List building is important, and Messenger is no different. Did you know that Facebook Messenger subscribers are on average 3-5x more valuable than email subscribers when it comes to driving sales? Messenger subscribers are vastly more likely to open your message, interact with it, and ultimately purchase. In short, Messenger is going to be the next big revenue channel for businesses.
So how do you actually build your Messenger list to start unlocking that value? Three words: ShopMessage Smart Prompts.
Yup, that’s it. Our Smart Prompts are the industry’s most powerful and effective tools for winning Messenger subscribers right from your store.
List Building Smart Popup All-Stars
Here are four real-life examples of how our customers are driving Messenger subscribers using ShopMessage Smart Popups.
Grunt Style
The All-American brand, Grunt Style, loves the Red, White, and Blue and employs hundreds of Veterans. They use ShopMessage’s flyout-style Smart Prompt to turn their patriotic shoppers into buyers.
This offer alone drives $308 in sales for every $1 they invest in ShopMessage.
The now iconic sunglasses brand, Blenders, continues to turn heads on the streets and on Messenger. One of their most successful Smart Prompts triggers at “purchase intent” when a shopper is showing buy signals but hasn’t yet committed.
This smart prompt delivers $360 in revenue for each $1 invested in ShopMessage. And like all the examples here, this is in the “post-pre-check” Messenger world.
Pandora’s Box is your one-stop shop for all your shopping and gifting needs. And ShopMessage Smart Prompts turn their casual browsers into serious buyers every moment of every day.
This Pandora’s Box “purchase intent” promotion earns $119 for every $1 they invest in ShopMessage.
ShopMessage Smart Prompts drive real results every day because they are intelligently designed to not be “yet another popup” and they do not conflict with your existing lead capture efforts. To be specific:
1 They only appear to users logged into Facebook and have not already subscribed to your store’s messages, so you’re targeting only the most relevant audience.
2 They will not conflict with partner popups (for capturing emails or phone numbers), maximizing the experience for your visitors.
3 They can be easily configured to appear exactly where, when, and how you want them to on your store. There’s nothing generic (or dumb) about these Smart Popups.
Excited? Convinced? We are too. Start your trial or set up a demo anytime.
First, let’s cover what flows are and what they do, and it’ll be clear how these can drive more value for your brand.
ShopMessage Flows are messages that are automatically sent to a customer based on a specific action they take while shopping on your website.
Flows are effective because they are timely, contextually relevant messages based on a customer’s specific shopping experience.
ShopMessage Flows are timely because they respond when customer actions are detected. They are contextually relevant because they pull on data from your customer’s behavior on your site to serve relevant content.
We hate to brag, but we can objectively say that ShopMessage flows are the most flexible and powerful in the industry for e-commerce companies. (Okay, in this case, we love to brag 🙂 What makes them so effective? Glad you asked!
Three Primary Reasons That Messenger Flows Are So Effective
1. ShopMessage flows are designed for all aspects of the customer lifecycle, from welcoming a first-time visitor to engaging a long-time loyal customer. That means you can segment and automatically reach the right customer at the right time in their journey.
There are many touch points along the customer journey for brands to engage via Messenger.
2. ShopMessage flows support custom events so you can trigger messages based on any activity that your customers engage in. With ShopMessage there are no limits for when and how you automatically trigger a message to a shopper.
3. ShopMessage supports custom data so you can send the right message with the right context. For example, you can send a different coupon based on high or low cart values. Or, if a user adds a subscription box to their cart, you may want to send a special flow containing popular items from previous boxes.
While a flow can be set up to trigger on any event, we recommend that brands start by setting up these five flows. They’ve proven to drive revenue, engagement, and long term customer loyalty.
An abandoned cart flow is triggered when — you guessed it! — a customer abandons their cart. The flow is similar to its email-based cousin but is even more effective (most of us ignore our email inbox, while we live in Messenger). ShopMessage abandoned cart flows see over 80% open rates, 35% click rates, and on average drive $9 per recipient messaged.
Listen as Abandoned Cart flows are discussed by Arjun Ohri and the team at Facebook Blueprint.
Order confirmation flows are a polite way to stay in touch and keep your customers updated.
2. Customer Thank You & Order Confirmation Flows
The simple gesture of saying “thank you” goes a long way to establishing long term loyalty with your customers. Thank you flows are message sequences that are triggered and sent after a purchase is completed. A thank you message can automatically include the purchase details, which doubles as a convenient order confirmation. Many brands choose to offer a time-bound discount on a follow-up purchase, which is an effective way to increase average customer value.
