E-commerce brands compete for customers’ attention throughout the entire holiday season. Forward-thinking brands are adopting new marketing channels like SMS and Facebook Messenger to message customers directly and achieve better open rates and conversions. It’s these brands that will cut through the noise and effectively retarget Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) visitors and follow-up with BFCM purchasers.
Average open rates for Facebook Messenger apps are over 80% while SMS open rates average over 98%. These two channels can work with email to help you reach customers through the right channel, at the right time.
To help you familiarize yourself with Messenger or SMS as marketing channels, I’ve outlined some easy and actionable ways to use them to boost sales and increase customer loyalty.
Build Facebook Messenger and SMS subscribers using email
One of the biggest challenges when launching Facebook Messenger or SMS is figuring out how to get new opt-ins to your email list. But if you’re using email marketing, you already have an existing base of email subscribers. Why not use this list to fuel subscriber growth for both Messenger and SMS?
For customers to subscribe on Facebook Messenger, they have to engage with your page’s Messenger first. To encourage this type of engagement, send customers an email that redirects them to your Facebook Messenger channel through a custom Messenger Link.
Once they engage with Messenger, they become a subscriber. The conversation you guide them to can also ask for their phone number to encourage them to become an SMS subscriber as well.
Send a post-purchase survey to BFCM customers via email
Another great reason to use Facebook Messenger is to collect valuable customer insights. You can do this with surveys that ask questions like:
- How was your purchase experience?
- How do you like your new product?
- Would you recommend this brand to a friend?
…and any other data you’d like to collect!
Finish off your survey by asking for their phone number, to increase SMS subscribers.
Pro tip: Don’t forget to stay true to your brand voice. You can use your brand’s personality to keep the quiz engaging!
Pro tip: Don’t forget to stay true to your brand voice. You can use your brand’s personality to keep your survey engaging!
You can then create a link for this conversation and share it outside of Messenger to drive traffic to your survey. For even more personalization, create multiple surveys with specific questions around products purchased and target multiple email flows to customers of different products.
Other techniques to drive Messenger subscribers include:
- Post Messenger conversation links to your Instagram stories
- Share Messenger conversation links in your email marketing
- Use a Facebook comment capturing opt-in tool to send a Facebook message to everyone who comments on a Facebook post
Any way you can send customers to your Facebook Messenger will help increase Messenger engagement and, therefore, subscribers.
Target conversational Facebook Messenger Ads to recover lost BFCM opportunities.
Did a customer add an item to their cart only to abandon it and get lost in the BFCM noise? Retarget abandoned cart customers with Click-to-Messenger ads or sponsored messages.
What are Click-to-Messenger ads?
These are similar to Facebook ads, but instead of directing the user to a landing page, it launches a conversation with your chatbot. This is a great way to encourage opt-ins to your bot and retarget those who’ve engaged through Messenger.
What are Sponsored Messages?
This is an ad sent as a message to Facebook users you’re already connected to on Messenger. You can trigger these messages based on Facebook custom audiences and event data. For example, you could send a message if they don’t follow your Instagram account trying to encourage them to do so.
How to use Click-to-Messenger ads to target lost sales and increase subscribers
You can use Facebook ads manager data to target your ad to people who have viewed your site, viewed a product page, added to cart, and more.
This is a great way to target site visitors who have viewed your site or BFCM landing pages but didn’t convert to a purchase. The real upside is everyone who clicks on your ad is sent a message on Messenger. Once that person engages, they become a Messenger subscriber.
Digital agency MuteSix used Octane AI to create Click-To-Messenger Facebook ads and generate 6X ROAS for Beekeeper’s Naturals. Learn how they did it here.
Leverage SMS and Facebook Messenger marketing to send personalized follow-ups
Sending a personalized post-purchase “thank you” message via SMS to BFCM customers can increase your customer lifetime value and customers to return. Especially if you incentivize them to purchase again in the future!
The power of multichannel communication
Using SMS, Facebook Messenger, and email together can help increase the opt-ins you collect across all channels. Use one channel to drive new subscribers to another, and foster more engaged 1:1 relationships with your customers on the channel they prefer.
With more channels to message your customers, you can collect more data through each channel and use this data to better segment messaging across all channels. This will help you increase open rates, conversions, and ultimately drive more revenue.
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