Digital Transformation and Marketing for Franchises: Fundamental Steps
In today’s business landscape, digital transformation is a crucial factor for the success of any company, including franchises.
Read More
Facebook messenger has more to offer than you might think for your sales and marketing strategy.
min de leitura
You have probably used Facebook Messenger to talk to your friends and family. But…did you know that you can use it for your business in a much broader and advantageous way? Sales, negotiations, promotions, and customer service are just a few of the ways you can use this chat service. Want to find out the rest of the benefits it can bring? Find everything you need to know in this exclusive report.
The story goes like this: a sales manager for a company that sells gourmet products scheduled a meeting.
He gathered his community manager and all his workers to the marketing area. Basically, he asked them to stop putting ads on Facebook and to focus only on Instagram, Pinterest, and other social networks.
Why?
To focus on pictures and move away from a social network in decline, according to him. A sad site, with battered credibility with a dwindling audience. This manager didn’t think it was worthwhile to focus his efforts on a site that was on its way to certain death.
But then one of his marketing agents laid out the numbers and made him doubt himself.
At this point, this sales manager from the gourmet foods company, who was decisive but also good at listening, was beginning to doubt himself. He let his agent keep explaining why they needed to keep investing in Facebook campaigns.
Above all, he was intrigued by the possibility of using Facebook Messenger for business.
How had he never thought that the potential in Facebook isn’t just social or viral, but also in its capacity for direct communication?
Why had he never talked to his specialists about this before?
Well, as always, better late than never. There’s always time to join a trend that still has some legs left.
And the fact is that you, too, should consider joining this method of communication, Facebook Messenger, which has much more to offer than you could have imagined.
To give you an idea, Facebook Messenger has about 1.3 billion unique users. Of those, 400 million make audio and/or video calls using the service, as well as communicating via chat.
So thinking of commercial uses of this mode of contact is practically the logical next step from its development.
That’s all great, but…how do businesses use Facebook Messenger for businesses? There are many ways and multiple purposes. That’s exactly what we’ll tell you below, so you can visualize the possibilities it will provide.
These are a few areas where you can get the most out of Facebook chat:
It has already been established that 74% of people would rather chat with a business to resolve an issue than talk on the phone. This number is backed up by the 2 billion messages that users on various apps exchange with companies every month.
That’s a big number! Still thinking of skipping this trend?
It’s no surprise that Facebook Messenger opens a wide range of possibilities when it comes to contacting your customers. They know that they are talking to a brand, they recognize the official site and can take your word as official. With Zenvia Conversion’s shared inbox, your team can work collaboratively with these customers to reposnd to their questions and resolve them in record time.
Imagine that you want to sell reservations online for a set of properties you have to rent, or because you work for a site like Booking.com or AirBnB.
Allow people to contact you through Facebook Messenger with just a simple button and the connection is made. Then you can link to another page or offer reservations directly in the chat.
You can configure a bot (I recommend chatbot.com) for the initial response, or, if you have a communications operator available, resolve the issue right away.
The same principle works when the reservation has already been made. Then you can set an automatic message with Zenvia Conversion so that your users can rate their experience and tell you how things went. All in the same channel.
Some important platforms like ManyChat claim that Facebook Messenger is ready to be the main conversational marketing channel in the coming years.
The most interesting part is that Messenger is similar to WhatsApp Business when it comes to marketing: it offers the option to send messages with images, audio, video, an ad, and of course links and other obvious elements.
This enriched format is THE communication channel of the future and will be the difference-maker when it comes to marketing. You can’t afford to miss out!
Think about it, there are so many possibilities: commercials, contact via bot, person to person communication, and even the chance of closing a sale completely via messenger.
Complaints are something no business hopes for, but every business has. A technical defect, failed shipment, a piece that didn’t work, or some problem with the order.
Any of these complaints can be attended to immediately using a chatbot or by one of your agents. And all without leaving Facebook Messenger.
Facebook ads give good results and are a great way to hook leads. But did you know that you can also create Facebook Messenger ads to attract prospects and land customers?
One of the most interesting aspects of these ads is that they are have a significant capacity to generate “local awareness.” In other words, they go directly to your zone of influence and get your audience interested, which is essential.
To give you a sense, 30% of marketers has the best ROI (return on investment) at the ads level.
And the most interesting part is that you don’t need to do anything complicated to configure them. You can do it all in the same Ads section in Facebook. That means it will look very familiar if you are already used to working with traditional Facebook ads. And if you’ve never done that, you’ll see it just takes a few minutes to learn.
Facebook Messenger is being used notably for something that is of interest to many businesses and companies: recruiting new employees.
Normally they mostly use it to set up chatbots to effectively ask common questions of job aspirants. This saves calls, meeting, teleconferences, and more. And it give you a well-defined profile of the person you may end up hiring for the job.
98% of businesses interviewed in a Hootsuite study admitted using Facebook for business. 44% of people who use Facebook say that it influences their consumer choices. In other words, you’re in a space where people are not exactly surprised that you are selling them something.
Quite the reverse: they have already said that they are interested in finding out about deals and receiving promotions, especially if they liked your page, or even more if they bought something from you.
Imagine that you could streamline a good portion of the sales process for your business with a simple enriched chatbot that leads the potential customer to a direct sale.
And that’s not to mention the future of sales made directly though Messenger, something that WeChat in is exploiting to incredible effect. Cell phones allow us to do everything in a few simple steps.