Browse Abandonment Flows remind customers what they were browsing earlier.
3. Browse Abandonment Flows
Ah, the art and science of converting browsers to buyers. Sending a Messenger flow to a customer about items they recently viewed can be an extremely effective tactic to close the sale. Browse abandonment flows are set up to trigger when a customer browses a particular product or section but leaves without completing a purchase. The flow is compelling to customers (after all, they were just shopping for that sweet new jacket). Brands can optionally choose to include discounts or other incentives to increase sale conversions.
Customer Win Back Flows are a great way to tell them about all the cool stuff they’ve been missing out on lately.
4. Customer Win Backs
If you are wanting to win people over again, this flow is for you. Customer win backs are directed to customers who have previously purchased from you but have lapsed since their last purchase. The purpose of this flow is to build up brand loyalty and help people remember why they love your brand.
Product Discovery Flows help customers whittle down a wide catalog into the most relevant products for them based on their choices in the conversation.
5. Product Discovery Flow
One of the best parts about shopping in a physical brick and mortar store is there are employees on staff to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. They’ll ask you questions and suggest products based on your responses and taste. That’s where ShopMessage product discovery flows come in. The product discovery is a chatbot that helps the customer browse your catalog and discover the most relevant products.
Welcome Flows get your relationship with your customers off on the right foot from the first time they visit your store.
6. Welcome Flow
So someone just signed up to join your Messenger list. Welcome them to the crew by automatically triggering a conversation. You can choose to send a discount code or simply ask them some questions to better get to know your customers — data you can later use to send personalized campaigns.
These flows are just a taste of how brands can make Messenger THE revenue-driving channel of 2019. The important thing is to have a well-rounded messenger marketing playbook to have better quality conversations with your customers.
You’re a savvy e-commerce marketer and you’ve realized the tremendous value of Messenger Marketing. Nicely done! You may have even experienced first hand the fact that a Messenger subscriber drives 4-5x more revenue than an email subscriber, on average.
Now the only question is how to build your Messenger subscriber list to capitalize on the opportunity. We’ve got you covered.
We wrote this guide to provide an overview of methods to opt-in Messenger Subscribers because having a strong contact list is essential to your success.
We also hope to inspire some specific tactics that you can employ to quickly grow your Messenger list.
Why Subscribers Are Key to Messenger Marketing
First things first. Opting into Messenger is one-click simple for your customers. That’s why ShopMessage customers have an average 8% Messenger opt-in rate. That’s 2-3x higher than average email opt-in rates. Very cool.
Contents
We recommend three ways to build your Messenger Subscriber List. We’ll dive into each.
How to Automatically Capture Subscribers as they Shop Your Store
We can objectively say that ShopMessage has the industry’s most effective (and feature-rich) native growth tools for Messenger. And they’re included free with your ShopMessage account.
Why are they so effective? For three main reasons:
1. Smart Detection to Optimize Shopper Experience.
ShopMessage Growth Plugins optimizes for customer experience by only appearing to users who are already logged into Facebook. Then opting-in is one-click simple.
Plus, our Growth Tools never conflict with any other email capture tools thanks to built-in automatic detection, ensuring your customers are never inundated in popup hell.
2. Beautiful, Customizable Designs to Match Your Brand.
For online retailers, brand matters. That’s why we offer dozens of beautifully designed templates, all of which are completely customizable.
3. Control Exactly Where and How Popups Appear.
ShopMessage Growth Tools are flexible enough to only appear when shoppers go to specific pages or take specific actions.
Our Growth Plugins can appear as a full page takeover, a subtle nudge in the corner of a screen, and everything in between.
And they can be set to appear when a shopper browses a specific product, when they check out when they’re about to navigate away, or any time and place you set.
Now let’s talk tactics.
ShopMessage’s Growth Plugins let you prompt visitors at key points in their customer journey. Here are some of the most common strategies.
You can easily mix and match strategies depending on your brand, customers, and whether or not you’re running existing email capture modals.
ShopMessage growth tools prompt your visitors at key points in their journey.
