Let’s talk about cleaning up your landing pages and optimizing your list-building strategy using Smart Sense.
You’ve probably noticed a resurgence of pop-ups across the internet.
Everyone is building out their lists, which was fine when life on the web revolved around email.
But these days, there’s a new game in town. Email is but one of many channels that people are spending their time on. Messenger and SMS are competing with email for the title of the best channel for reaching customers.
Not to mention people splitting their time between their phones, laptops, tablets, and more.
So Many Channels, So Little Time
Customers are fragmented across the internet, between different channels and devices.
Gone are the days where everyone was accessible via email inboxes.
Savvy brands are deploying ALL the latest plugins and popups they can to keep up with the shifting trends of the modern consumer.
The goal is to make sure that customers can be reached wherever they are spending their time.
But can there be too much of a good thing?
List-Building Builds Clutter
The problem with trying to cover all your bases is that it’s not always pretty.
This mess of modals isn’t from the 90s—this was seen in 2019.
A pop-up for email, a modal for Messenger, a customer chat widget for onsite communication, and (not pictured) a page takeover modal on mobile devices.
Some shops are able to fine-tune their settings across the various products
It can quickly get hairy—no one wants to end up creating a modal mess on their page. Check out this piece for some help on choosing the right Messenger modal for your site.
A Smarter Solution for Contact Capture
But what if instead of throwing things at the wall and hoping that something sticks, your site was smarter?
The easiest thing would be to allow customers to opt-in with just one click using a Messenger opt-in, but this only works smoothly if the user is already logged into Facebook. Luckily, most users are, and it’s much harder to fake a Facebook account than it is to drop in a bogus email address.
But for the folks who don’t use Facebook, then what?
Typing an email in is no problem for desktop users who have a full keyboard and all their digits at their disposal, but typing in an email address on a phone can be a pain!
In that case, what about having them send you a text message instead?
Many factors affect how likely a customer will be to opt-in to your list.
What if your site could automatically detect these details about your visitors? Wouldn’t you want to make smart choices based on what device a customer is browsing from, whether or not they are logged in to Facebook, or if they’ve even been to your site before?
Smart Sense would just do the smart, right thing.
Display the modal with the highest likelihood of collecting your visitor’s contact info with the most frictionless modal at your disposal.
A mobile user that is not logged in to Facebook might find it a hassle to log in but probably wouldn’t mind shooting out a preset SMS message to start a conversation with your brand.
Smart Sense routes the user to the modal that is most likely to capture their contact information.
ShopMessage Smart Sense Technology
Smart Sense is designed to play nice with other 3rd Party modals, instead of competing for the customers’ attention like crabs in a barrel.
Smart Sense now comes standard for all growth plugins created through ShopMessage.
Visitor traffic will be directed based on factors (like the ones described above) to grow your lists without annoying your customers.
ShopMessage coordinates the various plugins and modals like a conductor leading an orchestra, or an air traffic controller. Create an experience that converts, rather than overwhelms.
Still have questions? Check out this help doc for more details!
ShopMessage has joined forces with 8+ e-commerce marketers in order to keep you in the loop of “The Future of Ecommerce Marketing”, a free virtual event taking place on the 7th of August.
Life is full of distractions. Cut through the clutter.
This event is designed to help fast-growing and well-established Ecommerce brands develop a roadmap for better profitability, a stronger brand, and use some of the most innovative marketing and growth strategies in the industry.
The event is free to attend, and by registering, you enter to win a ticket to Conversations Conference, Sept 13-15 in Austin,TX, as well as $100s in tech tools.
Shipping Notifications and order updates stick the landing for your customer’s post-purchase experience.
Customers are kept up to date on the status of their order and encouraged to continue building their relationship with your brand.
The Benefits of Shipping Notifications & Order Updates
Think of Shipping Notifications & Order Updates as an upgrade to your post-purchase follow-up experience. These Messenger strategies allow you to build brand loyalty and drive repeat business through automated post-purchase nurture sequences on Messenger.
Great graphic, McKinsey!
