How to Use Messenger Chatbots to Improve List Building?

Ever heard the phrase, “The money is in the list?”

It is a really common statement from most marketers. What they mean is your email list. Over the years, there have been lots of ideas to improve your email list and I am here with a new one – Facebook Messenger Bots!

Email marketing has an average Click Through Rate of 3.42% which is pretty decent considering how little you need to invest in sending an email blast.

So, if you have a list of 1000 email subscribers, then each mail blast can potentially get you 34 customers!

That is more than enough reason to invest some serious thought into building your email list.

But how do you do that?

Yes, you can always pull in some emails using lead magnets on your website and that is still quite effective.

But there is a new player on the block with a LOT of potential – Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger has over 1.2 billion daily active users and that is an untapped oil well! But the problem still remains – how do you get people from your Facebook Page to your email list?

The simple answer is – chatbots!

That’s right! It is a simple answer. Most people get nervous when they hear words like ‘chatbots’ and AI, thinking that it is going to expensive and complicated.

Why Use Facebook Messenger Chatbots?

Using chatbots can be pretty intimidating, but there are a few REALLY solid reasons to get started with Facebook Messenger Chatbots.

So, why use Facebook Messenger Chatbots and how are they different from a regular chatbot?

• The Full Picture: With Facebook Messenger Chatbots, you get the complete contact info. The conversations are not anonymous. On other bots, you only get a tiny bit of information about your prospects.
• A Complete Campaign: Facebook Messenger chatbots can send push notifications, follow-ups, and more! You can essentially create an entire campaign right from the messenger!
• Segment Your Audience: With the use of tags on your Facebook Messenger chatbots, you can segment your audience on what they opted in to.
• Retarget Using Facebook Ads: Facebook Ads can result in a lot of unnecessary spends unless you have a nice Custom Audience to target. Thanks to a Messenger chatbot, you can set up laser-focused ads now!

Need a Customized Chatbot for your facebook page? Get it here.

All these are only a few reasons to start using Facebook Messenger bots. Another thing to consider is the way in which Social Media sites are programmed to think.

What Are Social Media Sites Programmed to Think?

Social Media sites (just like any other site) want their users to stay on their platform for as long as possible.

But how can they achieve something like that?

Simple – they sort for relevance.

After Facebook’s algorithm was updated to filter for relevant posts, other social media sites followed suit pretty quickly.

Read: 17 Awesome Instagram Hacks for Social Selling

As a result, the organic reach on social was slashed pretty heavily for most social media marketers. Right now, as we write this blog – Facebook Messenger is bigger than the social media sites!

Why? Because it taps directly into the chat box instead of getting lost in the feed.

So, now that you are convinced on WHY you should be investing in Facebook Messenger bots, it’s time to talk about the HOW.

How to Use Chatbots to Build an Email List?

The first thing to do is set up an Account at ManyChat. ManyChat is an online toolkit that helps you create chatbots with zero coding required.

The best part? You can do a LOT of things inside it. Using the Flow Builder, you can easily set up entire storyboards of engaging conversations. The bot itself integrates flawlessly with Facebook.

Even better – marketing using a chatbot like that is really simple!

OK, let’s take a step back and just take a small breather because all this is fascinating, but it sounds pretty expensive. Also, WAY too complicated. Right?

Let me break it down for you in a simple manner.

Remember those website opt-ins? You know – the ones where you offer a freebie in exchange for an email ID?

Messenger Bots are like that, only for Facebook Messenger. Except that they have RIDICULOUS open rates.

All this sounds great, but how do you get people to actually give up their email IDs?

Using messenger bots to build your email list.

Let’s get one thing straight – messenger marketing and chatbots are two different things. You’re going to want to combine messenger marketing with email marketing and keep finding more ways to move subscribers onto your email list.

Despite its many positive points, your subscribers on Facebook Messenger are just that – subscribers.

Not prospects, not leads, not enquiries, and not buyers – subscribers.

So, the next thing to do is to get them into your email list so that you can filter them down to prospects and leads.

There are literally dozens of marketing strategies that can be used to build your email list from your messenger subscribers. Not to mentions hundreds of growth hacks that you can use on a daily basis.

In this blog, I’m going to outline a few of my favourites and show you how to use them on your site.

But:

Before we get into the finer details of messenger marketing, we need to take a step back. 

Big picture, folks: before you can convert a messenger subscriber into an email subscriber, you’ve got to grow your messenger subscribers.

Here are two effective ways you can do that:

1. Messenger landing page or button: Create a Messenger landing page for your bot to work on. Optin modules or embedded  Messenger buttons on your website work just fine too. Offer a free (but valuable) piece of content to get people to connect with you on their Messenger inbox.
   
   Each user will then be asked if they want to open the message in Messenger. Once they opt in, you will get a notification in your Messenger inbox that they have subscribed.
   
