You’re probably familiar with the use of website chatbots to answer pre-sales questions and improve conversions. What might surprise you is that the strategic use of Messenger Marketing throughout the customer journey can help elevate your eComm brand.
The goal with automated Facebook Messenger marketing is to build meaningful relationships with customers – and the best way to do this at scale is through the use of bots. It’s essentially a decision tree. The person your bot talks to writes a message and the bot provides a response based on the content of that message and its own programming.
Just to be clear, Messenger Marketing involves engaging with your customers and prospects through Facebook Messenger, or, in fact, any of the main messenger channels, such as Whatsapp, Instagram, WeChat, etc. Chatbots are extremely handy for automating this process, by running through a pre-script, which basically means you’re having a one-to-many conversation. You create natural conversations that guide the user towards a sale or service. Of course, this includes the option of bringing a human into the loop when needed.
There are all sorts of ways to use bots to automate your Messenger marketing. We cover five of them in this article.
How Can Bots Elevate an E-Commerce Business?
Let’s say that you’re running an e-commerce business that sells thousands of products every month. You’re probably familiar with the standard chatbot experience, where you are asked a series of questions, designed (hopefully) to guide you to a purchase.
The chatbot basically fills an automated customer service role.
Most online ecommerce businesses stop there, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential you have to develop a much deeper and more profitable relationship with your customers.
With good scripting, you can build and engage your audience a LOT more effectively, convert more sales, and perhaps most importantly, drive lasting profit growth with repeat business.
Let’s dig into the 4 surprising ways that you can use bots in your e-commerce business.
Method #1 – Automated Product Help Guides
Up to 83% of people require assistance when making a purchase online, according to a “LivePerson’s Connecting with Consumers” report, which was based on a survey of more than 5,700 online consumers from the UK, USA, Australia, France, Germany and Italy.
That’s where product help guides come in. A surprising and generally underutilised benefit of using bots is that they can reduce confusion and guide your customers to make exactly the right purchase for their needs – this not only increases website conversion, but also reduces returns and refunds.
For example, a bot may ask for a customer’s height and measurements for a clothing purchase. It will then guide them through the ordering process to ensure they get the exact product they’re looking for.
Method #2 – Product Pre-Ordering
You may have products in the pipeline that already have a little bit of buzz surrounding them. This opens the door for a pre-ordering system, such as the one that Burberry uses.
Originally, Burberry used their automated Messenger marketing to provide behind-the-scenes access to their September 2016 collection of clothes.
As their automation technology evolved, they started to add ordering functionality into the bot. This included a pre-ordering system that took advantage of the anticipation they built with the insider information they previously provided.
Now, Burberry doesn’t have to wait until it launches a product line before it starts making sales. Using this bot, it drives revenue before the launch and creates additional demand for their products upon launch.
Method #3 – Warranty Bots
The most important thing a warranty bot does from a customer perspective is provide that all-important reassurance and peace of mind that their product is covered by warranty.
But from a business owner point of view, it opens the door to re-engage with the customer and offer a unique customer experience, as well as the potential for an upsell or cross sell.
Smart Warranty bots, such as the one we’ve developed at Beyond Points, capture the registration, assigns a unique warranty number, integrates with the CRM, provides instructional videos and content on how to get the most out of the product the customer has purchased, and THEN cross sells or upsells more product.
Talk to Beyond Points to implement Warranty Automation into your Messenger marketing.
Method #4 – Loyalty Programs
So many loyalty programs sit inactive – that is, without members regularly re-engaging and repurchasing, or redeeming their point.
This happens principally because of a lack of any strategic communications follow up.
To remedy this, you can use a Messenger bot to provide updates about how many points the customer has, reminders about rewards, and various other enticing bonuses designed to get your customers buying more.
The loyalty program provides the ideal framework for you to communicate with your customers and stimulate more purchases from them, by heavily incentivising through loyalty rewards.
More importantly, loyalty programs help you to retain existing customers for longer periods of time, which means you can spend less money on attracting new clients. This is where the Beyond Points Amplifier can help you. It combines Facebook Messenger and an eWallet loyalty scheme to help you lock in repeat business over time.
Use Bots To Power Your Messenger Marketing E-Commerce Sales
As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why Messenger Marketing and “Bots” are the most talked about terms in online marketing in 2019. The techniques described here can help you to increase sales, improve customer retention, and provide superior service.
The uptake on these new technologies is increasing exponentially everyday, as more and more businesses take advantage and jump into Messenger Marketing and eWallet loyalty programs.
Done the right way, they can provide a massive boost to an online business.
And those that don’t may well fall by the wayside, as their competitors lock in the market with their custom loyalty programs.
Will your competitors beat you to the market?
If you’re not using Messenger bots to create performance growth and increase customer engagement, Beyond Points can help you.
Let’s have a chat to find out how you could supercharge your Messenger marketing strategy today.