By including a simple “Send message” or “Contact us” button, which you can make with any Facebook Messenger API or a simple configuration from your developer, you can receive messages from users, potential customers, or regular customers.
In fact, a well-placed Facebook ad that facilitates direct contact is a great entry point for maintaining fluid communication. Plus, thanks to segementation you can be certain that you are reaching your target audience.
Now the sales manager understands exactly how he can use Facebook Messenger to do business and also which goals to focus on.
Because although numbers are important for a business, so are customer trust, skilled response to leads, and providing different options for each user.
The man wants to learn more, and he goes into a trance thinking about the possible benefits of this new method of communication promoted by a network he wanted to flee from…
But…what are the benefits and advantages of using Facebook Messenger?
It’s not just the obvious reasons of increased sales or communicating with your clients better. There’s more that make this environment the perfect place for communication.
92% of Facebook users have Messenger installed on their cell phones. That means that anyone can access this type of system.
And that’s not all: because it’s a hybrid app, it can be used on both iOS and Android, breaking all barriers.
It’s estimated that the open rate for Facebook Messenger is 80%.
It’s not just the open rate that is great, but also the response times, which can be immediate in come cases, or just a few hours in others.
And here’s something great: the user can respond when they feel ready to do so, without any annoying pressure that could lead them to cut off communication.
Plus, the ads sent via Facebook Messenger are an excellent option for starting a conversation with a user. And to get them to answer!
The Facebook Messenger is an environment everyone is familiar with.
This isn’t a new messenger system, no one has to install an extra app, they just use the same one they use to communicate with their family and friends.
On top of that, once you choose a name no one else in the system can have it, making it impossible for people to be confused and helping you build brand value.
Here’s a piece of data not to be ignored: 35% of the audience for Facebook ads are under 25.
Never forget that the Millennial market is the most important right now, as they are already a leading segment in certain metrics. And you need to speak their language in order to reach them.
Did you know that just 31% of businesses on Facebook use Messenger as communication option?
This isn’t a negative sign, not at all. It is still a large percentage, and these numbers also mean that you can beat the crowds.
Now you’ve seen that there are plenty of benefits and ways to use it. And not just for big companies. Keep in mind that over 80 million small and medium businesses have a page on Facebook and you don’t have to be a colossus to turn a profit with this communication channel.
Without a doubt, the Facebook Messenger bot is a total success and is being used all over the world as an automatic response for customers and user There are more than 300,000 chatbots on Facebook in 200 countries.
You can also use your own contact team if you prefer more personalized communication. It’s always a good idea to support a direct link to human agents.
Now he knew the benefits, the numbers showed him something completely different than what he had thought. Furthermore, he realized that it wasn’t as difficult as he thought to capitalize on its potential. And he hadn’t even seen the examples of how other businesses have used it.
These days, marketers around the world believe that Facebook is still the best platform for B2C and B2B businesses.
The enormous advent of conversational marketing and the revolution of messaging services for interpersonal communication is a reality.
That’s why it’s not crazy to look at how big businesses are using this form of content. And what better way than looking at some examples and the results they have generated?
Worldwide, more than 5 million businesses have paid for advertising on Facebook. The ads bring in good revenue. Do you think they’ll leave Messenger out of their campaigns?
Here you can see four cases of multinational businesses who are getting great benefits from chat and all its possibilities.
If you are someone who has read, heard, or thought that Facebook is falling apart, that more and more people are leaving for other social networks or that it’s not useful for business, you’ll have realized that’s not the case.
The statistics show exactly the opposite: it is still the most used social network and the possibilities are still growing, especially in Facebook chat.
Being stubborn about these ideas could cause you to lose sales, communication fluidity, and the ability to directly reach a segmented public, just what you were looking for.
I’m not saying that you will just use this option. No.
From now on, don’t stop learning about new options in conversational marketing, don’t get focused too much on one option when it comes to establishing contacts, categorizing leads, and closing sales.
Ominchannel communication continues to open doors, and it is good to consider other channels to amplify the stream. You have options like WhatsApp Business, which is already demonstrating great value. There are also super-emergent opportunities with enormous potential like RCS for Android and Apple Business Chat.
In fact, more and more businesses are adapting to an omnichannel conversational strategy.
But our old and beloved Facebook Messenger, a service that is being used more and more throughout the world, is being established as a great option for increasing sales and making your business stronger in every sense.
Obviously every market niche has its secrets, and not every tool works the same way. Nothing guarantees success just because you’re going to use Facebook Messenger. But there are plenty of reasons to believe in their potential.
In broad strokes, why should you consider starting to use Facebook Messenger for your business? For reasons like this:
Now, since we’ve been talking about an omnichannel strategy, what happens if you get messages every day, not just on Facebook Messenger, but via other channels?
Without going into too much detail, we know thousands of businesses that receive messages every day through WhatsApp Business. How can they respond to all of them?
That’s where Zenvia Conversion comes in, an omnichannel tool designed to centralize all your company’s chats in one place.
The interesting thing is that you can monitor your team with potential customers, as well as adding notes, reminders, or scheduling visits to scale sales processes.
At Zenvia Conversion we are up to date with all the changes that are happening at the conversational level.
That’s why we integrate with the official WhatsApp Business API and with Facebook Messenger, so you can handle all your messages in one place.
Are you going to be left out?
