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Introduction
Recently Facebook announced its plan to integrate its mega messaging platforms – Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. SMS has been universally available to users for a long time now.
Combined, these apps have more than 2.7 billion people using them every month. And Says Marc Zuckerberg in his recent post, more than 2 billion people who use at least one of our services every day.
Messaging is the area that’s growing the most quickly, and this year people are going to feel these apps becoming the center of their social experience in more ways. We’ll roll out payments on WhatsApp in some more countries.
So what does this mean to marketers? What can businesses do to quickly adapt and take advantage of these technology trends to provide a better customer experience to their tribe? What are some of the ways that small businesses can do ‘out of the box’ marketing?
From what I have learned by dabbling to the point of obsession with messenger marketing tools like ManyChat is that Messaging as a tool to reach out to target customers in a more personalized and frictionless way is far more effective than email marketing. From my own experience, every time, I send my newsletter, I see email open rates in the range of 15-20 % and click rates even lesser ranging between 1-5%. Business Emailing is a crowded space already.
But with Messaging the story is different! In November 2017 I built a Messenger Chatbot for a client to promote her small business in beauty consulting space. Within two weeks of launching the Messaging Chatbot campaign, we had more than 100+ subscribers. We saw incredible open rates and conversions.
What you see above is the result of active work done for just a month or so during November 2017 to December 2017. I was just learning the ropes still. After that, the numbers have been still growing without even putting any active effort. Imagine if the tool was used effectively, what potential it holds!
The tool itself offers many powerful features that businesses can use to get creative in reaching out to their target audiences. The tools itself deserve a separate blog post. But tools are just that tools!
What’s more important is how creative we can get to put those tools to use effectively achieve business goals.
Here are just some examples I dabbled in.
Webinar Registration
Let’s say you want to host a webinar to educate your customers about how you can add value to their life. With Messaging Tools, it is possible to automate the entire process flow with ease and in a frictionless manner. The UX and CX will delight your target audience. As they don’t need to download any apps, or fill out any forms etc. Within Messenger itself, they can just register for your webinar and be reminded of it in time with just a few ‘finger touches’ and ‘clicks’. I experienced this first hand when I registered for a Hubspot Webinar. I say it was damn cool and easy to convert! See snapshots of the User Experience that I went through using Messenger Chatbot pre-defined flow!
Lead Magnets
Let’s say you have created a great piece of content. A Blog post or an e-book. Messaging platforms are a great way to reach out to your target audience and deliver to them your beautiful value add right in their mobile messaging apps. I tried this once to find takers for an E-book on A to Z Glossary of Apparel Costing that I had created and would you believe it, I got more than 400 downloads! That translates to 400 qualified leads of potential customers who are interested in listening to what you have to say. See the beauty of how easy it is to execute such a campaign. We did this for a client with great success as well. Here is a quick snapshot of how it lands in your messenger app.
Customer Service
There are so many effective use cases that I have seen of using Messenger platforms for providing instant response to customers seeking answers to questions that can be managed via pre-configured chat conversation flows. My ex-employer Tommy Hilfiger uses the messenger platform effectively. I don’t have the stats on how many active subscribers they have, who are being served via the bot. However, I share with you how they are using this tool to address things like Find a Store, Track my Order, Flawed Product and even Work for Tommy. The possibilities are immense for creative marketers!
FAQs
In the similar vein as customer service, FAQs lend themselves beautifully for Chat Bots integration on messaging apps. One might argue that it is better done on a website and why to duplicate the same content on a messaging platform. The answer to that is Messaging gives your customer ‘instant gratification’ right where they are hanging out the most, on their mobiles!
Interactive engagement
We all know how successful is interactive content on Buzzfeed! Imagine you are sitting idle at a bus stop and looking to kill boredom. You browse on some fun links that your friends share on Facebook. And very soon, you are interacting and engaging with that content. Traditional media generally deems quizzes to be superficial, but it sure gets people talking, and Buzzfeed has made sure to tap into that. We marketers can learn from their incredible success and get creative too to engage and interact with our customers! It’s not about selling all the time. Its also about forming deeper connections and relationship!
Inspired by them, here I have attempted to show you just how this can work out. I created a fun quiz to find out your Style Quotient. Whether you are a fashion diva or a fashion victim, Angie – the Fashion expert bot will do the job nicely. All you need to do is to click on this link. Here. Then Fanny will ask you a few simple questions and tell you where you stand on the Fashion Style Quotient Spectrum. I urge you to Try it.
Click here! Have Fun.
Reach out to me for a free consultation what and how these messaging platforms can be effectively integrated into your marketing strategies to achieve your business objectives.
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @anjuligo
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