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How Chat Marketing Can Maximise Your Black Friday Sales

There’s no denying that 2020 has been a tough year for most people because of COVID-19. But, one silver lining that is comforting business owners right now is how more individuals are buying online and spending more time on social media.

It’s also an interesting side-effect of local and national lockdowns. Consumers are buying more from online retailers than they were before COVID-19 lockdowns. For example, High Street retailer Next has seen its online sales grow by 23% in the last quarter.

As we approach the last few weeks of 2020, most e-commerce retailers are busy turning their attention to the final two big shopping days before Christmas. They are, of course, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Those two days offer a plethora of online marketing potential for e-commerce brands and represent a real way to bolster their profits for the year. As an e-commerce retailer, you are undoubtedly looking forward to taking advantage of those two major promotional events.

You’ve likely used a variety of marketing ideas to some success in previous years. But, have you ever considered how Facebook Messenger marketing can maximise your brand’s online sales? If the answer’s no, keep reading to learn more about this exciting marketing channel!

The real power of Facebook Messenger

As you already know, Facebook is one of the world’s leading social networking platforms. According to Statista, there are 2.7 billion active global users of Facebook as of the second quarter of 2020. And over 45 million people in the UK regularly use the social network.

Statista also reported that there were 1.3 billion global users of Facebook Messenger back in 2017. And that number has likely increased substantially, given the continuous rise of active Messenger users each year.

Many e-commerce retailers will have undoubtedly spent some time marketing their brands and products using the Facebook advertising platform –  especially for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

But, Facebook Messenger should also get utilised as a powerful online marketing channel for all e-commerce retailers. Here’s why:

Messenger is a consumer’s preferred communication method

These days, more tech-savvy consumers are opting to use smart assistants to make their purchases. Gone are the days where customers had to spend minutes, even hours trawling through a website looking for the products they want to buy.

Convenience and personalisation are essential for successful customer journeys. Consumers want to get shown the products they want and need quickly and Facebook Messenger offers the perfect platform for e-commerce retailers to achieve that goal.

Messenger is preferable to email

Most people with Facebook profiles will also use Messenger regularly. The thing is, those same individuals prefer using Messenger to opening emails. Did you know that marketing emails only achieve an average open rate of just over 22%?

In comparison, Facebook Messenger’s message open rates are a whopping 80% on average! Plus, messages sent through Messenger won’t get blocked by a spam filter or lost in a sea of messages.

What’s the deal with Messenger chatbots?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are fast approaching, and all e-commerce retailers need to maximise their online marketing efforts for those events. More people than ever before are turning to social media for their purchasing, and Facebook Messenger in particular.

But how do you use Facebook Messenger as part of your e-commerce marketing campaigns for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? The answer is simple: you adopt a chat marketing strategy utilising a Messenger chatbot.

In case you didn’t know, Messenger chatbots are automated ways to engage with consumers on the Messenger platform. Here’s a rough example of how they work:

  1. Your customer sends a message through your brand’s Facebook page. They want to know if you offer a specific product or one in a particular size or colour;
  2. The Messenger chatbot that you use automatically responds to the customer and answers their question.
  3. You can customise the chat experience, so your customer gets presented with a link to the relevant product page on your website. Or, even better, your customer can buy the product directly through their Messenger conversation with your brand.

Facebook Messenger chatbots offer e-commerce retailers an exciting way to attract and nurture their customers. You can customise your chatbots to your specific needs, and grow highly converting subscription lists – something that’s hard to do with email marketing.

If you’re still not convinced, here’s just a few of the many ways that Facebook Messenger chatbots can help you grow your brand and its target audience:

It will generate more sales for your brand

You’ve seen a glimpse at the potential Messenger chatbots offer when selling products online. The great thing about Messenger chatbots is they offer a truly personalised customer experience.

You’ll save time and money

While many traditional online marketing campaigns offer a degree of success, Messenger marketing is undeniably the best at saving you time and money. When you use a well-mapped Messenger chatbot, you’ll soon wonder why you didn’t start sooner!

Your customers can enjoy a unique customer service experience

Messenger chatbots aren’t just useful for generating sales. They’re also great at dealing with customer service enquiries and ensuring your customers get the answers they want quickly and professionally.

What’s more, your customer service team can dedicate more of their time to dealing with enquiries through other online and offline mediums.

How to smash Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Are you ready to start growing your Messenger subscriber list and target people as part of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday chat marketing campaigns? Good! These following three steps will help you achieve a successful outcome:

1. Create a Black Friday and Cyber Monday subscriber list

The first thing you need to do is curate a subscriber list of customers as part of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday chat marketing campaign. You can do this by creating a sense of urgency among your potential customers.

To do that, you’ll need to create some ads on Facebook. When your ads hook prospective buyers, they can click or tap through to Messenger. The app will then open up a new chat window to your Facebook page.

You can also create ads to existing fans of your Facebook page that have previously engaged with you in some way or another. It’s vital you start curating subscribers as early as possible before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

2. Sign people up to your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals

Getting people into Messenger is the first step to building your subscriber list, but in order to create a specific list for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you need to sign people up to receive a future notification from you in Messenger. 

Using Messenger’s ‘One-Time Notification’ allows you to do exactly this, and also ensures that you are playing by the (everchanging!) Messenger rules..  

3. Broadcast your message to your subscribers

Last but not least, it’s time to send your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing message out to your Messenger subscribers! There’s one final trick you should bear in mind and that’s the “One Time Notification” function on Messenger. Once you get your subscribers to sign up to your Black Friday / Cyber Monday Messenger campaign, you will then able to freely send them all the juicy details about your deals and promotions by broadcasting your message to them

Let’s say that the goal of your message is to gather a group of interested customers that want to know when your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals will hit. You can use the One Time Notification function to give you permission to contact them again nearer the time.

When you’re ready, you can then message your subscribers with a link to your website, or give them a special discount code, depending on your offer.

Final thoughts

Facebook Messenger has enormous e-commerce potential, particularly when used with a chatbot. It’s an innovative way to connect with your target audience, and chat marketing offers a much higher ROI than conventional online marketing.

The tips above will hopefully give you an idea of just some of the potential Facebook Messenger offers e-commerce retailers.

If you’d like to hear more about the amazing Chat Marketing strategies that we can implement for your business, please get in touch, we’d love to chat. 

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