Facebook chatbots and Facebook messenger marketing are the way of the future for communicating with your customers and leads.
With the top four messenger platforms surpassing the top four social media platforms for monthly active users, it’s safe to say that you can probably find your market chatting online.
So, what are chatbots and why do they seem to be demanding everyone’s attention this year?
Keep reading to find out!
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What is a Chatbot?
A chatbot can take on many different forms, but today we are going to focus on chatbots that live within messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Kik, and others.
Chatbots are computer programs, or ‘robots’, that are capable of having a human-like conversation with a user by receiving and sending messages.
They are meant to allow businesses and brands to connect with their audience online and simplify repetitive processes.
There are several tasks that a chatbot can complete in order to save its human counterpart time.
What does a Chatbot do?
A chatbot can help users find information about your business, answer FAQs, set up appointments, provide tracking and order information, give recommendations, and even assist in marketing promotions by delivering unique coupon codes, making announcements, and running contests.
Chatbots can range in complexity depending on how they are built. Some chatbots are powered by a set of rules that are determined by the builder and can only handle specific messages from users.
Other more advanced chatbots use Artificial Intelligence in order to understand and respond to conversations.
Today, we will be focusing on the former because anyone that can successfully navigate a computer, can successfully set up one of these bots.
How to Build a Facebook Chatbot
Luckily, you don’t need any programming experience to make your own chatbot.
You can use a tool such as ManyChat or Chatfuel to easily set up your very first bot in just one day or less.
At Brandetize, we use ManyChat for all of our chatbots. ????
These tools allow you to set up a welcome message in order to gain chatbot subscribers, a navigation menu so users have quick access to some of the most common uses for the chatbot, and much more.
You can set up sequences, similar to email sequences, to put your leads on different paths, or you can use the broadcast tools to send one-off messages to your entire list or specific segments on your list.
To learn more about the specifics of building out a chatbot, I recommend taking ManyChat’s free 10-hour online course.
How Can Chatbots Benefit Your Business?
Chatbots were first introduced in 2016, but we’re still in an early adopter phase for messenger marketing.
The platform is not yet overly saturated like we have started to see with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
There is still plenty of opportunities to stand out in messenger platforms.
Facebook Messenger alone connects brands with 1.3 billion people each month.
In fact, over 2 billion automated and people-initiated messages are exchanged between users and businesses every month.
If you aren’t actively monitoring your messages, or you don’t have a chatbot doing it for you automatically, you could be missing out on valuable leads.
53% of Messenger users claim that they are more likely to shop with a business that they can message directly on the platform.
Chances are that a lot of your market is already using messenger apps, so why not change the way you think about email marketing and move some of your messaging to where your audience is already chatting.
As email marketing continues to become more and more overcrowded, it’s getting harder to reach people because they are filtering out promotional messages from their inbox or blocking them altogether.
A lot of the time, you can use the same tactics that you are using for your emails and just edit the messaging to be more conversational for your messages.
It’s an easy transition to start out with.
Bonus: Users can much more easily subscribe to your messenger bot by simply sending a message than opting into an email sequence by filling out a form.
Facebook Messanger vs. Email Statistics
If you weren’t already convinced, messenger marketing sees a lot higher open and click-through rates than traditional email marking, just look at these facebook messenger statistics:
Email Messages
- 18%+ Open Rates
- 1-3%+ Click Through Rates
Messenger Messages
- 70%+ Open Rates
- 5-15%+ Click Through Rates
While sending users to landing pages to opt-in and hand over their information is normal, it’s so boring and overdone.
Another reason why messenger marketing is great for business is that people are tired of filling out forms – ugh!
Chatbots can take care of the entire process, all without leaving the messaging platform.
They can even collect accurate information from your leads by pulling the names and email addresses directly from the user’s profile (with their permission).
When you have your leads opt-in directly through Facebook Messenger, you also get cheaper ads because Facebook likes when you keep users within the platform.
Here’s another great benefit, building a chatbot is a lot easier than building a web funnel.
You don’t need to be a web developer to navigate a bot building tool.
And, marketing through messenger means the entire process is already mobile optimized… and we know how important mobile marketing is.
Lastly, messenger marketing is QUICK. The customer journey can progress much faster because messenger marketing is instantaneous and the user stays engaged throughout the entire process.
The Future of Chatbots
There is still a lot of work to be done before chatbots can become a viable mainstream alternative to human-centric customer support methods, but they sure do save you some valuable time from simple repetitive questions and tasks on messenger.
For now, we recommend getting started setting up your chatbot to help you with these mundane tasks and to start delivering your content in a platform where you can really stand out.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to be out there.
Do you have a chatbot for your business? Or, are you thinking about setting up your first bot? Let us know in the comments below.