2. Comment on page or post: You can trigger a bot once someone comments on a page or post by leaving a comment or by using a specific word or phrase. In this case, a user will only become a subscriber once they reply to the first message.
   
   This is especially helpful in the case of ecommerce platforms that are looking to expand their audience quickly.

Using these two simple techniques, you can grow your subscribers by a huge margin. But now that you have subscribers, how do you turn them into leads?

How to turn a messenger subscriber into a lead?

And we are back to using ManyChat again!

First, sign up using your Facebook profile and connect your page. Now you are ready to develop and train your first bot. 

Nice!

I know what you are thinking – if the open rates are so great, why not send people a website link on the very first message?

Well, technically you can.

Here’s the problem, though – most of these people do not really know you or trust you yet. They have no reason to visit your website.

My recommendation? 

Send out a sequence of automated messages with free content offers to educate your subscribers and build trust. This is like an email sequence for branding. Only, it works better because of the compounded effect of social media. 

What do I mean by the compounded effect? Simple – if people like your stuff, they will share it with more people. So, by earning one person’s trust, you automatically get in front of a lot more people. 

The best part? It’s all using the same bot and the exact same sequence of automated messages.

And on the final message, you can incentivize them to join your email list with a brand new offer.

Trust me. It works.

The Only thing. You will have to plan your content [The Sequence] accordingly like how you plan your social media content.

Most of the Internet Marketing Gurus suggest the same.

Using ManyChat  automated sequences, you can easily set up automated messages.

You can also send out a broadcast message. This is like an email blast. You could promote an ebook or invite people to a webinar. It could be any simple opt-in to get people engaged before they convert.

The possibilities are endless. You can even add an RSS feed that delivers all your new blogs to your subscribers every time you publish a new post. 

Is ManyChat the only option for you?

Not by a long shot!

You can use a ton of really cool, affordable, and accessible tools to set up your messenger marketing strategies.

Here are a few great options besides ManyChat:

1. CrediResponse: CrediResponse sets up autoresponders for Facebook Messenger. Any time someone comments on your page, they get a personalized message in their inbox that leads them to your sales funnel.
2. Chatfuel: Chatfuel offers a killer AI engine to automatically detect user phrases similar to phrases that you predefine so that it can show relevant messages to your subscribers.
3. Mobile Monkey: Going mobile is one of the biggest challenges in terms of implementing AI and chatbots. Not any more! Mobile Monkey allows you to handle your sales process and your chatbot using mobile text messages!
4. Socialhoox: Socialhoox is a relatively new platform to build your own chatbots, but it can be really flexible in terms of pricing and training your chatbots!

Now that you have a nice list of tools to use, how are you going to implement your messenger chatbots? The next step is to come up with a clear campaign idea and use some nice tactics to get the leads flowing.

Are you stuck with that part?

How about we give you a little head start?

Some Great Tactics to Use for Messenger Marketing

There are lots of great ways to use Messenger Marketing. Some of the quirkiest ideas are often the most successful because your audience is not jaded towards it.

via GIPHY

Here are a few nice little ideas that you can use to improve your engagement and conversions:

1. Quiz Marketing: Here’s an idea – create a quiz, let your audience have some fun, let them engage with you and THEN pitch them your opt-in. Creating a quiz is simple and easy. Most importantly, the engagements are off the charts!
2. Giveaways: Everyone loves giveaways, right? Wrong! Everyone loves a freebie. They all hate having to jump through several hoops to qualify for a giveaway. Enter messenger bot – you can get people to enter a giveaway with one click! Seriously!
3. Click to Messenger Ads: This is a pretty neat new feature that allows Facebook ads to lead to your messenger inbox where your chatbot can dazzle them with content offers and discounts.
4. Curate Content: A Facebook Messenger inbox is a great place to send recommendations and curated content. The beauty of it is that by driving relevant content, you get seen as a thought leader even if you are not publishing that content yourself!

These four ideas can really help you out a lot. The simple fact is that chatbots are meant as an extension off your content marketing strategy. Using simple tweaks to your messenger bot’s content, you can attract, engage, delight, and grow more effortlessly.

One of the trickiest parts of using a chatbot is not taking it for granted. Of course, the AI is getting better each day, but there is no substitute (yet) for a real human. As a business owner, you need to jump in from time to time to resolve queries that require a more human touch.

Read: How to Market a Boring Product On Internet?

Wrapping Up

What can you do now? Well, simple – check out the tools that we outlined. Use the strategies that we have used hundreds of times and start growing today. Be sure to include our quirky little tactics.

Also, if you have been following our blog, you know what’s coming next – share this more people. Pretty please!

We try to create content that you use without having to spend a fortune. So, help us get started on the next one. What kind of content would you really like to read?

Let us know in the comments below. Also, do you have any great ideas or tactics for Facebook Messenger Marketing? Feel free to share it with us!