Messaging Playbook, Step 3 Engage

Today we are doing another solo series and I am talking through Chapter 3 of the messaging playbook. This part is all about engagement and how to start using messenger for engagement. If you haven't checked out the Playbook yet, you can message in and download it. Just open FB Messenger, search for The Chat Bubble and click the get started button. We'll ask for your email and then we'll email you. The Playbook gives an overview of the top 4 marketing use cases for messaging and FB Messenger. We lay things out in a step by step guide so that any digital marketer can launch messaging campaigns and focus on their existing KPIs.

A lot of what's in the Playbook is contrarian to the idea of bots... With bots it's about the user messaging in and then the bot tries to interperet the message and reply back correctly. The Playbook takes the approach that messaging is a channel > a marketing channel. Instead of inventing new functionality like bots, this approach takes the objectives that marketers currently focus on and use Messenger instead of other channels.

Given that approach the first step of the Playbook is convert. The first thing that a marketer can do is build a little automated conversation designed to convert the user. Think about it like a landing page/lead form, but just in a conversation format rather than a webform. Any place that you might drive traffic to a mobile webform, you can also or instead drive traffic into a conversation. Facebook Ads are a great example where it's possible to drive traffic into a conversation.

The second step is to test and compare the value for a visit to your mobile lead page vs a conversation. From a FB ad campaign, for instance, what's the cost per email when the ad sends the clicker into a conversation and how does that compare to the cost when the ad sends the clicker to the web page.

Those are steps 1 and 2. One = convert and Two = Test. There is a lot more detail in the Playbook and in the previous podcast episode which are 3-4 episodes behind.

The next step is about engagement. Just a quick side note - if you're launching messaging, you don't have to follow these steps, but it helps an organization grow the channel in a way that makes sense.

The engagement step focuses on following up, one on one with people when it makes sense.