How messaging is more than an extension of your call centre
In this highly evolved era of business, personalisation can make or break your customer relationships. For many marketers grappling with this problem, the emergence of messaging is solving a lot of tricky problems.
When Facebook conducted research that measured how well businesses thought they communicated with customers, and then surveyed customers asking the same question, the results were, perhaps, predictable. Roughly seven out of 10 businesses claimed they were doing a good job, while just two in 10 customers said they could get what they wanted from businesses.
The obvious question, then, is why is there such a chasm between companies and the expectations of their clients?
Sal Burns, Facebook’s head of global business brand marketing, Messenger, has a theory.
“People today want more personalisation. Which means, I want to get exactly what I want, rather than just being served something that fits my demographic,” she explains.
And when she says personalisation, she is speaking of communication, via direct messaging, on a level people have grown to expect themselves when speaking to one another.
The personal messaging trend is certainly ascendant. For instance, eMarketer’s Updated Forecast, Leaderboard and Behavioral Analysis study revealed that by the end of 2018, 78% of the world’s smartphone users will message once a month at least. Additional eMarketer research predicts that by 2021, the global user base of messaging apps will have risen by 23% on the current level.
But the problem many marketers face is a lack of comprehension around what messaging is and how to utilise it to best effect.
Most marketers associate messaging between people and businesses with bots – an automated way to have conversations with people at scale. But whilst bots are sometimes a useful solution, many are overlooking the fact that messaging is simply a new medium offering a new way to connect with customers and offer them what they want, when they want it.
In essence, one-to-one messaging between businesses and customers is not only the new iteration of customer service, it also aids consumers along the entire purchase path – providing more information to gauge their interest in a product, helping them find the right product and, ultimately, buying it. Most importantly, it offers near instantaneous gratification for customers who increasingly demand fast solutions to problems.
Ipsos research reveals that convenience is now paramount for consumers, with 60% of people surveyed across 23 markets saying they would actually pay more for convenience.
Additional Facebook research across four key markets (the US, UK, Brazil and India) reveals that for 61% of respondents, messaging is the easiest and most convenient way to contact a business.
“What people are telling us is that if they can message you, they will feel more confident in your business,” Burns explains. “And to me, that represents a strong indication that ROI will follow. So you’re taking someone who maybe wasn’t planning on buying or was uncertain about buying, and moving them closer to the end of the funnel.
“And in emerging markets – markets that have grown up with mobile phones – they are almost 2.5 times more likely to want to message your business. So even if you’re based here in Australia, if your customers are based in the Asia-Pacific region, this is something you should be thinking about,” Burns adds.
The development of business-to-consumer messaging isn’t just the bastion of big international brands with endless budgets. Australian start-up HiSmile is one company which has harnessed the power of direct business-to-consumer messaging.
Founded in 2014 by twenty-somethings Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic, HiSmile sells at-home teeth whitening products via a straightforward e-commerce delivery model.
It has, in a few short years, generated upwards of $100 million in revenue from a customer base of around one million people. Along the way, a key plank in its development has been a social-first business approach, with more than 1.7 million Facebook likes and 930,000 Instagram followers at last count. Whilst this connection has traditionally been driven by influencers, HiSmile has become increasingly sophisticated in its approach.
From September to October last year, the company used Sponsored messages to reconnect with existing customers in a novel way – it sent messages to people who had at some point initiated a conversation with HiSmile on Messenger. These were short, sharp, and utilised accessible imagery to get customers’ attention, fast.
The messages were personalised with its customers’ names to help build a direct connection with its audience and were followed up with a reminder near the end of the sale. Timing was also a key consideration, with HiSmile targeting these messages around important shopping times like the weekend, or special events, for maximum exposure.
“For us it made sense to take advantage of Facebook’s Messenger,” Mirkovic explains.
“It allowed us to directly target customers that have interacted with us, which was a logical step for the brand. It put us at the forefront of our customers attention with an ad that you couldn’t simply scroll past, as it would notify you of the message.”
And while using such a direct approach towards past clients may seem like a gamble for some, it paid off handsomely for HiSmile, with 11 times lower cost per purchase achieved compared to other channels. It also saw 9.92 times return on ad spend and 21 times higher click-through rate compared to other platforms.
“On top of these results,” Mirkovic says, “Messenger also allowed us to track customers’ orders and provide them with relevant updates.
“And as AI becomes more sophisticated we will look to expand on our current uses for Messenger. Hopefully in a way that will allow us to connect with our customers even more and provide them with a platform to find all the answers that they’re looking for,” he adds.
What a burgeoning local operation like HiSmile demonstrates is that business-to-customer messaging isn’t some bold approaching trend, it’s a marketing channel which has well and truly arrived.
Indeed, business-to-consumer messaging is also enjoying similar success overseas and it’s not just ambitious startups that are flourishing.
Take Lego, the Danish toy construction behemoth with annual operating revenues of $US2.1 billion. Using its bespoke Messenger bot ‘Ralph’ – and high quality creative features – over a two week period from late March to April this year, the company sought to measure the effectiveness of its ads that click to Messenger compared to its click-to-website ads.
The campaign revealed 3.4 times the return on ad spend for ads that click to Messenger compared to ads that linked to the Lego website. There was also a 71% lower cost per purchase when clicking through to the Messenger experience when compared to ads optimised by clicks. Perhaps most striking, website purchases made via ads that click to Messenger were 1.9 times higher than via other channels.
As Burns emphasises: “Today, messaging isn’t just words, it’s visual. And it’s not just between people, it’s between people and businesses.
“It is really the modern way to communicate.”