We’ve all seen the amazing stats about messenger marketing:
If you’re a marketer who has been toiling away for years with email marketing, these figures look ridiculously good. What’s more, just having messenger available builds trust. 53% of customers are more likely to buy from you when they can message you.
But uptake has not been as rapid as you might expect. There are only about 300,000 messenger bots currently communicating with customers on Messenger according to Facebook (this might sound like a lot, but consider the fact that there are currently over 800,000 Shopify stores, and 1.3 billion active users on Messenger). And many of these bots will be customer service focused rather than used for pure marketing.
In other words, despite the obvious potential, ecommerce marketers are only adopting Messenger marketing slowly and cautiously.
Why?
Perhaps it’s uncertainty. After all, it still feels like a fairly new channel. Interacting with customers via Messenger looks and feels different. What kind of content works best? How do you structure an effective Messenger flow for marketing? These are some of the uncertainties marketers are grappling with.
So, today I want to share with you some Messenger flow templates you can just take and use straight away, copy and paste style. Because once you have found a starting point for Messenger marketing, there’ll be no stopping you!
Simple, effective flow templates you can use today
So let’s jump straight into some Messenger marketing template flows for your Shopify store. We won’t be focusing on flows for cart abandonment or delivery updates because there are apps available like tobi that can handle these really well. You can set these up in just a few clicks, and they’re a great starting point for your Messenger marketing.
Today we’re going to go a bit deeper though, and focus on 3 flow types that can be more varied and require a bit more thought:
- A welcome flow
- A lead nurturing flow
- A win back flow
Flow template 1: A welcome flow template you can copy and paste
What is a welcome flow? This is a series of messages to welcome customers who have just subscribed to your messenger marketing. In other words, it’s your chance to impress.
Who is it for? It’s for customers who have just opted in to your Messenger service either through a pop-up on your page or a messenger chat bubble.
What stage of the customer journey will it help? It is most likely that these are new customers who have just discovered your store and want to learn more.
A quick shopping list - what you’ll need to prepare for this flow:
- 1 X incentive that appears in the pop up box. This might be a discount code, a coupon, an ebook – whatever you typically use to gain email subscribers should work fine.
- Up to 4 X product categories. You are going to be presenting your different products, so have some general options ready. For example, if you’re a clothing store your options might be: 1. Women’s Fashion 2. Men’s Fashion 3. Kids’ Fashion
- 3 X products for each category. These should be your best sellers - the products that have the best chance of grabbing attention.
Your welcome flow template:
Download: Welcome flow template
And here’s a short variation to add to the beginning of your welcome message flow for customers who have opted in via the messenger chat bubble on your site.
Download: Welcome flow template
The welcome series is really critical for making the right impression – you can even use it to start learning more about your customers so you can provide personalised messages in the future.
Flow template 2: A lead nurturing flow template you can copy and paste
What is a lead nurturing flow? This flow is aimed at reconnecting with customers who showed initial interest in your store but haven’t followed it up. In other words, this is remarketing via messenger.
Who is it for? This flow is for customers who opted in some time ago, showed interest in your product, but then stopped shopping / interacting.
What stage of the customer journey will it help? This is probably going to be for customers at the consideration stage of their customer journey. They are looking for solutions like yours, but they haven’t decided between you and competitor products.
A quick shopping list - what you’ll need to prepare for this flow
- 1 X product to promote Aim for one of your big hitters or a product that is performing well right now
- 1 X example of user problem solved by this product If you have done customer research to see which problems are most challenging for your users, this can help you decide which problem to focus on.
- 1 X blog or video about that product This should illustrate a typical user problem and how your product solves it. If it is content by an influencer or an external review, even better.
- 3 X accessories related to that product Select some accessories or other products that complement the main product you are promoting.
Your lead nurturing flow template:
Download: Lead nurturing flow template
Marketer’s tip: When you are using messages focused on urgency or FOMO (fear of missing out), try adding a countdown bar to illustrate the need for speed. Look out for Messenger marketing apps that include this feature.
Flow template 3: A win back flow template you can copy and paste
What is a win back flow? This is a flow aimed at cross-selling or upselling to existing customers.
Who is it for? Customers who have already made a purchase on your store – perhaps they opted in for delivery updates or via a pop-up for discounts.
What stage of the customer journey will it help? This is for customers who have already converted – now we want them to become loyal customers.
Preparing your win back flow
Because these types of flows need to be specific to your product area and audience, it’s a bit trickier to create one template every store can use. So instead let’s start with an example for a clothing store, then we’ll break down the structure so you can adapt it to whatever your product area is.
A win back flow for a clothing store on Shopify:
Download: Win back flow template
That was the specific example – now let’s run through the overall structure for the flow so you can use it for any product type.
Download: Win back flow template
Getting started, with no need for coding
Getting started with Messenger marketing for your Shopify store is easy. There are apps for Shopify that offer a range of excellent Messenger flows that you can set up in a couple of clicks. Some of them even offer free Messenger marketing, which is a great option for getting started. Unless you fancy taking on the coding yourself, getting started is dead simple - sign up, pick a couple of relevant flows (abandoned cart and delivery notifications are a great place to start), and let the botting begin.
Then, when your messenger marketing is up and running, you can try out some of the flows I’ve presented today. Here’s how a typical customer journey could look using these flow templates plus off-the-shelf cart abandonment and delivery messages.
A customer journey nurtured on messenger
Hopefully, with a messenger application installed plus these templates, you can kickstart your messenger marketing and see real results straight away.
