What is Facebook Messenger marketing? Why should you set it up for your clients? What tactics should your clients be using? How do you implement it?

Facebook Messenger can be a really powerful tool in your clients’ marketing campaigns. In this post, I will answer all of the above questions, and show you how to leverage Facebook Messenger marketing to strengthen the campaigns you build for clients.

You might also like: 3 Simple Ways Your Agency Can Use Content Marketing to Build a Better Brand and Find New Clients.

What is Facebook Messenger marketing?

Up until recently, your clients have likely been using email as their main form of customer engagement. And while this has been successful for many merchants, people are starting to spend less time on email and more time on messaging apps like Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger marketing enables your clients to automatically contact their customers over Facebook Messenger throughout the customer journey.

The main benefits of sending messages are:

Higher visibility than emails
Higher open rates than emails
Enables two way communication that can be automated

Instead of sending abandoned cart notifications into an email inbox that’s full of noise and distractions, Facebook Messenger marketing allows stores to send their customers push notifications that vibrate their phones. Instead of needing a human to help the customer find what they are looking for, your clients can use Facebook Messenger to automate the process.

Every aspect of the customer journey can be impacted by Facebook Messenger marketing.

Why your clients should be using Facebook Messenger marketing

For the majority of merchants, most of their customers are on Messenger—over 1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger every month, and that number is growing quickly. That means that it is an incredibly valuable channel to pay attention to.

Merchants are using apps to run their Facebook Messenger automations, enabling them to communicate with customers faster and more effectively. Pure Cycles, one of our clients, has increased their online revenue by 14 percent—and that’s just by leveraging abandoned cart messages through Messenger.

In the same way that there are multiple email automation flows that are valuable for your clients, there are multiple Facebook Messenger automation flows that your clients should be using. Below, we’ll look at five applications of Facebook Messenger that you should add to your marketing campaigns.

You might also like: 10 Successful Marketing Campaigns to Inspire Your Next Project.

1. Abandoned cart messages

When your client’s customer adds a product to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, you can set up Facebook Messenger to automatically send them a message later, asking if they would like to complete their purchase or if they have any questions. With the nearly 100 clients we’ve worked with on Facebook Messenger marketing, most find that they are now connecting with more new customers on Facebook Messenger than on email, and they are consistently converting 1 out of 9 abandoned cart messages to sales.

The abandoned cart messages help merchants communicate better with potential customers, and build a relationship between the customer and merchant.

2. Receipt messages

You can also set up Facebook Messenger to send an order receipt to your client’s customer after they complete a purchase.

This message is a good opportunity to send the customer a special thank you, an acknowledgement towards the relationship that has just been started. Doing something like this, and being personal, will strengthen the bond customers have with your client’s brand.

3. Shipping messages

By sending the customer a message when their order has been shipped, you give the customer a quick and easy way to track their order.

This may seem simple, but keeping customers up to date on their purchases can be an easy and effective for your clients to establish trust.

4. Welcome conversation

In physical retail stores, store owners can greet clients when they walk into the store. When someone messages your client’s store online, your client should be able to the same.

You can set up a welcome conversation so that when a customer messages your client for the first time, your client can automatically greet them, ask them what they are looking for, and help them find it.

This will help the customer feel taken care of and supported, improving their overall experience with your client and making them more likely to come back.

5. Product discovery conversation

For clients that have a large number of products, you can implement a product finder conversation using Facebook Messenger. Automatically ask the customer a series of questions, and then recommend a product that matches what they are looking for.

An extremely personalized experience can be provided by remembering this information about each customer. Instead of return customers being treated just the same as new ones, this tactic enabled your clients to treat all of their repeat customers as VIPs.

How to implement Facebook Messenger marketing for your clients

When it comes to implementing Facebook Messenger marketing into your clients’ stores, there are two options: build it yourself, or use a Facebook Messenger automation product.

If you are interested in building your solution from the ground up, then get ready to stretch out your fingers and start coding. Facebook has extensive developer documentation to help.

But if you do not want to build this from scratch, then I would highly recommend working with a Shopify Partner who focuses on providing Facebook Messenger automation solutions.

These solutions can help you implement all the above benefits of Facebook Messenger marketing, and track the results of your work. You will be surprised at how much positive impact Facebook Messenger will have on your clients’ businesses.

You might also like: What is Inbound Marketing?

The future of Facebook Messenger marketing

Messenger marketing tactics and strategies are evolving every day. Not only will it soon be making huge improvements on what is already possible through email, but it will open new forms of interactions that were not possible before.

Examples of future interactions powered by Facebook Messenger marketing could include:

Customers sending a picture to your client and automatically getting a recommendation on which product would look best on them
Artificial intelligence personalizing each conversation and optimizing the experience for each customer
Customers viewing augmented reality versions of your client’s products

Facebook Messenger marketing is going to inevitably change the online shopping experience, and the first stores to start working it into their campaigns will have a huge head start.

Have you already started working with Facebook Messenger marketing? Share your experience in the comments below!

Matt Schlicht