Messenger Marketing: What You Need To Know

Marketing, although it’s a very complex system, is quite straightforward when it comes to reaching out to a market. You have to do it where your target market is. In an age where mobile is prevalent, users tend to use emails less and less in favour of mobile messaging applications due to its informal nature. It’s similar to SMS, but with less restrictions and more cost-effective.

 

Source: Buffer App

 

More and more users have come to depend on messaging apps for communication, customer service, and sales. It comes as no surprise that marketers have eyed messengers as another platform for marketing campaigns.

So, what is messenger marketing and how it will affect the future of marketing?

Read on to find out more…

What is messenger marketing?

Messenger marketing is a type of marketing strategy that utilises mobile and chat applications to serve marketing messages to prospects and clients.

Let’s take Facebook Messenger as an example of an app that allows messenger marketing, for example.

We already know that Facebook has enabled it’s messenger platform to be a standalone app. What this means is that regardless of a Facebook account, you can still make use of its messenger functions by registering either your mobile or your email address. You can then connect with your friends, contacts and the numerous businesses that make use of the Messenger.

 

Marketers have taken advantage of this by sending customers messages and interacting with their market through the Messenger. It can be through a real-time conversation, automated messaging or using chatbots. The same thing cannot be said for Messenger Marketing, however. What sets messenger marketing apart from email marketing and SMS marketing is the lack of formality and the relaxed feel to it. Emails feel impersonal and cold, while SMS is just a tad too invasive most of the time. With messenger marketing, customers get the feeling that they are talking to or transacting with an actual person because of the quick and easy response.

How can businesses take advantage of Messenger Marketing?

There are many ways you can take advantage of Messenger Marketing given that messenger apps, like Facebook Messenger, has enabled a number of features that enable sellers and marketers to use the application for their business.

Here’s some of the things you can do with Messenger Marketing:

• Webinar Registration
• Order Information
• Payment

How Messenger Marketing Thrived in China

It is a well-known fact that in China, most users prefer the use of WeChat as their go-to messaging platform. In fact, there are 900 million known users of WeChat in China alone!

WeChat is an app that requires data or internet connection to be able to send not only messages, but also audio and video calls! It is dominant as a messaging platform that it email and SMS has been pushed in the sidelines where even company professionals and businesses make use of the platform as their standard in communication. Each user has their own unique QR code that other users can scan via the same app enabling them to get the contact information and save it to WeChat. With that in mind, companies were able to do away with exchanging business cards and replace it with QR Codes on WeChat.

Even bloggers have taken to WeChat to publish their content! Instead of setting up a website, designing it accordingly and maintaining said blog, all the blogger has to do is to type up their content, press send and voila! A new blog content!

Not fund of using cash or credit cards? In China, users have taken to WeChat Pay to pay for their commodities whether it’s for online shopping or shopping from physical stores. Want to ride a taxi? You can use WeChat Pay to pay for your fare? Want to buy a drink from a vending machine? No worries! The vending machine accepts WeChat Pay!

Source: China Channel

 

The report above shows just how widespread WeChat Pay is in China and how users prefer it over other modes of payment.

Imagine what this can do when combined with the data and advanced targeting features from Facebook!

The Future of Messenger Marketing

It is obvious that the future has a big potential for messenger marketing to take center stage.

Instead of having to navigate a company’s website, a customer can just easily turn to a company’s Facebook Page Messenger and be redirected to whichever web page according to that customer’s needs and responses to each prompt by a chatbot. Imagine the countless other possibilities Messenger Marketing has in store for every business and consumer to allow convenience.

Messenger marketing will soon be alternative to email marketing, live chat support, ecommerce and even your own website! Right in one platform.

The future is, quite literally, right at your fingertips!

What’s more is that messenger marketing will see a future with more interactive experience for customers where messages will be more aptly termed as conversations and experiences between the customers and businesses.

Growing Your Business with Messenger Marketing

Right now we’re seeing big brands and other businesses making use of Messenger Marketing despite it being a new marketing technique. While it’s not a common mainstream as of yet, big businesses show that adaptability is, indeed, possible and the results are promising.

Think about it, messengers are already established as a convenient way for communication and conversation. And what better way to reach out and communicate to your consumers than to make use of a platform that is already being used mainstream?

The key takeaway to this is that those who adapt early on to this new type of marketing is sure to reaps the benefits faster than those who will only jump when the trend is already widespread. It’s only logical.

The best time to invest in Messenger Marketing is literally right now.