Facebook Messenger Marketing gives brands a valuable new channel for growing revenue. Some strategies and tactics will be familiar, and some are brand new.
In this webinar, our co-founder and CEO, Arjun Ohri, walks you through it all. We’ll dive in and teach you everything you need to know to crush it with Messenger.
M.Me Links plugged into a ShopMessage conversation sequence give you a powerful way to engage with your fans, followers, and customers. Here are 7 ways you can set up M.Me Links powered by ShopMessage for your business today.
The first thing you should do is distribute an M.Me link in your emails and email signatures. Then email subscribers will convert into more engaged Messenger subscribers—low-hanging fruit!. Email has served us well for years, but you want to make sure that you are able to reach your customers wherever they happen to be. Using your email list to turbocharge the growth of your Messenger list is a great way to increase your ability to reach customers who may not always check their email.
At the same time, you should share links in social media posts. Name me a social media platform that doesn’t give you the way to share links? Tweet your links, drop them in a Facebook post description, pair with a Pinterest infographic pin, and even your Instagram swipe-up links all at the same time! Tailor the next step of the acquisition funnel to reference the preceding step’s contextual content.
While those are going out, why not sponsor a YouTuber / Influencer and have them stick the link in their video descriptions or bio. Drill down deeper with partnerships with your existing network of ambassadors. When you create a mutually beneficial experience for your two audiences with a personalized and enriching for their audience, everyone wins! Then you can both dive into the detailed conversation metrics at every step of the way.
Insert a Messenger CTA link in your digital marketing content. Longtail contacts will still receive the same appropriate messaging whether they find you immediately, or 5 months down the road. Imagine your e-book getting passed around and having the tracking to see all the new customers being driven by that document.
Put it in a QR Code and print it on your packaging materials right away! It’s a great way to remind customers after they receive their items that there’s more you can offer them. Imagine a code on your boxes or bags that can be scanned to hook your customers up with a Free Shipping discount. Forward-thinking brands can even print limited edition promo QR code shirts for your ambassadors to wear in real life. Guerilla marketing at high-traffic events like Coachella or South by Southwest is about to get a whole lot more interesting!
Have your M.Me link available as a contact channel on your website. It’s a nice alternative if you don’t have a dedicated customer support agent. When visitors have questions or demand to speak to the manager, you can send them here. An M.Me Link designed to handle inquiries and FAQs can be a great way to get people the answers they need without bombarding your customer support channels.
Last, but not least, consider a text. Daily Messenger volume now exceeds peak SMS volume. Texting a link is a great way to convert your SMS subscribers into Messenger contacts. Conversations happening over Messenger are less disruptive to your customers. At the same time, you can do a lot more to engage through a Messenger chat than through an SMS conversation. Make your brand more accessible via Messenger with additional signals to reach your customers on Facebook.
Ready to start turbocharging your Messenger list growth?
A frustrating Messenger Menu experience will turn off your potential customers. Frustrated customers walk away, happy ones stay. Businesses that are even thinking about using conversational flows to drive revenue should know this.
But how could a messenger menu be conversational?
Here’s a story about the current state of the persistent menu using the analog phone to illustrate the problem faced by Businesses on Messenger today.
Imagine that a customer calls your store’s telephone number. It rings and rings until finally, the customer hangs up because no one was there on the other end.
Slightly better would be if the customer could call and get at least a menu of choices. “Push 1 to Browse Collections. Press 2 for Frequently Asked Questions. Choose 3 for…” and so on, and so forth. As ridiculous as Pushing 1 to browse products sounds, this is basically the functionality of the existing persistent menus on Facebook these days.
But what if when a customer Pushes 1, the voice on the other end starts asking more questions. It learns what types of products the customer is looking for, or what size, and what color before it takes them to your site.
It’s almost as if there WAS someone there on the other end of chat the first time the customer came in.
ShopMessage’s Messenger Menu provides the tools you need to automate this concierge-style experience to more deeply engage with your customers.
There are over 20 billion messages being sent on Messenger between people and businesses each month. Customers are already using this channel to engage with your business.
The persistent Messenger menu is the first line of defense protecting your customer support channels from incoming customer requests. It gives customers control of their interaction with your brand.
Customers get the ability to navigate through a couple of layers of menu items to find what they’re looking for.
The trouble with this is that the customer journey is often complex, with many steps. You might need to ask your customers 3-4-5 or more questions to understand their needs and direct them to a solution.
With the existing persistent messenger menus, nested menus provide at most 2 levels of clarification. Your customers will need to click a link to some destination and the onus is on them to find what they are looking for from there.
ShopMessage’s conversational message sequences provide an extension on the standard persistent menu capabilities. You will be able to anticipate your customers’ needs and present their solution, automatically.
By default, Facebook allows you to set a persistent menu that customers can use to interact with your Facebook page on Messenger.
Chatbot.com’s Marina Ashkurina has a great walkthrough of the persistent menu basics.
