How To Use Facebook Messenger Chatbots In Your Email Marketing Funnel
Since the advent of chatbots, marketers consider them as a strong alternative to email. Some even believe that the chatbot’s arrival sound the death knell for emails. However, both these beliefs are far from truth. Chatbots are just a strong and efficient supplementary to email marketing campaigns.
Today, many people are ready to embrace messaging apps as a strong customer service channel. It means that this trend is here to stay. Chatbots can bring automation in marketing and enable your company to establish relationships with the customers. The biggest advantage is chatbots do not feel inboxes of your customers while providing them a live experience.
Before moving to our topic- How you can use Facebook Messenger chatbots in Email Marketing- let’s have a quick introduction of chatbots and its collaboration with emails. As the next level of Live Chat, chatbots can bring automation and immediacy while keeping the gist of Live Chat. As per one survey, consumers can wait for on average 2 minutes and 40 seconds for a response on Live Chat and 21% of messages go completely unanswered due to human intervention. This is certainly unacceptable from the customer’s viewpoint.
What makes chatbots more appealing is the fact that chatbots can speak to customers directly instead of forcing them to come to your website. Facebook Messenger has made chatbots livelier and natural with improved functionality. Today, chatbots sound like humans thanks to Facebook Messenger.
Chatbots and Emails- Comparison and Collaboration
Comparing email and a Messenger chatbot, an email is a one-way communication whereas the chatbot is like an interview in which every information is in a series of questions and answers. Here, chatbots try to fetch information and the human provides that information on the basis of questions.
On one hand, email marketing provides a complex and visually appealing layout with copy, images, CTA buttons, and hyperlinks. On the other hand, chatbots share less but highly relevant information in line with the user’s needs. Simply put, email marketing is perfect for detailed information and chatbots are right for taking necessary information precisely.
Facebook Messenger chatbots enable users to take the desired action directly within the interface. They facilitate users to watch the video and buy products directly. In contrast, the email needs users to click through a link to take the desired action. Conversations are also more personalized and interactive when it comes to the chatbot.
Here is an example of a chatbot conversation on Hubspot.
Facebook Messenger Chatbot Integration in Your Email Marketing
Facebook owns a handy bot creator for developers that can help them come up with customized bots to meet your brand’s specific requirements. All you can get is more targeted and relevant user data with higher conversion rates.
Let’s understand this with an example of user-dreaded forms. Usually, users find the form-filling work tedious and cumbersome, especially when many fields are included. Now, chatbots can enable customers to get rid of filing forms. Chatbots also reduce the burden of companies to get relevant data from customers.
As data suggests, 60% of people intentionally provide false information online whereas 33% of people use a fake email address. What’s more, 5% of Facebook profiles are fake. In such a situation, there are many benefits to integrating Facebook Messenger chatbots into an email campaign.
Benefits of Including Facebook Messenger Chatbots in Email Strategy
• Chatbots provide instant responses thereby improving your brand value. Now, a detailed email make them wait for a long time
• They offer a more personalized experience to the customers and feel them social and lively. As a result, customers may visit your website again
• Chatbots make your brand more appealing especially among young customers who like to get quick responses
Integrating Facebook Messenger Chatbot in Email Marketing Funnel
There are many ways you can integrate Facebook Messenger Chatbot in email marketing. Here are some of the important ways.
• Subscriptions for newsletter
Newsletters can play a significant role in spreading awareness about your company’s activities and promotional offers. You can get a strong and loyal customer base in the form of newsletter subscribers. Many companies send newsletters through email on a weekly or monthly basis. Chatbots can help you get more subscriptions for newsletters especially when they are integrated with Facebook Messenger.
Let’s take an example of the L.A. Times. It has provided a single-click subscription using a Facebook Connect login. It enables the users to get rid of filling out a form for subscription. This is an interesting, short, and hassle-free way to subscribe to the newsletter.
• Downloading of content
Facebook Messenger has CTA (Call to Action) buttons that make things easier for the users. For example, after viewing Facebook Live of your company, you can lead your users to download the content. A button can be given in the conversation that mentions “Send me the checklist!”. Once the user presses this button, an email will be sent automatically to the user’s email account with the content download link. Check it in another example of Hubspot
• Event promotion
One of the interesting uses of Facebook Messenger chatbot is it can send an invite and friendly reminders to the users even when they are off Facebook. This reminder can be supplementary to a usual automated email-based reminder. Disney has created a chatbot related to Officer Judy Hopps to engage users in Zootopia. This chatbot has sent invites on Facebook before the movie premiere and DVD release.
• Spread awareness about Exclusive Offers
Social media channels have opened the doors of connecting and communicating with customers. Users can interact with you through Facebook, Messenger, or email. You can share an exclusive whitepaper, eBook, or video on Facebook Messenger and send incentives for email. Messenger works instantly and notifies the user as the customer clicks the button. You can effectively spread awareness about exclusive offers, promotional schemes, and the like through Facebook Messenger Chatbots.
• Empower your support team
A support chatbot on the Messenger app can readily answer common and frequently asked questions, so users can get their queries responded in no time without contacting your support team. Your customers can find it easy because they can get rid of sending a long email and wait long for resolving their queries. One major example is Airbnb. It enables hosts to create custom FAQs. It neutralizes the frustration of hosts who get annoyed by answering the same thing over and over. Customers can find it easier and it is very likely that they get converted.
• Drive moreconversions
Image source : www.business2community.com
As mentioned before, chatbots can increase the conversion rate by answering customized questions of potential customers. Chatbots can drive conversions in real-time also. Belly Hungry’s customized chatbot enables people to reserve tables, find restaurants or order takeout simply by using Facebook Messenger.
• Get quality leads
The ultimate goal of any marketing campaign is to get quality leads and email marketing is no exception! Thankfully, it is possible to program the chatbot to ask questions that are more relevant and effective to bring quality leads. Some chatbots are capable of helping the user to make a purchase or send them customized emails with different options. It further boosts the client conversion rate.
• Facebook ad optimization
Chatbots can make Facebook ads more effective and impressive. You can reduce your CPM through such effective ads. Thanks to chatbots, customers can start a conversation right away instead of clicking-through your business website. It can save time and provide more convenience to prospective customers.
How to Create Facebook Messenger Chatbot
Facebook Messenger chatbots can be a game-changer for your business. Though many entrepreneurs think that it is quite a task to develop a chatbot for Facebook Messenger, it is easy to come up with such a chatbot. Several chatbot development companies and mobile app development companies can also serve this purpose. All you need to find a dedicated and reputed chatbot developer for Facebook Messenger.
You can also count on developers who have work with Facebook, your website, and other text messaging apps for developing such customized chatbots. Some chatbot developers can transform landing pages of your website into a conversational chatbot interface. Tools like Landbot.io, Convointerface, etc. can help make such chatbots. These tools can simplify the development process ranging from mapping a conversation flow chart to add custom buttons.
Large companies or companies that are involved in doing business in the niche market can come up with their own, customized chatbot. Such customized bots are designed for accomplishing complex and interrelated tasks associated with customer services and support. What’s more, chatbots can also help companies simplify some challenging tasks like collecting the data and segregating customers.
After developing chatbots, the next phase comes as using them in email marketing. Over the period, email marketing has become more challenging and competitive than ever. In such a scenario, chatbots can act as a powerful supplement to email campaigns and enable you to stay ahead of the competition. It is fair to mention that email marketing is here to stay but it needs technical assistance to flourish. Chatbots are capable of giving it the necessary support.