Facebook Messenger will be the main marketing channel in 3-5 years if the 4000+ marketers at Social Media Marketing World have anything to do with it.
Earlier this year, I attended #SMMW18, and almost every speaker was talking about Facebook Messenger Marketing. You might wonder why. Well, as you know, us marketers love to have our stuff opened and clicked on. Email has been our tool of choice for years but there is a new game in town, and it's called Facebook Messenger.
Linda Lee @lkleeinla of Facebook said you need to reach customers where they are. Right now 1.3 Billion people are in Facebook Messenger. The open and click-through rates are extraordinary, but first, let's look at those stats for email, so we have something to compare it with.
In their Email Marketing Benchmarks, email giant, MailChimp says that as of February 2017, the open rates for email range from 15-28% and the click-through rates range from 1.25% to 5.13%.
Here is what the speakers of Social Media Marketing World are reporting.
Andrew Warner: 98% open; 63% click-through
Rick Mulready: 94% open; 20-30% click-through
Molly Pitmann: 86% open; 24% click-through
Mike Yang: 80-90% open; 20-30% click-through
Kim Garst: 97% open; 49% click-through
Pretty outstanding isn't it? You can probably see why now, as marketers we can't ignore results like this, and neither should you. The culture is changing; people are using messenger apps more and more. We can do 10X in Facebook Messenger using chatbots as we can do in email. That's disruptive marketing if we ever saw it!
But don't think for a moment that you can just use the same strategy as you did for email. Facebook Messenger is not a broadcast medium, it is a conversation medium, and so you need to re-think how you communicate with people, as well as how it fits into your inbound marketing strategy. It is very much about building relationships with people, that know like and trust factor.
I've seen people fail miserably by trying to do the same ads as they use in the Facebook feeds in the Messenger feeds. As I mentioned earlier, you can't use the same strategy. Elicit conversations, act more human, and when you do, watch your engagement skyrocket.
I ran a test myself that yielded 400% more engagement than email. All the details in, "How to get 400% more engagement from Facebook Messenger" on my blog.
Hubspot also ran some great tests of their own.
At the moment chatbots are not really AI based, they are really more AAI (Artificial Artificial Intelligence) based. The best way to use a chatbot in a small to medium-sized business at the moment is as a bot-human hybrid.
If you're curious, check out our our human-bot hybrid for the #HUG18. If you have any questions about HUG18, you can connect with him at HUG.chat.
Don't miss my workshop and chance to create your first bot at HUG2018 with me this April!
Tweet Marni at @MarniMelrose.
Got questions?
Marni is only one of the amazing speakers you can expect at HUG18 on April 12, 2018 at Liberty Station. The full-day event will host 16 experts covering various topics covered under the umbrella of inbound marketing.
Got questions?
Still have questions about whether HUG18 is the right event for you? Check out our last event recap for more info.
SD Inbound is a 501(C)(3) founded to provide free and low-cost education to the local San Diego professional community. Learn more about SD Inbound and how you can get involved today.
