The Agency Guide to HubSpot + Messenger

At this point you may be wondering, why I should invest in Facebook Messenger? Well, four factors set this channel apart from traditional methods of communication: speed, familiarity, convenience, and industry force. Let’s dive into each of those in a little more detail.’

We’re entering an era where leads, prospects, and customers are expecting more personalization, more transparency, quicker than ever before. According to a recent study by Facebook, 67% of people surveyed say they expect to message with businesses more over the next two years. On the flip side, 53% said they are more likely to shop with a business they can contact via a chat app because of the experience it provides. And so messaging apps and channels like Facebook Messenger are emerging to meet that demand.  Considering there are already 1.3 billion monthly active users on the Messenger platform, this offers an extraordinary window of opportunity for business.

So first, that brings us to the first factor that sets Messenger apart, and that’s speed. People have always favored channels of communication that offer speed. Think about the progression of how people traditionally connected with each other. First there was letter writing, delivered horse-and-buggy style. Then the telegram arose. Fax machines came next. And at last, telephones. One of the latest iterations came in the world of business. Traveling was seen as too slow or costly and so web conferencing arose to solve for that problem.

Facebook Messenger represents one of the latest developments in the communication cycle between businesses and prospects. When a user fills out a traditional “Contact us” form or opts to send a company an email or file a ticket, it’s unclear exactly when they’ll get a response. And a visitor is looking for information that could help influence their purchase or retention, every minute you’re not responding can work against your favor. With Facebook Messenger, visitors can expect a response within minutes or hours rather than days. And with the power of chatbots and live chat working together, businesses can make sure every conversation is catered to meet user’s needs.

The second factor that sets Messenger apart as an emerging channel is the familiarity it provides.

Businesses only began to send emails to prospects and customers after people had adopted it as a channel to connect with their friends and family. Businesses only adopted GIFs and emojis in their social posts, emails, and on their websites after their audiences had started using GIFs and emojis as a way to communicate with one another.

Nowadays, people send messages to one another to discuss just about everything.  The audience on Facebook is significant and there are already 70 million business pages currently on Facebook. And yet, only 20 million businesses sending Messages. This is a huge gap in the total addressable market and it shows that most businesses just haven’t arrived yet. When they do we’ll see incredible momentum in adoption because of consumers’ pre-existing familiarity with the channel.  

The third reason Messenger is the channel you should be paying attention to is convenience. Messaging can be seamlessly blended into your everyday workflow. You can drop a message from any device, close the app, and return to whatever you were doing.

Then, whenever the other party is available to respond, they will — and then you can take your turn. The asynchronous nature of the channel is extremely convenient for both businesses and consumers, as it allows both parties to have complete context into the conversation and continue the thread as they see fit.

The fourth and final reason Messenger is the best channel for you to look towards are the industry forces that are pushing us in Messenger's direction.

Two changes are happening in the market that will increase business’ adoption of Messenger in 2018. The first is the push away traditional marketing channels such as email or social media.

The Gmail tab has made it difficult for marketing emails to surface in your contact’s inboxes. Regulations like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CASL make the email space even more difficult to navigate.

On the flip side, organic reach has declined year over year. The average organic reach for posts on Facebook is about 2% and that window of opportunity is expected to continue to decline even further.

The second force at work is a pull for businesses to adopt Facebook Messenger. Facebook continues to invest heavily in Messenger. As a result, businesses and consumers alike can expect a steady growth and migration to the channel as Facebook makes it easier for companies to adopt Messenger. This will  help millions of companies grow — a rising tide lifts all ships.

So there you have it: speed, familiarity, convenience, and industry force al. But that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. As a platform that can encapsulates all of the potential of live chat, messaging apps, and chatbot, all in one, Facebook can truly sit at the center of your conversational strategy. And conversational strategy? That allows you to really execute with excellence by having more personalized conversations today, so that you can have stronger relationships with your leads, prospects, and customers tomorrow.

Once you’ve been able to identify the right fits for messenger, and opened the conversation about why it matters with your prospects and customers, it’s now time to update your menu of services accordingly.

But when thinking about delivering services — and building strategies — around Messenger, it's important to first adopt the right mindset.

First and foremost, don't think of messenger as a new tool in which to provide standalone services on. Agencies shouldn't be building a "Messenger" menu on their website. Instead, takes the benefits of messenger (speed, familiarity, convenience) and overlay them to all of the services you are already offering or are proposing to a prospect.

For example, for agencies building conversion paths and forms for their clients' offers, implement messenger onto the website and onto those landing pages as another means of conversion. For agencies who help create a support or help desk system for their clients’ customers, implement messenger’s chatbot feature to automate and route customers to the right place.

Regardless of your client — and the services you currently deliver on — there should be an opportunity to incorporate messenger. When incorporating messenger (and conversational engagement) into your clients’ strategies, consider the following hierarchy: software setup, operating procedures, content creation, automation, and then reporting and analysis.

For software setup, activate HubSpot’s integration with messenger and integrate into their website. As part of any website redesign or HubSpot technical setup, your goal should be to make their website more conversational. Set up the appropriate placement, the voice and tone of your messages, and the goals for messaging outcomes. What you create here will be the baseline for further messenger functionality.

For operating procedures, create the instructions for process for how your clients’ team members should be using these new tools. For users that begin a chat, who owns that conversation — and what is the criteria for ownership? How fast or how soon do they owe that user a reply? What is the cadence in which your client will push out messages versus reacting to those coming in. Co-develop and standardize these processes, setup and organize the inbox, and then own the ongoing training of their team in the tools’ functionality.

For content creation, continue to build out use-cases for messenger. For each content offer your agency creates, add in the conversational form as another recurring deliverable. Continue to rotate and experiment the welcome chat featured on the homepage. For upcoming events, webinars, and conferences, lean into messenger to help promote these occurrences.

For automation, lean into the chatbot feature to build conversations at scale. Build bot templates to effectively capture lead information, cover support during off hours, deliver content to leads, and to route inquiries to the right person.