The postpurchase experience is a critical stage of the customer journey in shaping their perception of your product and brand. It influences how they will view the entire category, and can even determine whether or not they ever come back to your store. ShopMessage’s new post-purchase features create more touch points to entice your customer back to your store.
The best part is, all your customer touchpoints are in one place for your customer. Instead of digging through a cluttered email inbox to find their receipt or their thank you coupon, they can just find it in their Messenger chat history with your brand.
Shipping Notifications & Order Updates reduce customer friction to re-engaging with your brand while delivering value every step of the way.
Shipping Notifications Done Right Can Deliver More Than Just A Tracking Number
What are Shipping Notifications?
A new ShopMessage flow that updates your customer when their order is on its way to them.
The shipping notifications flow can help you keep your customers updated on their order throughout the fulfillment process.
What do they do?
The flow sends your customers a message on Messenger when their order ships. The message includes a tracking number (where available) and a link back to your Shopify store’s Thank You page.
If your fulfillment and logistics are on a dependable schedule, you can even fill the gap with cute messages along the way.
If you know that your shipping goes out on a 3-5 day schedule, you can send a message on Day 2 saying their package just on the truck. On Day 3 saying they just left the local sorting facility.
Advanced Shipping Notifications flow like this add character to your messaging. The goal is to keep customers engaged in the conversation all the way to delivery day and beyond. Follow-up these engaging updates with a Quick Reply. Allowing your customers a way to engage back with your brand tells Facebook that they want to keep the conversation alive.
More engagements with your customers give you more opportunities to make a great impression and redirect them back to your website or other destination of choice.
How Does it Work Though?
ShopMessage’s Shopify integration will listen for changes in your Shopify store’s order records.
When we’ve heard that the order is fulfilled via your existing fulfillment processes, ShopMessage will get notified. We’ll take that shipping info, drop it in our message template and kick off the Shipping Notifications flow for your customer.
Your customers will then receive a message accessible on both Facebook and Messenger containing their shipping information. We’ve even configured the default to include a link to your store’s Thank You page which contains their order information and tracking link.
Shipping Notifications is a flow that includes all opted-in customers from your site. Anyone who has purchased an item after your Shipping Notifications flow has been activated will be eligible to receive these shipping notifications, as long as they have already opted-in to messages from your business.
How the Order Updates Growth Plugin Can Help You Collect Opt-Ins for You Shipping Notifications Flow
What’s this New Order Updates Thing?
Order Updates is a new growth plugin placement option for Shopify merchants using ShopMessage. The growth plugin goes on your Thank You Page, displaying after the customer has completed checkout. at peak happiness with their purchase.
What does the Order Updates plugin do, again?
The Order Updates plugin gives your customers a way to sign up for updates about their order from the Thank You page.
The new growth plugin type also allows you, the merchant, to set up three follow-up messaging sequences for your customers right out of the box.
First, you can send an immediate confirmation that the Order Updates request has been received. As soon as they sign up for updates, they’ll receive this message confirming their sign up.
Second, the Order Updates plugin enrolls customer into your Customer Thank You flow. This flow contains the customer’s receipt, a link back to your Thank You page and any other messaging you would like to include. ShopMessage customers will very likely have this flow set up already, but if not, turning it on is simple. Flip the switch!
Third, this plugin will enroll the customer into the Shipping Notifications flow described above. Yes, it’s true that all opted-in customers will be enrolled in the Shipping Notifications flow. But, you still need them to opt-in before you can send them messages!
Customers will inevitably want to know where their order is. The Order Updates plugin is a great way to enroll customers into an automated Shipping Notifications flow that keeps them up to date on their order.
How is the Order Updates Growth Plugin so good at collecting opt-ins?
Unlike other growth plugins on your site, this plugin will display for all customers, whether they are logged in to Facebook from their browser or not.
This increases your chances of collecting valuable opt-ins while delivering real value to your customers at the same time.
Prompting customers to opt-in to receive messages about their new order is a recommended best practice. Offer real value in exchange for their permission to be messaged and you reduce the friction to collecting your customers’ permission to receive messaging.
This is a more convenient way to share info that you would be giving them for free in an email.
