Chatbots & Messenger Marketing Are The Future

Chatbots and messenger marketing are the future of marketing.

Quietly the top 1% of the top 1% of marketers around the world assembled in Austin, Texas for the world’s first BOT & Messenger Marketing Conference. 316 Strategy Group was represented as well as Facebook. Read that again. Yes, Facebook. Is your curiosity piqued, yet? is the co-founder of ManyChat, the world’s largest and most trusted BOT building platform and messenger marketing community. Michael developed this platform to help marketers and business owners grow relationships and change the world, one conversation at a time. Michael knew back in January of 2018 that he wanted to throw an event to gather passionate people together in one room to educate, engage, and grow with, and that’s exactly what happened at Conversations Conference 2018, the first-ever Messenger Marketing and Chatbot conference. Michael and his co-founder Anton Gorin know that communicating with customers is an art form. So is picking the right medium. Gone are the days of email marketing and endless phone cold calls. Customers today want instant communication and instant results. They don’t want to wait for your customer service department to open up, and they don’t want email cluttering up their inboxes. Customers today expect instant access to businesses.

Customers today expect instant access to businesses. 

Meet the Facebook Messenger bot. A bot is a piece of software that uses keywords in order to have a back-and-forth communication with a potential (or existing) customer. You can also set up automated messages that respond to certain keywords with pre-written responses. And when you combine a number of those automated sequences together to give users an interactive & conversational experience, that’s called a “chatbot.” A Messenger bot, then, is a tool that allows you to reach both your potential customer base and your existing customers without having skyscrapers full of staff. Why use a bot? Why not email? Why not have the customer call you? Why can’t they just interact with your business through your website? And why Facebook?

•   As reported by Facebook at this year’s ManyChat conference in Austin, Facebook Messenger reaches 1.4 billion users.
•   Messenger bots are interactive.
•   Live chat has the highest satisfaction level of all forms of customer–business communication.
•   Bots permit your business to provide this live chat experience without involving a human on your side of the computer.

Live Chat Is An Excellent Way to Market

•   You don’t have to upset your readers who have a limited number of texts per month.
•   Your customers appreciate your not cluttering up their email inbox.
•   You can obtain contact information when the customer visits your Facebook page and posts there.
•   Your potential clients can ask questions.

I believe Messenger is the future of marketing. – Stefanos Loukakos, Head of Messenger Business, Facebook

If a potential client posts a comment on your business’s Facebook page or messages you on Facebook, you have their contact information. The leads almost generate themselves. Given the interactive nature of chatbots, a potential customer has the immediate opportunity to ask questions about your business. Ultimately, a successful encounter can result in a sale as your client receives previews and images of merchandise, photographs of your place of business, and samples. Sephora has even developed a means to allow customers to “try out” different shades of makeup.  Your existing customers don’t have to worry about your office hours, since bots are available 24/7. Customers can use chatbots to get a quick answer to questions, get a more detailed answer about a product specification or holiday hours or pay an invoice. Furthermore, even the most computer-savvy clients might have difficulty navigating your website and might appreciate the help of a chatbot instead.

62% of customers surveyed prefer text messages vs. email or telephone. ~ Facebook

But chatbots can do more. For example, Marriott uses a feature called a ChatBotlr, which customers access through Facebook Messenger, among others. ChatBotlr allows customers to make or change reservations. Furthermore someone might use the chatbot to check availability for a visit to a Marriott hotel in Miami, for example. Whether they ended up booking or not, the chatbot might later send links to personalized content such as articles about Miami’s top restaurants, tours or other local experiences to explore via its Marriott Rewards Moments program. The content for such inspiration can come from Marriott’s owned media entities such as its "Marriott Traveller" magazine. Similarly, Staples customers get shopping assistance and post-sales support. They can receive order confirmation and shipment notifications. Pizza Hut’s chatbot accepts pizza orders, answers questions about the pizzas, alerts customers to special menu items unique to the locality and reminds them what pizza they ordered last time. Fast Complaint Resolution Dissatisfied customers talk to potential customers. We have all seen friends tweeting or Facebooking about a negative experience in real time. Often, this is because they can’t get any help. Frequently, they have to navigate an often incomprehensible customer service phone tree, only to be put on hold for an hour or more. Occasionally, the customer service representative is less than helpful or is difficult to understand. Sometimes, they are even disconnected. A chatbot allows a customer to notify a business of a problem immediately and have their problem resolved immediately. The possibility of an immediate resolution prevents a frustrated customer from taking to Twitter, Yelp or Facebook to vent their frustration. Instead, they have an interactive experience with a chatbot. Once the customer’s problem is resolved, they are less likely to complain. A chatbot can allow your business to flag such customers for follow-up in order to keep their business. Contact Us for More Information Facebook Messenger chatbots can revolutionize the way that you do business, from marketing to customer service to problem resolution. Contact 316 Strategy Group for more information about how to leverage Facebook Messenger and Chatbots!