Facebook Messenger for your business provides you with great opportunities to improve your customer interactions.
Most consumers prefer chatting to calling as it provides instant support and opportunities to multi-task. Additionally, many prefer to live chat as they can multitask when they have to wait.
Chatbots help companies reduce their costs, especially in customer services. Interestingly, 80% of customer questions have been resolved without human intervention with the help of chatbots. However, a study shows that around 47.5% of internet users in the U.S feel that chatbots often provide too many irrelevant responses.
That’s because small business owners depend on positive reviews and so it becomes difficult for them to delegate prospecting activities to a chatbot.
You can integrate Facebook Messenger into your marketing if you track your user experience and customer journey.
Make sure your Messenger is positive with an inclusive tone and devoid of much sarcasm or irony. Also, include a sign-off to avoid people hanging when you close your communication.
Have a look at the 5 ways your business can effectively use Facebook Messenger.
1. Use Automated responses to answer customer’s FAQs
Automated responses will help your visitors get important information about your business at a convenient time. Facebook includes this feature so you don’t have to spend on an external app or membership to provide it for you.
Some of the information that your visitors are likely to ask when they call or visit your storefront is;
Business location
Business hours
Services/Products you provide
The price range of your services
Testimonials for each of your product or service
Warranty
Customer service
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Make sure your automated response strategic and they hold your consumers’ attention and help build trust in your business. Your automated responses must make it easy for visitors to learn about products and services and encourages them to take action.
Open your Facebook business page and click the Inbox tab at the top, to set up automated responses. Next, click on the Automated Responses in the left navigation.
You can customize your automated responses such as location, contact information, away message, FAQ’s, etc.
For example, with the Contact Information, you could customize the message that looks like “ Hi, [name], thanks for contacting us. Did you try to contact us at ________ [name of the business]?[add button]. Click Add Personalization to personalize the message with the user’s name.
2. Send reminder and followup messages to customers who book appointments on your page
Facebook allows you to set up a page that lets your prospects and customers to book appointments without leaving the platform. This is a great option as it allows your salesperson to spend considerable time with the customer to understand the problem and recommend a solution to address the issue.
For instance, a buyer journey on a med-spa page will be to see what the business is about, services offered by the spa, and book an appointment to consult the doctors. Add a ‘Book Now’ button to your page to let your buyers make an appointment easily.
Facebook Messenger integrates with your appointments and enables you to send follow-up messages automatically to people who make appointments through Facebook and also send automatic reminders a day prior to their appointment. Automatic responses have an added benefit of keeping the users hooked to your page.
Click the blue call-to-action (CTA) button below your page’s cover photo to set up the appointments feature.
When the Add a Button to Your Page window shows up, click on the Book With You and then Book Now button.
3. Engage people who sign up for your Facebook Account
Facebook events include a feature that allows the attendees to chat about their reservation with you via Messenger. Facebook events are also a great way to market your business. Once a person reserves a spot at your event, Facebook will open a Messenger thread with your page automatically.
Once you set your event, select the Allow Guests to Message (Your Page) About Their Reservation.
When the guests reserve their spot, you will receive a confirmation via Messenger. Having the event responses on Messenger can help you engage with users by simply having a normal conversation.
You may consider creating a custom audience from your event responses and run Facebook ads to users who responded to your event. This will help build awareness and boost conversions as well.
4. Use “Send Message” Newsfeed posts to improve organic Messenger conversations
It may not be possible for your business to initiate conversations with people; you can get your customers and prospects to start conversations with you. Add a Send Message CTA button to your Facebook posts and you are good to go!
Offer some great and relevant content such as downloadables(guides, quizzes, eBooks, PDFs, or template) and let your users know that they can send a message to request it.
Start a new post from your page and click Get Messages to add the Send Message CTA button to a post.
5. Use Facebooks Ads to retarget your Messenger Users
Create a custom audience to retarget the users who have connected with you via your page with Facebook ads. Facebook ads will help you stay in touch with Messenger users. These users may have not only liked your page but also expressed interest in your business. Upload their testimonials and express your gratitude.
Use Facebook’s custom audience features to target your Messenger users. Create custom audiences and reconnect with users who have interacted with your page in Messenger. Create this audience automatically by simply setting up a sponsored messages campaign.
Pro tip: Create a custom audience to send messages to people who have interacted in specific ways to a Messenger bot.
For instance, if you have a questionnaire on Messenger with three options, you can create three audiences based on each answer.
Some ways to refine your audience are;
Use the location, age, and gender demographics. Save this audience and use later
Create another set of similar audience that is more likely to respond
Trace and track people who your app. You can use event logging to send messages to people.
Ask your developer to segment audiences based on Messenger interactions and create a custom audience using their ids.
Final Thoughts
These are the five best ways to integrate Facebook Messenger marketing into your marketing strategy. However, make sure to include relevant and inspiring content that will keep your users coming back for more.