Allowing customers to sign up for Order Updates preempts an onslaught of order status inquiries in your customer support channel.
What About the Immediate Confirmation Message?
Your Order Updates plugin can also send your customer a message immediately after they sign up for updates. By giving your customer immediate feedback that their request to be notified has been heard, you’re able to start your relationship with your customer on Messenger on the right foot.
The immediate confirmation message feature is standard across all growth plugins. Read more about Immediate Confirmation Message and see how you can use it to enhance trust in your brand.
How to Get Started
First of all, sign up with ShopMessage if you haven’t already!
When you log into your dashboard, the Shipping Notifications flow will be displayed as a recommended flow to enable. Click here to walk through the details.
When you create a new growth plugin, the Order Updates plugin will be included in the list. Shopify stores can take advantage of this feature today. Don’t worry, more platforms coming soon!
If you already have the Shipping Notifications flow turned on, it will be enabled already.
If you don’t have it turned on yet, you can turn it on during the Follow-Up configuration for this growth plugin.
Turning the Shipping Notifications flow on here turns it on for all of your customers. It does not matter whether they opted in through the Order Updates plugin or a different plugin.
An effective Messenger Marketing strategy requires collecting OptIns from your customers. Opting-In is easy—as easy a click or two. It’s so easy that customers may not be sure what they had done to receive your messages.
The challenge is collecting OptIns without confusing your customers. First, you want to be transparent about how you are able to reach them on this new channel.
At F8, Facebook announced their company’s heightened focus on privacy and creating a good experience for their users. But, they also oozed confidence why Messenger is the future of business. Businesses should do their part to make the Messenger channel feel like a natural place to interact. In return, customers will continue their relationship with your brand.
Brands using ShopMessage’s Immediate OptIn Confirmation Messages are able to provide immediate feedback based on their engagements. This goodwill, in turn, lays the foundations for a customer to build a lasting relationship with your brand.
Wait, What’s an OptIn?
To communicate with your visitors via Messenger, you need to to get their permission first. An OptIn is how Facebook verifies who has permission to message whom. It’s the password that allows your business to proactively engage with your customers in Messenger.
Collecting Messenger OptIns is 2019’s equivalent of collecting emails 20 years ago. Businesses that invest in their list-building now will make Facebook Messenger their next big revenue-driving channel.
What’s the Immediate Confirmation Message?
Immediate OptIn Confirmation messages are a sweet feature upgrade for ShopMessage’s Growth Plugins. Businesses on Facebook are already using Growth Plugins to build Messenger subscriber lists.
It’s essentially a message that sends immediately after the Messenger OptIn event occurs. We’re not talking about days, hours or minutes here. We’re talking about messages that customers receive seconds after they engage with your brand.
Growth plugins were previously optimized around using the plugin to enter a customer into a messaging flow.
The problem was that flows don’t respond immediately. There is a time delay between the OptIn event and the receipt of the message. As a result, there will be a lag between the time that a Messenger OptIn event happens. This delay of even a few minutes can be enough time for a customer to lose interest.
This delay between action and reaction is not new. Even now, customers signing up via email address experience this problem.
With the Immediate OptIn Confirmation, businesses can set up a message that will send immediately. Then, seconds after the Messenger OptIn event occurs, your customer will receive a message from your business page in Messenger.
As a result, this creates a much better customer experience. You can build customer trust in this new channel by delivering the confirmation message immediately.
Since your customers are actively engaging with your brand, they are at peak receptivity to messages, despite the novelty of the channel. Customers receiving this external feedback that opting-in to messages with your brand was the right thing to do.
This micro-interaction with your business primes your customers to view your brand more positively. Furthermore, you can sweeten the experience by adding the delivery of a dynamic discount code. When you do this, you start your customers’ journey with your brand off on the right foot.
How To Use Immediate OptIn Confirmation Messaging Effectively
In order to be effective, you need to be in the shoes of your customer. An effective immediate OptIn confirmation is timely and relevant. Thus, it doesn’t distract your visitor from the thing you want them to continue doing.
Your customer will be able to trigger an immediate message one of several ways.
Visiting an M.Me Link from somewhere else on the internet
Clicking a send-to-messenger button on an onsite Growth Plugin.
