In the digital world, nothing stays the same for long. Years ago, navigating social media was much easier for marketers, who could see success in their campaigns by simply sharing a few updates on Facebook or Twitter. Now, however, social media platforms are packed with information and users don’t want to read hundreds of business posts. Unless your business creates a personal experience through authentic posts, you will be overlooked for those who have interesting stories to tell.
Due to the massive increase in the amount of material posted on social channels, in the past couple of years organic reach on social media has significantly declined. On Facebook alone, this has fallen by 52%. The most effective social media marketers today are not simply churning out updates in the hope that they are seen. They are connecting and interacting with people to build a community where users engage in product-related, personal conversation.
As social media has evolved, there has been a shift toward the use of social messaging apps. According to research from Business Insider, more people are using the top four social messaging apps, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Viber than the top four social media apps, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Users around the world are logging in to messaging apps not only to communicate with their friends but to connect with brands, browse products, and watch content. They are also actively interacting with brands on these platforms.
Research from Facebook IQ stated that:
- 56% of consumers prefer to message rather than call a business.
- 61% are favourable to personal messages from businesses.
- More than 50% are more likely to shop with a business they can message.
However, as consumer habits have changed, businesses are slower to adapt to the evolving trend, only 20% of businesses are marketing through messenger apps. In order to be an effective digital marketer, you have to stay ahead of the trends, so now is the time to make social messaging part of your strategy.
Where to Start with Social Messaging Marketing
As open and click-through rates in email marketing continue to decline, these rates for message marketing are steadily rising. It seems that customers are not only using social messaging apps to replace social media, but consumers also seem to be turning to messaging instead of email.
Social messaging marketing is similar to email marketing, so looking at your current email strategy is a good place to start. Fortunately, most digital marketers have significant experience with email marketing. This means that rather than needing to learn a whole new skill set to reach your target audience, you just need to tweak your existing campaigns to fit a new channel.
Similar to email, marketing through social messaging apps is about building a list by attracting new leads then nurturing those leads by sending them relevant content to eventually convert them into paying customers.
How to Engage Customers with Social Messaging Marketing
Social messaging marketing is an extremely personal form of communication and can be used to have one-to-one conversations that build relationships with your target audience. This channel goes over and above email marketing as it is more interactive, customized, and conversational.
Once you know what you want to communicate to your audience, you can create message ads in order to generate and nurture leads. With these ads, your creative will appear in the home tab of your target audience’s mobile messaging app. If they tap on the ad, they will be directed to the destination you choose, which will most often be your website, or a message conversation.
Using Chatbots in Your Social Messaging Campaign
If you are worried about your scope to answer messages from customers, using a chatbot can help you handle the bulk of communications on your messaging platform. Chatbots can customise your messages in response to the links that a prospect clicks as they progress through various phases of the message. Chatbots offer an end-to-end approach and they can handle the whole conversation. However if you would rather a customer service rep deals with certain enquiries, you can also program the bot to connect with them at any point in the messaging process.
According to the numbers on Facebook, message marketing has an extremely high response rate that is continuing to grow. One report found that high-quality chatbot conversations with engaged audiences are getting 80-90% response rates. Even non-optimized chatbot conversations come in at a reasonable 35-40%.
As Facebook Messenger is set to claim the lead as the world’s top marketing channel, it will be vital going forward to integrate mobile message into your overall strategy. Businesses who get in quick to this new channel will reap the benefits later. Let a Facebook marketing agency Singapore assist you in marketing your business on Facebook.
If you need help with your digital marketing campaigns or overall marketing strategy, get in touch with the experts at Digital Squad, your digital marketing agency Singapore. Whether that be social media marketing Singapore, Google Shopping Singapore, Bing ads and Google display network ads, we are here to help you out. Contact us and find out how you can improve your conversions