If you already don’t know how to create a chatbot on Facebook Messenger, keep reading for the why and how.
Facebook Messenger bots have unlimited potential when you are wanting to reach your target market, stay connected with them, and more importantly, receive an open rate on your messages of up to 98%.
If we compare messenger bots to traditional email marketing you can see why marketers all over the world are in awe of this new function and are looking at ways they can engage with both their potential clients and existing customers using Facebook Messenger marketing.
Messenger bots are relatively new to the world of marketing and still have huge growth potential for your business. Using a Facebook bot creation tool like ManyChat or MobileMonkey, you can build sales and marketing flows and sequences, sell products, book appointments, nurture leads, capture contact information and build relationships all through Facebook Messenger.
If you recall my previous article on what is a Facebook Messenger bot, your clients/customers can click on the message button from your Facebook page and start interacting with you. With the correct flow/sequence in place, your clients/customers can start a very interactive conversation with your messenger bot.
I honestly believe there is unlimited potential, but here are a few ways I have used the Facebook Chatbot in my business and clients to give you some ideas and inspitarion:
- Get Started – the discovery of what the Facebook user is looking for
- Inquiry – following a number of questions to qualify the client and gain their number to call.
- Lead Generation 1 – using the keyword on a Facebook video to give a lead magnet and follow up on potential business.
- Lead Generation 2 – give away and then build the relationship by continuing the conversation on a weekly basis.
- Webinar Registration – interaction and continued reminders of the event, sending them the link to the registration and then follow-up afterward.
- Code Generator – great for face to face opportunities, market stalls, have a competition and the client scans, the bot then takes them on the journey.
- URL Link Generator – use this link on any site to start the bot activated
- Chat on the Website – use this as a lead generator or a chatbot to discover the client’s needs
- Live Presentations/Workshops – when having a workshop or presentations, I have a keyword attached to my Facebook page to encourage engagement and get the clients onto my list
- Competition Bot – create a bot for a specific competition
- Quiz Bot – create a bot that is for fun only, I have the rock, paper, scissors quiz
- Training – recently I repurposed training on bots to be delivered through the bot
- Reservations – Build a bot to take reservations for your business
- Appointments – Scheduled appointments in messenger or Calendly
- Wi-Fi Access – provide Wi-Fi details and password access.
- Customer Feedback – sending your customers a messenger bot to receive feedback
- Collect More Details – i.e. emails and phone numbers.
- NFC and digital business cards – This ibne has to be my favorite. I have an NFC sticker on the back of my phone and when bumped it starts the digital business card conversation.
As you can see, I am excited about what the Facebook Chat Messenger bot can do and what it can do for your business and to grow your list.
Let’s now look at how to create a Facebook Chat messenger bot. You will be surprised at how quickly you can be up and running and how effective they are. Ideally, the first interaction you will get is the get started button being activated from your Facebook business page. Let’s set up the welcome reply and the default reply to ensure that the customer has a great experience in the beginning.
Step One: Sign Up
For the purpose of this article, we will use the service provided by ManyChat. There are other chatbot software companies that exist; however, I have found ManyChat’s platform to be effective and easy to use. The FREE version will be enough initially. When you are ready the pro account is affordable at $10 US a month.
Go to ManyChat.com and sign up by clicking the big “Get Started Free” button in the middle of the page. You will need to sign in with your Facebook account by clicking the blue button. This will then redirect you to Facebook to complete the sign-in process.
There are so many features available for your Chatbot messages. You can add video, gifs, documents, polls, quizzes, and emojis. The entire messenger bot interaction with your existing and potential clients can be totally customized to reflect your message and brand.
Step Two: Confirm Your Messenger Bot Link
Whilst in ManyChat, go to the sidebar on the left and you will see a number of buttons. Click on your dashboard and here you will be able to manage your communication channels, see the latest activity, bot statistics, subscriber statistics, content overview and your live chats with your subscribers. You will also see your bot link; this is a link you can use anywhere to direct people back to your bot.
Step Three: Create and Publish Your Welcome Message
One of the first messages you should set up in ManyChat is your Facebook welcome message. This is the first message your audience will receive when they interact with your Facebook Chatbot messenger.
When they click the Get Started button, this will prompt this welcome message.
In ManyChat, navigate to Automation – Welcome Message
Create a text block and add more details describing your business and your bot and any other options that you would like them to have.
Create buttons to begin the journey, make sure that you give them the option to connect with you in real life.
Once you are happy with the message click the preview button to ensure that it works correctly with links, videos, and images.
Publish and enable your welcome message.
When you have a few subscribers come back to Automation – Welcome Message and track your stats and upgrade if necessary.
Step Four: Create Chatbot Replies
When you are not available or online, you may want to acknowledge the message and send them a default reply. You can do this by navigating to Automation – Default Reply.
The Facebook Messenger Bot will send this message when the bot does not recognize the conversation or it isn’t a part of your flows and sequences of growth tools. It is good business practice to provide an opportunity for them to contact you in this message.
Decide if you would like the default reply to be sent every time or only once every 24 hours. This button is on the top of the default reply window.
To be sure that you don’t miss any of your messages, ManyChat has the ability to create an action step that will notify admins on the page immediately.
Step Five: Map Your Client Journey in Your Facebook Messenger Chatbot
Depending on your social media strategy, now is the time to map our the client journey and how you would like to have your Facebook Messenger Chatbot interact with them as well as how you would like to build your list.
Think about utilizing keywords in your Facebook posts, doing a Facebook Live event to build your list, installing the chatbot onto your website and other opportunities.
It is important to map out this journey as this will assist you when you start building your Facebook Messenger Chatbot.
ManyChat have a number of preloaded templates for you to start using. I would suggest you have a look at these and start using them until you are confident in building your own.
In the coming posts, I will be showing you how to create a keyword, a sequence, a flow and other ways to be effective and grow your audience.
For now, though, take the above steps and start to implement your welcome message and default reply by making sure you enable the preview button to check your links and messages. From here your Facebook Messenger Bot Journey is about to start. Hold on as we share so many opportunities for you to be at the front of your business game with this technology.
Let your imagination flow free when you are using Messenger chatbots for Facebook. If you can add a URL, a keyword, or you are already using email marketing, all of these activities and more can be replaced with a Messenger bot. The most important aspect to remember about Messenger bots is that they have been said to have an 80% open rate and people will take notice of your chatbot messages as it will arrive into the palms of their hands.
There are a few changes that have come into effect from the updated Facebook Guidelines when using Messenger bots, and one, in particular, to keep in mind is that you can only send promotional messages to your subscriber within the first 24 hours of the interaction. After this, you will be not abiding by the community guidelines. Be sure to keep yourself updated and familiar with these guidelines.
If you would like to experience the digital business card that I have created, I am happy to share the process with you, click on the link below and you will see the options and start the journey.
Link to bot: https://m.me/socialmediaplus?ref=w9664991
Has your company already learned how to create a chatbot on Facebook Messenger? What are the sort of open rates that you see? Please share in the comments below so that we can all learn and grow together.