TL;DR: You can set up a large tree of messages. You can have up to 93 Titles with 75 calls-to-action. 3 menu items with 5 sub-menus each having 5 double-sub-menus. The math checks out.
This is certainly a lot of options, but a lot rides on you choosing the right hierarchy on the first level choice.
Sometimes the customer needs a little extra help, and there may not always be anyone around to help. The phone will just ring and ring and ring. The dots that show the person on the other end of the chat is typing will never show up.
ShopMessage introduces the ability to take any of those numerous menu items and plug a message sequence into it. Doing this unlocks a much more robust way to further engage with your customer.
Basically, Customers can interact with your brand through a series of quick reply buttons in the conversation that narrows their search, categorizes their needs, and funnels them to the correct landing page.
And best of all, you can create and manage your Facebook pages’ persistent menu right from the ShopMessage app where you’re already using other flows to drive sales.
The persistent menu appears in Messenger chats with your Facebook page.
When a customer engages in a chat with your brand, and you have a persistent menu configured, it will be visible at the bottom of the viewport window.
To activate your menu, the “Get Started” button must also be enabled. New users attempting to chat with your brand must have a way to opt-in to receive messages from your Facebook page.
You can optionally disable the input field that allows customers to type whatever they like. Brands that don’t have the resources to invest in a dedicated human to respond to inbound customer requests would benefit.
Removing the ability to send messages effectively removes the expectation that a reply is coming soon. This, in turn, removes the direct point of frustration.
The Messenger Menu feature is live! To access the persistent menu, click the Messenger Menu item from the side navigation of your dashboard.
Here you’ll be able to set up your menu. Different stores will have different menu requirements. Next, learn to make the most out of your Messenger Menu.
So, how about it? Are you ready to get started with ShopMessage?
M.Me Links (a.k.a M-Me Links, Messenger Links, M-Dot-Me Links, Mmmmm links) are an essential component of your conversational marketing strategy for two reasons.
First, Facebook Messenger stands to be THE revenue channel of 2019 for businesses on Facebook. You may have an email list already, but do you get 80% open-rates and 25% CTRs on your emails?
M.Me links allow you to migrate your users over to a more engaging and effective conversation channel with your customers.
Second, ShopMessage combines the versatility of a hyperlink, the efficiency of automated user flows, and the authenticity of a conversational interface. This triple-threat marketing tool helps you collect all the info you need while building an ongoing relationship with your Messenger contacts.
This new functionality enables businesses to create a scalable concierge-style experience for customers discovering their Facebook Messenger chat from across the internet.
In 2016, Facebook announced M.Me Links. These are a native feature that allows businesses to spread links around the internet for potential customers to discover. When clicked, these links open up a Messenger conversation with your Facebook business page.
Facebook created usernames for your Facebook pages which make it easier to find your business on Facebook. We set “shopmessage” as our custom identifier. When you click https://www.facebook.com/shopmessage, you’re taken to the Facebook page for ShopMessage.
You business page’s M.Me links also use these identifiers. When you click https://www.m.me/shopmessage, you’re taken to a Messenger chat conversation with our business page.
When you arrive in this conversation, one of two things will happen:
Although Facebook has honored custom ref params on M.Me links since the feature has been available, you couldn’t use them for much more than tracking traffic.
Don’t get me wrong, tracking traffic is important. In fact, ShopMessage lets you track link clicks and revenue associated with customers earned through each of your M.Me links so you can drill down into the traffic sources that are working for you.
But what if you don’t want the customer journey to stop there?
Now you can continue the conversation with the people clicking through to your brand. You’ll be able to customize a unique set of responses for users that click M.Me links made in ShopMessage. You will also have data tracking the clicks and sales driven by your custom M.Me links.
This is the first significant improvement in your customers’ experiences with M.Me Links since 2016. Now visitors can receive an immediate response from your brand that speaks to where your customers are coming from.
They won’t have to type in anything and wait for a human to respond. Your chat experience will be more engaging because it says the right thing to your visitor as soon as they arrive.
Oh, and we made it so you can make your custom ref param any string of text you want. Remembering and sharing links should be easy.
The key change here is context.
Now, you can craft intelligent, thoughtful responses that acknowledge the preceding context of your customer’s journey. Rather than staffing someone behind the chat, your responses will be ready to deploy whenever a visitor appears through your link.
Your customers won’t experience the confusion of getting excited about your brand, clicking the link, and not having any kind of follow-up to push them through to the next step of your marketing funnel.
Merchants using ShopMessage can use M.Me Links to create a conversational experience. These messages greet visitors coming from different traffic sources across the web in a contextually relevant way. A few words go a long way in easing the transition into a Messenger conversation with your brand.
You can tailor your custom ref parameters to different incoming customer experiences.
1 A user clicks a link in your email newsletter, blog or twitter feed and receives a dynamic discount code. It’s a great way to thank them for their readership.