1.The Arrival Promo
Maximize your impressions by presenting all eligible visitors (meaning visitors who are logged into Facebook) with an offer moments after arriving at your store. You can set this to display immediately upon arrival, although we would recommend a few seconds of delay, so your promotion benefits from the added surprise and delight of a well-timed offer.
2.The Purchase-Intent Promo
Use this strategy to strike a balance between your customer’s ability to browse the site and maximizing your opt-in rate. Purchase-Intent is defined as viewing the page for X-seconds, scrolling down Y% of the page, or adding an item to their cart. You can customize the timing and percentage delays based on your typical customer’s behavior.
3. The Exit-Intent Promo
Wait to display your promotion until your customer appears to be navigating away from your store. Catching them on their way out could mean the difference between an abandoned cart and closing the sale.
4. The Persistent Promo
This is a subtle, yet visible way to build your Contact list that doesn’t take up a lot of space. This hybrid promotion renders as a pill in the bottom corner of your page until triggered. Pills can be triggered by customer behavior or an expiring time-delay. When this happens, the pill will expand into a modal, a flyout, or a full page takeover depending on what design you chose.
5. The Post-Purchase Promo
This strategy is different because it targets the customer after they have completed their purchase. Use this to ensure opt-in collection by celebrating your customer with an offer they can save for their next visit. This strategy lays the foundation for building a repeat customer while they are still feeling the joy of their purchase.
Are you ready to get started? Start your free trial today and have your first opt-in module live in 5 minutes.
Chapter 2: Use ShopMessage with Popular Email Popup Tools
ShopMessage partners with the leading popup providers including Privy and JustUno to make it easy for customers to collect Messenger subscribers alongside email subscribers.
ShopMessage works hand-in-hand with all your favorite email popup tools.
If you’re like most eCommerce companies, you’ve been building your email list since day one so these strategies are old hat.
Adding Facebook Messenger opt-in buttons to existing email opt-in popups takes just a couple steps.
Instructions vary slightly depending on the provider so check out our help center or contact ShopMessage support if we can assist.
The advantage of integrating with your existing email capture tools is you can manage a single, unified opt-in experience and strive to capture both email and Messenger opt-ins at the same time.
Our partner’s popups work in addition to native ShopMessage tools (Chapter 1). ShopMessage popups are programmed to never compete on a page with an existing partner’s popup.
Chapter 3: Use the Reach of Facebook to Grow Your Messenger List
Building a Messenger Subscriber list doesn’t end there. Conceptually, anytime you engage a customer in a Messenger conversation they can opt-in to future Messenger communication. So what are some ways you can start a Messenger chat?
Here’s our shortlist:
Run Click-to-Messenger ads on Facebook to drive list growth.
Run Click-to-Messenger ads on Facebook.
Facebook makes it simple to launch an ad that directs people to a Messenger conversation instead of a website.
The downside, of course, is you have to pay for the ad placement to acquire more contacts.
But the upside is that the ad format offers a compelling way to interact with a potential buyer.
MVMT Watches, for example, used Click-to-Messenger ads to take shoppers to an interactive product guide on Messenger (and powered by ShopMessage).
Share m.me short links to send people directly into a Messenger conversation and grow your subscriber list.
Share m.me short links to send people directly into a Messenger conversation.
You can link to a specific Messenger message using an m.me short link. This can be especially effective if you’re running a giveaway or other promotion that encourages users to opt in.
Plus, you can share M Me links anywhere that hyperlinks are accepted.
For example, you can share the link over email to your most engaged customers. Or share it with your followers on a social media post.
The key tactic is to use your existing traffic from other channels to jumpstart building your subscriber list on Messenger.
Use comment capture on Facebook posts to open chats with people already engaging with your brand and convert them into contacts.
Use comment capture on Facebook posts to turn viral content into conversations.
You’ve probably seen Facebook posts encouraging you to comment. You can use Facebook’s private replies API to automatically send a Messenger message to anyone who comments on your post.
This then gives you the opportunity to engage them in a Messenger conversation.
Start Conversations with the Customer Chat Plugin.
You can start conversations directly from your website with the Messenger Chat plugin.
It’s a lot like other onsite chat plugins you’ve seen and interacted with, but since it’s powered by Facebook Messenger, you can continue the conversation even after the shopper leaves your site.
Plus, everyone that engages with you in chat can choose to opt-into future messaging.
Bottom Line
Messenger subscribers are extremely valuable for e-commerce brands. There are many tactics you can employ to start building your list.
