Facebook Messenger Marketing: How Does It Work?

The Facebook Messenger has some advantages. We explain how you use this for your marketing activities and customer communication.

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Marketing with messengers: that’s behind it

Social networks have been around since the 1980s, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that there was a real boom. Facebook started in 2004. Today it is hard to imagine the lives of most Internet-savvy people without it. That is why messenger marketing has a lot of potential. A potential that many small and medium-sized companies are not yet fully exploiting.

Messenger marketing includes various measures. This is always about an exchange between a company and a (potential) customer. Similar terms for it are Conversational Marketing and Conversational Commerce . The boundaries between the marketing and sales disciplines are fluid.

From Messenger Marketing to Facebook Messenger Marketing

Chat applications like WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger offer some advantages over other marketing messengers. These include, among other things, the enormous spread of messenger apps and the high level of usage. A life without WhatsApp or Facebook – almost unthinkable, right?

This is exactly why messenger marketing via Facebook Messenger is so interesting for you: It already has a lot of potential today. This is supported by these numbers, for example:

Facebook has over 2.7 billion monthly active users, of which more than 30 million are from Germany. Despite many prophecies of doom, the social network has been growing continuously for years.
Facebook Messenger is also very popular: more than 1.3 billion people use the chat application at least once a month.
Facebook and its Messenger are used by teenagers and older people alike.
According to Facebook, 40 million companies around the world use Messenger and use it to exchange 20 billion messages with their customers every month.
The opening rate of messenger messages is far higher than that of e-mails. Various evaluations speak of opening rates of 80 to 90 percent. One of the reasons for this is that most messages appear as push messages on the smartphone display or in the web browser.

In other words: Facebook and its Messenger are popular around the world. In addition, the chat program has a few special advantages over WhatsApp and other competitors:

The messenger is not linked to your mobile phone number. You can simply start it on all devices with your Facebook login.
The Facebook Messenger has an interface to integrate chatbots. Ideal if you want to automate your customer service, for example.
It is very easy to connect your company’s Facebook page to Messenger – and vice versa.
You can run ads called sponsored messages. You can use it to notify your customers of new offers, for example.

How to use Facebook Messenger correctly for your marketing activities

There are three areas in which Facebook Messenger marketing shows its full strength:

Consulting and Sales

Messenger marketing is also known as conversational commerce because it bridges the gap between the analog and digital world. You can use Facebook Messenger to advise interested parties about your products or services and forward them to your online shop with a link.

Most customers appreciate the fast, direct nature of a chat program. They are usually well informed because they have carried out intensive research beforehand. Often they only have a few questions – and they are ready to buy.

Strengthening the brand

If a company can be reached quickly and also via a modern messenger, this has a positive effect on the image and the brand. In order not to destroy this positive image, you should always respond to inquiries as quickly and friendly as possible.

If you or your company are difficult to reach via Facebook Messenger, this damages your reputation. Likewise, if your customers feel that they have been treated rude or incompetent.

Customer inquiries and help

What is often forgotten: The aftercare of customers is also the responsibility of marketing. Because nothing is as valuable as a satisfied existing customer!

Use Facebook Messenger to score points with support. If you respond professionally to customer concerns, you improve the reputation of your company and, at the same time, customer loyalty.

You can also use conversational marketing to increase efficiency: yours slow communication via email , FAX or letter is reduced thanks to the Facebook Messenger.

Information and promotional offers

Since we’re on the subject of efficiency: Facebook Messenger is very suitable as a supplement or as a replacement for newsletters and classic mailings.

You benefit from several advantages:

The Facebook algorithm doesn’t filter anything out in its messenger, every message really arrives. And: There is no spam folder!
As already mentioned, the messages have a very high opening rate.
You can use special Facebook ads to “ping” customers with whom you have not had contact for a long time.

Do you need a special marketing tool for marketing via Facebook Messenger?

No, not necessarily.

When it comes to messenger marketing, many people immediately think of complicated chatbots or Facebook bots and complex automation programs. But they are not necessary at all to get started.

Self-employed as well as small and medium-sized companies can start out in conversational marketing in a down-to-earth manner. That means: instead of buying special Facebook Messenger marketing software, it is initially sufficient to install the messenger on your smartphone. This gives you the opportunity to always react quickly and directly to customer inquiries.

How to use Facebook Messenger better in a team

Should several colleagues in your company have access to the messenger messages? Or do you use several messengers? Then it makes sense to use a unified communications platform such as Chatwerk.

You and your team can conveniently communicate with your customers via an interface. And you control all of your messenger marketing activities centrally via one tool.

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