How to generate leads with Facebook Messenger

In this short article we will see which are the best strategies you can carry out to generate leads through Facebook Messenger, increase the number of chats from potential customers and manage new contacts before, during and after they buy

Is it possible to use Facebook Messenger to generate new leads? Yes, it is possible and it has never been more simple: let’s see why.

Nowadays, the Facebook messaging platform is used by over 60 million companies to communicate with clients, with over 2 million messages exchanged every day on the platform.

And the growth of this trend does not seem to want to stop: on one side of Facebook is significantly increasing efforts to convince companies to use its messaging services; on the other hand, consumers seem increasingly inclined to use chat apps to request support from a company.

Facebook Messenger: how to use it for lead generation

For some years now, various services have spread on the web, launched with the aim to help companies generate new leads through Messenger, encouraging the start of a conversation by the potential customer, sometimes followed by a possible qualification by a chatbot. Once the user has opted-in and a chat has started, all that you  need to do is to guide the client towards the conversion and/or purchase of a product.

With the release of the so-called Customer Chat plugin, Facebook has made it possible to generate chats also via the website: the tool is very similar to a live chat, with the only difference that, in order to start the chat, the user must identify himself using his Facebook account.

This has made it possible for businesses to generate new potential customers who, once landed on the site, require support, human or not, before finalizing the purchase.

How to generate leads on Messenger through Click-to-Messenger Ads

Back in 2017, Facebook made available to its advertisers the possibility of creating advertisements that had as a call-to-action the start of a conversation with the company page.

Thanks to this type of ads, once the listing is clicked the user will see the Messenger chat open with an initial message from the page and can choose to carry on the conversation simply by replying with a message.

The combination of the click on the insertion and the sending of the first message by the user corresponds to the double opt-in required by Facebook to generate a lead and be able to start chatting with the potential customer directly on Messenger.

We talk more about how to create click-to-messenger ads here.

What are the best tools to generate new leads through Facebook Messenger?

There are various tools, free and not, that allow you to maximize the number of new contacts generated through this messaging channel: it all depends on the volumes that you need to handle, and what level of automation you want to achieve during the qualification phase. This means that, before passing the chat to a support agent, it might be useful to understand a user’s intentions through the use of a chatbot.

Here we analyze 3 tools that can be useful to generate leads on your website, based on the needs of your company:

1) The Facebook Messenger Customer Chat plugin. Let’s start with the simplest solution: if you already use Facebook Business Manager to manage incoming chats from Messenger, this plugin allows you to integrate Facebook live chat on your website and start generating new conversations with users directly via your website

2) Callbell: our platform allows you to integrate in a single solution the creation of a chat plugin, which in addition to Messenger can include other chat apps, with the management of incoming chats starting from a simple and team collaboration-oriented platform

3) ManyChat: this tool allows you to create on Facebook Messenger without any technical knowledge. This tool, similar to Chatfuel, allows you to qualify a new lead before passing the conversation to a support agent. It can be particularly useful in the case of particularly high volumes of messages

Messenger as a mean of communication between companies and customers? Here’s what to expect in the future

As you read this article, Facebook is working on the release of tools that in the coming years will change the communications landscape, both at the peer-to-peer level and between companies and end customers. Mark Zuckerberg recently announced his intention to facilitate cross-platform communication between the various messaging apps owned by the company: Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct and WhatsApp.

If today Messenger remains the central tool for companies to allow companies to reach customers on their smartphones, wherever they are, the scenario is set to change quickly over the next two years. With Instagram and WhatsApp at the door, the possibilities for creating new conversational marketing tools are endless.

If you enjoyed this article, don’t forget to leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Thanks for reading and see you next time!