The average person receives 147 emails a day, and deletes nearly half of them.
People are so used to receiving marketing emails, open rates have stagnated over time, now averaging around 18%. In ecommerce, the average is more like 12%.
These days, subject lines have to be pretty damn compelling to get an open. And with email filters getting stricter, fewer promotional emails are getting through to the inbox.
Happily, there’s another way to reach a list of loyal subscribers – Facebook Messenger now has 1.3 billion users and boasts 70-90% open rates.
All-in-all, a Messenger subscriber now drives 4-5x more revenue than an email subscriber.
If you’re reading this thinking “I know how effective Messenger marketing is, but I don’t have anyone to send messages to!”, you’re in the right place.
I’m going to take you through six practical ways to build a list of engaged Messenger subscribers, but first let’s take a closer look at why Messenger marketing is so effective.
Why is Messenger Marketing so Effective?
Increased Mobile Use
In 2018, 58% of site visits were from mobile devices. As a result, 48% of email is now read on mobile. The problem is, email isn’t optimized for mobile. Email chains are long and cumbersome, images and videos can trigger spam filters and are hard to view, and conversations are far from instant.
Messenger is ideally suited to reading messages on the move. Past conversations are right there in the chat window. Links, images, and videos are all optimized for mobile and easy to consume. And you can chat in real-time!
In a world where most people consume content, do their shopping and search on the go, you need to be marketing through a mobile-friendly channel.
Insane Open Rates
Open rates for Messenger marketing are in the seventies and eighties across the board, with some marketers reporting open rates of up to 90%, and CTR of over 40%.
It’s not hard to see why. The technology is new, it’s still a novelty to communicate with a brand via Messenger, especially with a chatbot. On top of this, most users receive push notifications so they get a direct prompt to open the message, right in their pocket.
Make an Immediate Personal Connection
People use Messenger to communicate with friends and family. It is a far more personal platform than email, which is used for everything.
Email still suffers from over-formality, a hangover from the days of paper letters. Sure, you can personalize an email, but people are wise to it and can tell when you’ve mail-merged their name into a template.
Messenger conversations are, by their very nature, immediate, direct, and personal. Forget the “Dear Sir/Madam” or “All the best”, Messenger allows brands to display personality and engage with customers and leads in a friendly, down-to-earth way.
This puts people at ease and builds trust in your brand, invaluable in converting those leads into paying customers who are happy to come back and purchase again and again in the future.
Bypass the Spam Folders and Inbox Filters
With the proliferation of email marketing comes a backlash from email providers. Spam filters are more sophisticated and stricter, and Gmail has introduced a feature that filters promotional messages right out of the inbox.
Messenger bypasses these issues and gets messages into the hands of your leads, in real-time.
Jumper has a range of tools and integrations to help build your Messenger list so you can start leveraging the impressive open rates and engagement of Messenger campaigns.
6 Ways to Build a Facebook Messenger List
Email addresses have become the currency of the internet. It’s common practice to hand over your data for some free content or a special offer. But this has made people wary about giving out their information, worried about their already bulging letter bag of an inbox.
All you need to gain a subscriber on Messenger is for them to send you a message. They don’t have to give out any information, they just have to engage with you.
As a result, Messenger opt-in rates are 2-3x higher than average email opt-in rates.
The challenge becomes, how to get them on the platform.
From there, Jumper can help you do all sorts of things. Nurture them and build trust with further communication and offers, or jump right in and close the deal and allow them to check out right in the chat.
Here are the best ways to build your Messenger list, so you can get reap the benefits of Messenger marketing.
Create Custom Audiences and Run Click-to-Messenger Ads
Your first port of call when building your Messenger list is to leverage your existing contacts. Your email list is likely the foundation of your outbound marketing. If you can migrate your best prospects over to Messenger and hit them with this new type of marketing, you can start to nurture a bunch of leads who simply weren’t engaging with your brand via email.
First, head over to Facebook Business Manager, navigate to Audiences and click on Create Custom Audience. You’ll see this overlay.
I suggest creating three types of audiences:
Customer File
With the Customer File option, you can add your email list or any other spreadsheet of data you have. Facebook will match the data to profiles on the platform and collect this information together to create your custom audience.
Website Traffic/App Activity/Facebook Sources
I’m lumping these options together as they all perform a similar function. The Website Traffic option creates an audience from anyone who has fired off your Facebook Pixel over a given time period. Select the period eg. 60 days, and Facebook will match the people who visited your site with profiles to create an audience of warm leads.
The same goes for people who have downloaded your app, if you have one, and people who have engaged with your content on Facebook or Instagram. These are all great sources of engaged leads who are familiar with your brand and are likely to engage with your ad or content when it pops up.
Lookalike Audiences
If your list is big enough, you can create lookalike audiences, a hugely powerful way to grow your audience of engaged members.
Upload your contacts and Facebook will match them to existing profiles. You’ll want to choose the Customer Lifetime Value option. This allows you to figure out which of your leads will generate the most revenue over time, and create better lookalike audiences as a result.
Input the estimated LTV for each customer as a numerical figure in a particular currency. This is the raw dollar amount you expect this customer to spend with you over your entire relationship with them.
Facebook advises not to rate or rank your customers, and that you should not only include your best customers. It’s more useful for them to see your broad range of LTV figures so they can analyze the data and see the trends.
More on calculating LTV here.
If they can determine what makes someone more likely to spend more with you over time, they can create an audience as similar as possible by finding other people who match the same pattern. The idea is to give you a new audience (or as many as you want) full of similarly engaged and ready-to-buy leads.
This is going to take a while but it’s worth doing. It’s an incredibly powerful feature as you can tell from this post that goes into more detail.
Now that your audiences are set up, it’s time to create your ad.
