One of the biggest new trends in digital marketing and lead capture is chatbot automation. We have covered the basics on our blog as have many others. Now we want to get into some specifics on creating one of these with your Facebook Page's messenger and turning it into a marketing funnel. This will help to generate and nurture leads automatically so that you can focus on growing your business.
Using a Facebook Messenger chatbot marketing strategy makes it easy for customers to contact you, find out what they need to know, and ultimately become customers. However, there are even more strategic ways to use this feature in your digital marketing.
What is a marketing funnel?
A marketing funnel is a way to visualize the buyer's journey. It starts with brand awareness, moves down to interest, decision, and finally action. When people first begin learning about your business and its products/services, they are brought into the awareness section.
As they start following your social media profiles and opting into your lead magnets, they start moving down the funnel into interest. The decision-making revolves around comparing your business to competitors and actually reaching out for more information.
The bottom section of the funnel, action, is when someone finally decides to make a purchase and become a customer. That's where you want your leads to ultimately be.
Your Facebook Messenger chatbot can help you out with every single stage of your sales funnel, whether it's generating a lead, delivering the lead magnet, or even closing a sale.
How can Facebook Messenger work with your chatbot marketing strategy?
Chatbots are incredibly useful tools in digital marketing to help generate leads and automate communication with your audience. To get started, you'll need to create your chatbot. It's absolutely possible to do this directly through Facebook Messenger, but the easier option is to utilize third-party software to help build your chatbot.
You'll create your conversation trees, decide how you want to utilize your chatbot, and work your funnel into it. Here are a few different ways to create a marketing funnel with your Facebook Messenger chatbot.
Top of the Funnel
The top of the funnel is where people are starting to become aware of and interested in your business. This consists of social media follows, browsing your website, and other similar actions.
While on your website, scrolling down a blog post or sales page, perhaps a popup or slide-in box appears with a lead magnet offer. You can even include the embed directly within a webpage or blog post as well.
This can range from something like a discount code for ecommerce businesses to an ebook for informational or service-based businesses. There are many different options for your lead magnet, so it's important to consider what a brand new potential customer would be interested in before creating something most likely to grab his or her attention.
You can then use your Facebook Messenger bot as that delivery system. Include a teaser about your lead magnet with the Send to Messenger call-to-action button embedded from Facebook.
Once someone clicks that button, it'll send them to a page that asks them to opt-in to receive messages from your business. This is an incredibly powerful "in" for your business. It's even more powerful than an email address, as you now have this 1:1 direct communication line available.
You can also collect email addresses through your Facebook Messenger bot so that you have both lines of communication to your potential customer. You want to be sure you don't abuse this, though, or people will sour on your business and its marketing.
After you've received your opt-in, you can deliver the lead magnet directly through your Facebook Messenger bot to keep communication seamless.
Middle of the Funnel
After potential customers have received their lead magnet, your business now has the opportunity to continue messaging them, nurturing them along the way.
Again, you do not want to overdo this, or the user will opt out, never to be heard from again. Instead, you want to use this sparingly, but enough to offer value and stay top of mind.
For example, you can follow up to ask how users liked their lead magnet. Include thumbs up and thumbs down options to keep their answers simple, and have ready-made responses from your chatbot. You can also ask multiple choice questions, send links for more information about your business, and send out general engagement messages.
The fun part about using a chatbot is that your messaging is much different than in an email. Your messages will be much shorter, just like a regular direct message to a friend. You don't send novels when messaging your friends, right? Well, maybe, depending on the context, but not every time you message them.
You don't want to do that to your customers, either. Start by asking questions that are relevant to your industry in an effort to qualify the lead. For example, a web design company could have their bot send out a message asking how much a person/company's budget is for a new website. If their budget is too low, you know that's not a qualified lead.
Bottom of the Funnel
Last, but not least, you want to get your lead to take action! You want them to buy! So what can you do after you've generated and qualified the lead to get them to actually take the leap and become a customer?
This is always the hardest part, and therefore the smallest part of the funnel. Only a fraction of the people who become leads will actually end up making a purchase. It's the nature of the beast.
Those who have already gone through the top and middle sections of your funnel have been primed and are just about ready to buy. There are a few ways to do this. One option is to send a survey or questionnaire to determine if someone has a problem, then make your sales pitch alongside their results. If your product/service fixes their problem, they might just be in the mood to buy.
As an alternative, you can tease your new products/service. You can offer a free trial or discount code. Find some way that perfectly primes your chat recipients and gets them in the mood to make a purchase to solve the problem that they're facing.
Chatbot marketing doesn't have to be confusing. With these guidelines, you can find the perfect Facebook Messenger chatbot marketing funnel for your business and start generating and qualifying leads in no time. Contact us to learn more about how we can help get your chatbot up and running.
Written By: David Carpenter
