there are Sponsored Messages that are delivered to people you’ve chatted with before. GettingStarted You can easily access Facebook Messenger from your Facebook Business Page. This option should already be enabled when you create your business page.
The next step is creating a Facebook Messenger username. For this, you have to go to the Messaging tab located under General Settings. You can add this link to your website and social media profiles. Add a ‘Send Message’ button to your Facebook Business Page by clicking on the ‘Add a Button’ option available under your cover image. Select ‘Contact You’ and click Next. Also, select ‘Messenger’ and hit Finish. At this point, you can also add a greeting text to your Messenger. This is a personalized message that people will receive when they send in their first message. Last but not least, set up an instant reply and schedule automatic away texts to let buyers know when you’ll reopen and respond.