There’s a lot of excitement around the Facebook Messenger ChatBot. It is giving marketers new ways to reach their audience and engage with them on a much more intimate and reliable way.
Before we get into the Facebook Messenger ChatBot, let me explain the importance of Facebook Messenger to Facebook. Messenger is Facebooks communication platform, and on the mobile phone, it is a separate app.
Why did Facebook split Messenger out into a separate app? I think it’s because they want it to become a universal communication tool like Skype or WhatsApp. Their vision is for Messenger to become your default communication device. With over 1.94 billion people on Facebook, there is no other platform with as many members, and they want to take advantage of Facebook’s size.
Currently, you can text chat, voice chat and video chat with any Facebook user using Messenger. In the future, Facebook is going to add virtual reality to Messenger, so you can see your friends and communicate in a virtual world.
How does this relate to the Facebook Messenger ChatBot? Well, now that you know Messenger is Facebook’s way of replacing all other communication apps, the Messenger ChatBot is a new way for marketers to reach out to and communicate with their users in an automated way.
As a marketer, you are now able to build predefined sequences of messengers, much like a choose your own adventure book where a user can choose the path they go down. You can ask them a question in messenger and depending on the user’s response, send them down a path which you have created. Each answer leads to its own predefined path.
Using Messenger Chatbots are a great way of finding out more details about your prospects and clients. You are then able to store their responses and use it to give them only the information about your company that is relevant to them.
Once someone interacts with your Facebook Pages Messenger, you now have the ability to message them at any time. There are specific rules around how you can do this, so you don’t spam Facebook users, but it is very powerful. When you send a message, it’s just like a friend sending them a message, and the message will be displayed on their phones desktop if they have notifications enabled.
With email open rates declining, this is a gold mine for marketers. The ability to get your message on their phone desktop or in their Facebook Messenger is a unique opportunity. With the average Facebook user in the US and Australia spending around 40 minutes a day on the platform you can see how your message will get to your prospect.
Messenger ChatBots are also being used to generate leads.
You can now create a special Messenger Ad that opens Messenger when someone clicks. When clicked Messenger is opened, and the ChatBot starts with the first message in your sequences displayed in Messenger.
If the person responds to the message, they are added as a subscriber to your Facebook Pages Messenger. If they do not respond to your message, they will not be added to your Messenger can, and you will not be able to send them messages.
You are able to send your prospects links, PDFs, videos and animated gifs through Messenger as part of your sequences.
So how do you setup your sequences in Messenger? The most popular app at the moment is ManyChat. Many Chat integrates will Facebook and makes it easy to set up the sequences, manage your subscribers and send your messages. The pricing starts at $10 per month for 500 subscribers.
I hope this quick introduction gave you an insight into the opportunities provided by Facebook Messenger ChatBots. Let me know in the comments if you have used Facebook Messenger ChatBots and if you were able to make sales using the platform.
