On average, how many emails would you say go unread every day? Most of them...right? This is because email marketing is unregulated and over-saturated. In this article, we are going to take a look at the things wrong with email marketing and see what messenger marketing does to counter this.
First let's take a look at the rules people have to follow in order to send a message.
Email:
This is basically unregulated. There are a few laws in the United States that were put in place by George W. Bush through the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that attempt to keep things under control. Here are some of the rules of email marketing that are in the Act; requirement to receive an "opt-in" before including someone in an email blast, giving recipients a clear way to opt-out of future email blasts, and honoring these opt-out wishes. These laws are a great attempt at regulation, but...who is actually monitoring every email that goes out? This is like creating speed limits for vehicles on the road without placing cops out there to enforce these limits.
Let's not forget all the emails that find their way into our inboxes from foreign countries (you know one's that don't have to abide by US laws). The effort is appreciated Mr. Bush, but judging by all the Russian porn spam I get everyday...yeahhh it didn't work.
Email Marketing used to be MASSIVELY effective though. Just ask Gary Vaynerchuk! Back in 1997, he was one of the first people to use Email Marketing. He used it to grow his family wine business at scale. He was seeing open rates of up to 90%…hmmm that kinda sounds like Messenger marketing today!
But what happened? Well, the phrase “marketers ruin everything” happened. Over time email marketing became the new standard. People began getting inundated with sales emails all throughout the day. This caused Google to create a separate inbox called the “promotions” inbox.
So let’s look at the list of issues Email Marketers have to face:
1. Avoiding the Spam Folder
2. Avoiding the Promotions Folder
2. Oversaturated Marketing Medium
4. Low Open Rates
5. Low Click-through Rates
See all the hurdles that Email Marketing has? Well, it’s only going to get worse over time…
Messenger:
What are the rules with sending message broadcasts out?
All Broadcasts fall within 3 categories with different rules for each:
Subscription Broadcast allows you to deliver non-commercial content to your subscribers at any time you want. Use it as a conversational option to start a dialogue with your audience. Keep in mind, broadcast messages cannot contain any ads or promotional materials.
Promotional Broadcast allows you to send commercial messages only to subscribers that were active (interacted with your bot) in past 24 hours. Use this option carefully, do not annoy your subscribers with mass promotions. Use Subscription Broadcast first to reveal the audience interests to deliver relevant commercial content.
Follow-Up Broadcast can be sent at the end of 24 hour window after Promotional Broadcast to remind your subscribers about your promotion. After that you won’t be able to send them any promotional messages until they interact with your Messenger bot again. Don’t miss a chance!
To summarize, at the time of this blog post being written, you're only allowed to send promotional offers to subscribers on your list that have interacted with your bot in the last 24 hours. After that offer, you're allowed to send one more follow up broadcast before your window is up. This is called the 24+1 rule.
Everything else being sent must be in the form of a subscription broadcast. These cannot contain promotional offers. A great example of a company that utilizes these subscription broadcasts brilliantly is National Geographic.
They send you a quiz question every day, then occasionally, since you interacted with their bot, they will follow up that quiz question with a promotional message trying to get you to purchase their newest almanac (I didn't know they still made these tbh). These rules help to cut down on over-saturation and it helps to regulate the environment, but how do we know it will stay regulated? Because it is controlled by a single entity, Facebook.
Here are some of the benefits of Messenger Marketing:
Facebook is running a publicly traded business, which means they need to maintain a credible name for them self. This results in the Facebook Messenger space being monitored. Not only by Facebook's employees but also everyone that is receiving messages. There is a nice little "report" button that alerts FB of business accounts that are breaking the rules. This keeps the space regulated and unsaturated. The Facebook pages that do not cooperate with the rules get flagged and banned from Messenger.
Facebook's broadcast rules within Messenger are continuous across all international borders. Sorry Russian pornstars! You'll get banned!
Everything is tied to individual Facebook accounts. This means that with Messenger marketing you don't have to worry about people giving you "bad" FB accounts (the same way people give out bogus email addresses on forms).
Messenger marketing is interactive and, if the ChatBot is created properly, can focus on giving the message recipient a customized experience based on their preferences. Now instead of sending a wall of text in the form of an email to people, you can have a 2-way conversation that is individualized based on the responses given by the message recipient. Grab attention with the initial message ---> Learn more about the message recipient ----> Only market to them the things you found out they are interested in. Simple right?
You can run Facebook ads that lead people directly into your Messenger ChatBot...Does anyone else see the importance of this?? We are living in a NOW society. Everyone wants everything instantly without having to wait for it. Companies are losing out on sales everyday simply because consumers don't want to wait for new web pages to load. So now we are able to start the line of communication on Facebook and keep it there. Oh and the best part is, Facebook wants to push Messenger marketing so they are making it super cheap to run ads that lead into Messenger Funnels. "You mean like 30 cent leads?" Yeah. I sure do, pal.
If those things didn't convince you then I'll end with the fact that open rates from Messenger Marketing float around 90%. Pretty good compared to the 20% open rate that email boasts, huh?
That is just a few of the things that make Messenger Marketing better than Email Marketing. This doesn't mean you should stop collecting email addresses though. You want to make sure you squeeze as much information out of your leads as possible (within reason) so you can create a marketing campaign that is multi-dimensional. It's super easy to unsubscribe from Messenger Marketing. All you do is type "stop" and you're off the company's subscriber list. If all you got was their subscription in Messenger, then they are gone! If you snag their email, then you still have a chance to get them back.
In conclusion, Messenger Marketing is taking over. Every business that wants to stay relevant WILL have a ChatBot working for them in the next 5 years. Currently it's only the top 1% with a few other's sprinkled in that's taking advantage of this. Contact us today to see how this new technology can give your company the competitive advantage you've been searching for. Wondering how much money you're missing out on by not using Messenger Marketing in your business? Checkout this Email to Messenger Marketing Converter that we created just for you.