Signing up for order updates — coming soon!
When this happens, a message will greet them. In order to be effective, the immediate message will be tailored around the context of the customer experience leading up to the OptIn event.
Visitors from an M.Me link may need additional context about what they gain from chatting with your business on Messenger. You can ask your visitors questions. You can then use their responses to tailor a more relevant landing page experience for them before moving them down your funnel.
People who click an onsite growth plugin will benefit from only receiving a brief confirmation message. You don’t want to pull their attention away from their onsite experience.
Mobile visitors may see your message as a push notification at the top of their phone as they are browsing. This is a great way to confirm receipt of the dynamic discount code in their inbox, without taking them off your site.
The most effective immediate OptIn confirmation messages treat Messenger as a companion experience. These messages support another interaction your customer is already having with your brand.
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?
The Problem Faced by Businesses on Messenger
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.
No one likes to be left hanging on the other end of the line, not knowing if they’ve been heard. The Messenger can now be paired with a conversation to create an engaging, frustration-free customer experience.
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.
No one likes a boring menu.
Why You Should Care About Messenger Menus
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.
How Messenger Menus are Getting an Upgrade
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.
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 what 75 menu CTAs look like.
This is certainly a lot of options, but a lot rides on you choosing the right hierarchy on the first level choice.
What if your customer needs more guidance?
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.
3 Ways Brands are Using Messenger Menus to Guide and Engage with Their Customers
Providing highly targeted product recommendations using a product quiz
Reframing FAQ as a conversational interaction instead of a long page of a text
Telling your brand story, fireside chat style
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.
3 Benefits of Using ShopMessage’s Messenger Menu
Take customers deeper into your chat experience using images, videos, carousels, and message quick replies before presenting an outbound link to your website.
Track customer behavior such as purchases on your site that direct results of interactions with different Menu items.
See which conversations are engaging your customers the most. Understand what’s resonating about your brand by following the data.
Newcomers will see a Get Started option to engage with your page’s Messenger channel.
Where Does Your Messenger Menu Live?
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.
Your Messenger Menu is accessible from the main navigation.
How to Get Started with Your Messenger Menu
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.
5 Tips for Making the Most of Your Messenger Menu
Go beyond a simple set of nested links. Don’t just cross your fingers that you have what your customer needs.
Integrate your brand’s Messenger Menu with ShopMessage’s conversation message builders to create a more engaging, responsive experience for your customers.
Send your customers exactly where they want to go. Why send them to a landing page with your latest product releases if they have a preference for discounts and clearance?
Utilize quick reply button navigation so your customers can tell you what their preferences are. Based on their responses, you can present to them a collection of the most relevant products.
Communicate in your brand’s voice. A conversational medium deserves a conversational voice. Give emojis a try. Who doesn’t like to be greeted with a smile?
So, how about it? Are you ready to get started with ShopMessage?
Dynamic Discounts protect businesses from coupon fraud.
Most Shopify merchants have fallen victim to Coupon Fraud at one point or another. Bad apples always seem to rear their ugly heads to take advantage of your generosity when you’re giving away sweet discounts in your coupons.
We created Dynamic Discounts to give merchants a way to reward their customers for taking an action, while minimizing the merchant’s exposure to the risks of coupon abuse and fraud.
What are Dynamic Discounts?
ShopMessage’s new Dynamic Discounts are autogenerated, unique single-use discount codes that Shopify merchants can share without worrying about fraud or oversharing.
Customers that opt-in to Facebook Messenger conversations with your brand qualify for receiving these discount codes. Merchants have to set up their discount rules only once. Each customer that receives the Dynamic Discount receives a new code having the same discounting rules.
How Do Dynamic Discounts Work?
Dynamic Discounts plug into Shopify’s Price Rules API to create and distribute unique discount codes though Messenger. Your customers will always receive Shopify-compliant discount codes.
At the same time, you’ll gain better insights into the types of discounts that are driving the most value to your customers. You will gain a clearer picture of the growth drivers for your business. Your exposure to risk from potential coupon abuse will decrease dramatically.