Setup your ad in Facebook Business Manager. Facebook walks you through the creation of your campaign starting with your marketing objective. Select Messages from the middle Consideration column and name your campaign. Here, I’ve called it Build Messenger List as this is our desired outcome.
There are options for A/B testing and budget optimization, both of which can be very useful, but we will ignore for the sake of this example. Click Set up ad account.
Now, you want to select your custom audience.
Choose your budget and click on continue.
Next, you want to add your creatives. As ever, you want an eye-catching image, or even better, a video. Write some snappy copy that solves a problem for your audience. Entice them with your unique product, or with a special deal.
For more on writing effective copy for your Facebook ads, check out this post.
Now it’s time to add the magic of Jumper.
Head to the Messenger Setup section and under the Custom Message tab, click on Create Message.
Add the name of your ad then click on the JSON tab. Delete all the code currently in the box.
Without getting technical, the JSON capability allows you to add Jumper’s functionality to your Facebook ad.
Now, head over to Jumper. On the left-hand menu, go to Sales Channel and select Facebook. Go to the Ads tab and add a product.
When you’re happy with the way your ad looks, click on Copy Ad JSON Code and it will be copied to your clipboard.
Now head back over to Facebook Business Manager and paste your JSON code into the box. Click on Preview in Messenger and you’ll be able to see what you ad looks like in the Messenger inbox.
As you can see, your ad appears in Messenger
And bingo, you have a new subscriber. No email address needed, just one click through from your ad and one message sent.
At this point Jumper can take over and lead the customer through checkout, or collect whatever information you need.
Create Content and Use Comment-to-Messenger to Drive Traffic
Another great way to direct traffic to Messenger and build your list is to capture leads directly from the comments section of your posts.
Jumper makes this easy. Simply navigate to Sales Channels in the left-hand menu of your Jumper dashboard and select the channel you want to post to.
It works for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and more.
For Facebook, click on the Share as post tab and Choose Product.
It’s as easy as that. Edit your copy and click Share. Your post is on its way to your Facebook page. Anyone commenting with the hashtag will be taken to Messenger to become your subscriber.
With Instagram, you can share your Jumper link in your bio, stories, and posts. Read more on setting this up here.
Youtube
Youtube works in a similar way. Simply link your product to a relevant video and commenters can use the hashtag to go straight to Messenger.
Target Existing Customers with Messenger Opt-In
A Messenger opt-in checkbox is another great way to add subscribers to your Messenger list. Simply enable the box at checkout on your site. It looks like this:
The benefit of this option is two-fold.
First, these subscribers are engaged enough with your brand to make a purchase. It’s no secret that it’s cheaper to target existing customers than to go and find new ones. So, this option guarantees you are getting quality subs for your list.
Second, given that they have opted in, you know that these customers are happy to receive messages. This means they’re more likely to be receptive to your Messenger marketing down the line. Qualified, engaged subscribers will improve your open and conversion rates and bring in more revenue.
Create a Dedicated Messenger Landing Page
An excellent way to engage prospects and send them to Messenger is with a dedicated landing page. Entice users with a special discount, lead magnet or anything else to get them to click through. Once they’re on your landing page, you can engage them with a chatbot and thereby move them over to Messenger.
Create your landing page and connect Jumper to it via Sales Channels > Chatbox.
Customize the look of your chat window and then copy the embed code over to your site.
The advantage of a dedicated page is you can qualify leads in advance of moving them to Messenger. Of course, this will lead to better engagement with your Messenger marketing and should result in more sales.
Target Other Communication Channels with a Custom Link
Jumper also allows you to target prospects through non-traditional channels like Whatsapp, and even face-to-face.
First, grab your link from Sales Channels > Whatsapp on the Jumper dashboard.
Head to Growth Tools and click on Messenger Re/Direct.
This tool allows you to type in your link a neat, short link or QR code. Paste your Messenger URL into the box and let it do its magic.
Then simply share your code with your Whatsapp contacts, alongside a compelling offer. It will take them directly to Messenger where Jumper will prompt them to message you and become a subscriber.
With a QR code, you can send people to Messenger in RL. Add it to your business card or promotional materials so prospects can scan the code and go straight to Messenger.
Wheelio Integration to Boost Conversions
Shopify app Wheelio uses the psychology of gamification to increase conversions. Rather than a traditional exit-intent pop-up which offers a small discount in exchange for your email address, Wheelio displays a “wheel of fortune” to encourage engagement. Within a couple of clicks, users are subscribed to your Messenger list without typing anything.
Offers could range from nothing, all the way up to a huge 50% discount. It’s a carrot on a stick method, the idea being once the visitor sees the huge discount they have a good reason to opt-in to receive Messenger messages.
Wheelio claims to be the only gamification conversion tool of its kind that supports Messenger opt-in and says that it has the highest opt-in rate on Shopify.
Wheelio is easy to integrate with Jumper. Navigate to Integrations from your Jumper dashboard and follow the prompts to connect Jumper with your Shopify store.
Next, install Wheelio on Shopify and you are ready to go.
Wheelio walks you through the process of setting up your pop-up. Here’s an example of what it looks like:
Build Your List Before It’s Too Late
Building an engaged Messenger list isn’t as daunting as it sounds. It’s all about leveraging your existing contact and lists, as well as identifying new channels in which to target prospects.
Taking a little time to implement the methods outlined here could have a huge impact on your bottom line. As we know, Messenger engagement and open rates are astounding, and Jumper makes it easy to make the most out of this untapped opportunity.
Who knows how long Messenger will continue to produce these results. My suggestion is to get going with Messenger marketing while it’s still relatively novel for consumers.
Ready to get started building your list and implementing Messenger marketing? Grab your free trial with Jumper today.