There are so many different marketing strategies for businesses and it can be overwhelming as an owner to decide on which one to choose. The truth is, you only need one to work. In this article I am going to explain the benefits of Facebook Messenger Chatbots and how they can be used to bring your business more customers.
Facebook Messenger Chatbots have taken the marketing world by storm in the last year and it is something that businesses such as Marriot, Sephora, Bud Light, Wholefood and many more are taking full advantage of.
What is a Facebook Messenger Bot?
You might have heard the term chatbots before, or you might have even interacted with one previously without knowing.
A Facebook Messenger chat bot is a piece of automated messaging software that uses AI to converse with people through Facebook Messenger. It allows you to create a sequence with pre-set responses based on what your customer says. This can easily save a business a lot of money and time as it can be a full-time job to constantly deal with the same questions that are asked by different customers.
A chat bot can be as simple as asking one or two questions, or as complex as asking multiple questions to separate your audience’s interests and traits.
Data is powerful in today’s world, so the more you know about your audience, the better you can tailor your services/products to them.
How can a Facebook Messenger bot help your business?
Bots exist everywhere on the internet in 2019, but there is one reason that makes Facebook Messenger bots stand out; it is a Facebook bot. Marketing is all about going where your customers are and with Facebook having 2.37 billion monthly active users, you are leaving money on the table if you are not using one.
It is an extremely effective method to communicate to current and potential customers as Facebook Messenger is currently the third most popular app in the world, used by 68% of app users.
Let’s breakdown exactly what a Facebook Messenger chatbot can help you achieve:
1. Incredibly High Open Rates
People are more likely to open their Facebook Messenger to check a message, than to open a marketing email, which only has a click through rate of 3.1% on average. In addition, emails can get lost in junk folders and might not even reach the recipient in some cases. Facebook Messenger is a more personal way to reach out to customers and it is why the open rates of messages are a lot higher.
Take a look at some of open rates we have for a restaurant client of ours:
In the three examples, the average open rate was 93.8% which is almost unheard of! Imagine sending out promotion content, an offer, information about an event, questions to find out more about your audience, and having nearly every single person open the message? That alone is invaluable.
2. Lead Generation
Being able to generate leads is the number one priority for businesses because without any leads or potential customers, your business will make no money.
Similar to an email list, when you get users to subscribe to your bot list, you can send broadcasts out to all users in the list at any time.
Leads can be generated without much difficulty for a business if chatbots are used correctly. It all comes down to the marketing strategy and execution. For ManyChat, which is the Facebook chat bot I advise using as it is extremely user friendly, you can select different types of growth tools. These are tools which can trigger a sequence and get a user signed up to your bot list.
You can choose to have a Messenger URL in your Facebook post that will trigger the sequence when somebody clicks on link, create your own landing page through ManyChat, have a button on your posts such as ‘Learn More’, ‘Shop Now’ etc that triggers the bot when it is clicked or you can connect a post to a sequence and trigger the sequence when you get a comment on the bot.
The use of growth tool depends on your marketing strategy and the campaign you are trying to run. Each one can be successful and you should test all of them out for yourself.
One of the simplest growth tools to use is ‘Facebook Comments’ growth tool if you can easily draw users in to comment in your posts.
Here is an example of us running a competition for a seafood restaurant/takeaway and using the comment growth tool:
We got users to guess how many packets of mayonnaise the owner is holding in the box, and the correct answer wins a £20 in store voucher. As you can see, we generated 445 comments and reached 16,876 people and we only spent £66 on the campaign! Through this competition alone we managed to get 341 leads, which is a total of 0.23p ($0.30) per lead and there is nothing complicated involved. So what are you waiting for!?
3. Promoting Offers, Discounts and Events
If you have high open rates and you want to send a message to your bot list such as a promotional offers you’re running, or events that are happening at your business, you have a higher chance of turning your leads in to customers that walk through your doors.
Using the same example as above, for everybody that entered the competition, we sent them a voucher for a free portion of chips/fries. We did this because we knew open rates were going to be high and everyone that entered the competition had an interest in the cuisine. We made it so that the voucher had to be redeemed at the restaurant when the bill came so we could track all the numbers.
The result? 58 new customers coming into the restaurant in just 3 weeks. This is a 17% redemption rate which is extremely impressive considering the people had to physically come into the restaurant to redeem it.
Pro Tip – if you are running a promotional offer for 3-4 weeks, make sure to send weekly reminders as people can easily forget to use them. This significantly increases the redemption rate!
Once a chat bot list has been built over time, you can market to them for free with promotional offers and events your business might have.
4. Customer service
As a business, customers demand information 24/7. The more a customer must research and put in effort to find something out the more likely they are to give up on it. This results in businesses losing tens of customers every week as websites and online information may not be up to date.
Customers hate waiting too long and being on hold. They even ask the same questions over and over again. Luckily, there is a solution to that with chatbots. You can create a Facebook chat bot that covers most of your FAQ’s such opening times, location, specials that are being served and many more.
Being able to let your customers know this sort of information at any time of the day will save your business so much time and money. Setting up this automation will allow your business to free up your focus for the tasks that a Facebook bot can’t do.
As you can see, Facebook Chatbots can be a great tool for a business to draw in new customers as well as maintain relationships with current customers. It is a time and money saving tool that every business should have even if it is a basic one that covers FAQ’s. Technology is forever advancing, and chatbots will be able to do even more in the future, so it is best to get your business ahead of your competition and take action now.
Give it a go and let me know how you get on!
Author Bio.: My name is Dilan Kothari, founder of Nemacity Marketing, a Facebook ads agency focussing on helping businesses generate new customers from Facebook ads and Facebook Messenger Chat bots.