Make discount code abuse and oversharing on coupon code sites a thing of the past with Dynamic Discounts!
Generate unique codes for each customer to limit coupon abuse.
What Kinds of Deals Can You Give?
The first great piece of news is that Shopify users will be already familiar with the functionality. It’s a lot of the rules that you’ve already used in Shopify natively.
Just in case you’e not familiar with the bells and whistles, here’s a quick run down of what deals are waiting for you.
Discounting by Type
There are three main types of discounts that we support.
Fixed Percentage: how about 10% off for signing up for that newsletter?
Fixed Amount: why don’t we hook up customers with $10 on their birthday?
Free Shipping: everybody loves a good freebie!
Choose what type of reward you want to incentivize without worrying about it being abused. You can give a percentage off, some flat dollar amount, or just throw in free shipping.
With all Dynamic Discount types, you get the benefit of knowing that your codes won’t get reshared or your coupons abused.
But that’s not all! Each discount type can have other Shopify restrictions applied depending on your marketing needs.
Discount restrictions are not mutually exclusive and you can combine multiple constraints to create Dynamic Discounts for all types of sales or promotions.
Leverage different discounting strategies and promotions dynamically.
Cart Catalog-Specific Discounting
Do you want to offer discounts for certain products or collections only? You can! Or, if you’re feeling extra generous, just apply the discount to the entire cart! Your customers will love it.
Discounting With Minimums
How about giving discounts with minimum requirements? Let customers spend $100 to get 25% off! Give FREE SHIPPING when a customer orders 3 or more items. Deals like this are easy with Dynamic Discount minimums.
Discounting Based on Scarcity
Scarcity discounts work really well when you want to create a sense of urgency. Drive engagement amongst your customers and followers of your brand with a deal that won’t last forever.
Maybe you want to hook up the first 100 people with an insane BOGO or giveaway—you can!
Or maybe you want to have an ongoing discount that can only be used once per person. You can do that too!
Time-Based Discounting
Seasonal sales and limited-time deals are great ways to incentivize customers to act quickly. The ephemerality of the deal increases the perceived value of what you’re offering.
Set up several in advance to create a truly awesome Cyber Week experience that brings customers back to see the latest you have to offer.
Where Can I Share My Dynamic Discounts?
The second great piece of news is that Dynamic Discounts fit seamlessly into the customer’s journey that is already taking place with your brand.
You already have the tools to spread your discounts. You just have to use them!
Distribution via Growth Plugins
Now you can give each and every person a unique discount code when they’ve discovered your brand.
If you’re using ShopMessage’s Growth Plugins to grow your Messenger contact list, you can now offer a unique Dynamic Discount code to everyone who joins your family.
Just like in email signups modules, you can reward new users for signing up for Messenger communications with your brand.
You can display your Dynamic Discount on the completed state of your growth plugin after a visitor has opted in. At the same time, send this same code to your users as part of the welcome message you send confirming that they have opted-in to messages.
People get interrupted, distracted, or just plain forget what they were doing whether we like it or not. Reminding them to come back later is easy when you leave them a discount in their inbox.
Distribution via Messenger Flows
Send your contacts a unique code through Messenger that can be saved for later.
Create discounts in your Abandoned Cart flow for customers that can only be used on each specific cart.
Make unique Browse Abandonment and Winback flows to make it less risky for you to lure your customers back. Some customers just need an extra push with an attractive discount.
What’s better than converting your paying customers into loyal fans of your brand? Give them the true VIP treatment with stupendous savings on their next order.
Who doesn’t like a good discount? Customers who receive discounts are 3x more likely to convert.
Start Using Dynamic Discounts
The third thing that’s great about Dynamic Discounts is that you can get started with them right now!
For existing Shopify merchants using ShopMessage, we’ve prepared a step-by-step walkthrough with all your questions answered here. Please note that you will need to accept updated Shopify permissions. These permissions will allow ShopMessage to set up Dynamic Discounts in the Discounts section of your Shopify store.
For non-Shopify merchants, let us know! We’re working on it next, but it’s always great to hear from our customers!
Not yet using ShopMessage? Click below to get started today!