2 A visitor sees an ad on Instagram with a link to learn more about your products and services. Clickers are taken to a Messenger chat thread that asks them some easy quick-reply questions. These can help identify where in the purchasing cycle they are or what their preferences are. Then you can send them a link to the most appropriate landing page.
3 A customer receives their item. The packing slip has a QR code on it. When scanned, it sends them an animated gif in Messenger that thanks them for being a loyal customer.
There is no limit to how many M.Me Link parameters you set up. Just make sure that each parameter is unique to your page.
ShopMessage merchants can create conversational M.Me Links like they would other growth plugins. Select M.Me from the list of Growth Plugin types in the Growth Plugin creation flow.
M.Me Links are a type of Growth Plugin. This is because they help businesses grow their relationship with more customers in Messenger. Using M.Me Links made through ShopMessage is a win-win. They create a great experience for your customers while growing your brand’s list of Messenger contacts along the way.
Contacts created through your M.Me growth plugins will qualify for other Messenger Marketing flows you have set up in ShopMessage. This includes customer retargeting flows like cart abandonment and browse abandonment. Instead of just creating a chat, you’re creating a future relationship with these visitors.
Lastly, M.Me Links work across the internet wherever links are shared. Here are a few ideas to help you get started.
Distribute in your emails and email signatures and convert those email subscribers into more engaged Messenger subscribers. Email has served us well for years, but you want to make sure that you are able to reach your customers wherever they happen to be. Using your email list to turbocharge the growth of your Messenger list is a great way to increase your ability to reach customers who may not always check their email.
Share them in social media posts. Name me a social media platform that doesn’t give you the way to share links? Tweet your links, drop them in a Facebook post description, pair with a Pinterest infographic pin, and even your Instagram swipe-up links! Tailor the next step of the acquisition funnel to reference the preceding step’s contextual content.
Sponsor a YouTuber / Influencer and have them stick the link in their video descriptions or bio. Drill down deeper with partnerships with your existing network of ambassadors. Create a mutually beneficial experience for your two audiences by making the experience super personal and enriching for the audience, with detailed conversation metrics at every step of the way.
Insert a Messenger CTA link in your digital marketing content. Longtail contacts will still receive the same appropriate messaging whether they find you immediately, or 5 months down the road. Imagine your e-book getting passed around and having the tracking to see all the new customers being driven by that document.
Put it in a QR Code and print it on your packaging materials. It’s a great way to remind customers that there’s more you can offer them. Imagine a code on your boxes or bags that can be scanned to hook your customers up with a Free Shipping discount. Print limited edition promo QR code shirts for your ambassadors to wear IRL for some guerilla marketing at high-traffic events like Coachella or South by Southwest.
Have your M.Me link available as a contact channel on your website. It’s a nice alternative if you don’t have a dedicated customer support agent. When visitors have questions or demand to speak to the manager, you can send them here. An M.Me Link designed to handle inquiries and FAQs can be a great way to get people the answers they need without bombarding your customer support channels.
Daily Messenger volume now exceeds peak SMS volume. Texting a link is a great way to convert your SMS subscribers into Messenger contacts. Conversations happening over Messenger are less disruptive to your customers. Become more accessible via Messenger with additional signals to reach your customers on Facebook
Are you ready to get started?
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.
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.
We recommend three ways to build your Messenger Subscriber List. We’ll dive into each.
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:
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.
For online retailers, brand matters. That’s why we offer dozens of beautifully designed templates, all of which are completely customizable.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
ShopMessage partners with the leading popup providers including Privy and JustUno to make it easy for customers to collect Messenger subscribers alongside email subscribers.
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.
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:
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).
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.
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.
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.
Messenger subscribers are extremely valuable for e-commerce brands. There are many tactics you can employ to start building your list.
The important thing is to get started.
Have you checked out ShopMessage Smart Pop-ups yet? What are you waiting for? Our new Smart Pop-ups
Example Strategy: ShopMessage Promotion on Arrival
Beginning on April 9, 2019, Facebook will be completely disabling the Messenger Checkbox plugin’s pre-checked state. Don’t panic! We believe the change is good for customers and the ecosystem.
That said, you’ll need to think about alternative ways to build your Messenger subscriber list. Luckily, we just launched some really cool new tools to help you quickly grow your Messenger subscriber list. We can objectively say that they are WAY more effective and feature-rich than anything out in the market.
We’ve taken a proven opt-in method and brought it to the next level. Now, you can grow your list without hassling existing contacts. Our pop-ups only appear to users who are already logged into Facebook and have not already opted in. We also auto-detect other pop-ups so we never interfere with your existing email capture promotions.
Not only are they smart, they’re beautiful. Thanks to a talented design team, we offer hundreds of customizable templates so promotions are always “on brand”. We also let you choose exactly when to display your promotion with the option to immediately send a follow-up Message!
ShopMessage clients have seen ~81% open-rates and 34% click-thru rates. Take a moment to compare that to your current email open and click rates. Convinced yet?
