Growing your online brand isn’t always easy. With so many new social media channels and avenues to connect you with shoppers, it might seem a little overwhelming choosing one to really focus on.
The good news? One of the old standby favorites is still an excellent method to include in your omnichannel digital strategy. Facebook Messenger offers various methods for you to connect with customers, answer questions, and otherwise grow your following. Oh… and you can even set it up to be completely automated, too. How sweet is that?
Ready to dive in? Here’s what you need to know about adding Facebook Messenger to your marketing mix.
What is a Facebook Messenger Bot? What Makes This Method Better Than Email?
Before we can get into the Facebook strategy portion, it is important to understand what a Facebook Messenger Bot actually is. Essentially, this is just an automated AI tool that interacts with your customers based on certain inputs.
While building up your Facebook Messenger subscriber list and sending information via bots can take time, it is just as important as having an email list. The biggest difference? Open rates tend to be considerably higher. After all, most people don’t want an unread message glaring at them when they’re browsing social media but are perfectly fine with leaving an email unread.
Understanding the Rules
Before you jump into using FB Messenger to grow your eCommerce brand, you’ll want to understand the rules. There are a few things Facebook explicitly forbids, and those guidelines are important to know ahead of time.
- You can only send a free message to a subscriber within twenty-four hours of their last response. This includes coupon codes and special offers.
- Outside of this time, you’re charged per message for a promotional contact. The exact rate varies depending on your niche.
- The only exception to the pay-to-play rule is for non-promotional messages. These can be things like reminding a customer of an appointment, updating the status of a purchase, or an account update. You’re also not charged if you’re doing a one-on-one customer service chat live, where you’re physically responding and not using a bot.
Failure to follow these guidelines or attempting to send promotional messages outside that twenty-four hours can lead to account suspensions and/or bans.
Ideas for Facebook Messenger Marketing
Not sure where to start? Our team of Facebook advertising specialists have a few recommendations! Here are a few great ideas for implementing Facebook Messenger marketing to grow your eCommerce brand.
Create a Better Customer Loyalty Program
If you’re looking for a way to get customers to interact with you on Facebook Messenger, consider creating a customer loyalty program.
By asking customers to confirm they want to take part and then getting a yes response, you’re getting permission to send a contact message whenever you would like. In turn, this eliminates the contact rules we’ve mentioned above and makes it easier to track when they’re looking at your products.
After they say yes, be sure to ask for their email address, too. This makes it easier to retarget ads when they’ve recently been on your website. In exchange, you can offer special coupons, free delivery, or whatever else makes sense for your particular online store and niche.
Reduce Abandoned Carts
Another way to use Facebook Messenger to grow your business is to reach out to those who added items to their cart but ultimately didn’t check out. As you already know, sometimes life gets in the way, and a shopper doesn’t make it all the way to the finish line.
By checking in with the customer, you can send a quick reminder that they really want the product you’re offering. You can even sweeten the deal by adding a special discount coupon or free shipping to their order, which can often lead them back to making a purchase.
Improve Customer Service
Sometimes customer service issues happen, and Facebook Messenger Bots are a great way to handle this. There are a variety of different aspects you can program your system to handle, such as checking up on the status of an order or initiating returns. Some common FAQs can even be programmed into your software.
The reason this sort of system is handy is that it does two things. First, it keeps a human staff member from having to answer the same things over and over. Second, it allows customers 24/7 access to the information they’re looking for.
But what if the answer the customer needs isn’t in the system? You can set it to alert you when a service rep needs to follow up directly on the next business day.
Wrap Up: Growing Your eCommerce Store with Facebook Messenger
Of course, the use of Facebook Messenger as an eCommerce sales tool is only growing. As an online brand, now is the best time to integrate it into your facebook marketing services. If you’re ready to learn more about doing this, please contact our CAKE team of Facebook experts for more details.
