Dmytro Kot

Use cases

Marketing

<p>Newsletters are one of the most effective ways to deliver value to your clients. While emails still remain a tried and tested formula for sending newsletters, their effectiveness falls behind modern messengers like Snapchat, Messenger or WhatsApp.</p>
<p>A marketing industry giant HubSpot <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-messenger-marketing-experiments">ran an experiment</a> to compare email and Messenger newsletters effectiveness. While email newsletters still delivered a decent open rate of 30% and a click rate of 2.1% they vastly underperformed Messenger newsletters with 80% and 13% respectively. That’s more than 600% higher engagement compared to email.</p>
<figure><img alt="table.png" src="/cms/static/blog/62861689ca8f1120c4325a58_fd1072cf0963cce3c22ba87206ccbd989dd41687cde155be3e20afa23d1f994eca57cd6012472b4645c54bd48565d348f0f6a21679321d5c42b23b7088f52b8e96cb8e2df40d7fe572247ebef869eff5b32e878a376a2ef278a44f24e61d999d6d852aa8.png" height="417" width="1200" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAABCAIAAAB2XpiaAAAACXBIWXMAABYlAAAWJQFJUiTwAAAAFUlEQVR4nGP4/++vHQODjpoQw5waACa9BLV0OBkfAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Moreover, Messenger newsletters are new. So new, that most Facebook businesses don’t know they exist. This gives you a chance to truly stand out and be among the first to unlock their untapped potential.</p>
<p>In this guide you’ll learn how Messenger newsletters work, how they are different from email newsletters and how to create your first Messenger newsletter campaign.</p>
<h2>What is a Messenger newsletter</h2>
<p>Messenger newsletter (officially ‘Recurring notifications’) is a brand new feature released in 2022 for Facebook Pages. It lets you create daily, weekly or monthly newsletter campaigns and send them out to subscribers right in Messenger chat. This newsletter can contain: product updates, special offers, news or any kind of promotional messages, unless they don’t violate Facebook guidelines.</p>
<p>Any Facebook Business Page can use Messenger newsletters. But to access this feature, you’ll need to <a href="https://https:://chatfuel.com">sign up for Chatfuel</a>. It’s a no-code tool that lets any business automate day-to-day their routine tasks, like replying to common customer question. In this case you’ll need it to create and send out Messenger newsletters.</p>
<h2>How is Messenger newsletter different from email</h2>
<p>Unlike emails, your whole communication with each customer is in one place — a Messenger chat. So if a subscriber wants to ask a question about what they’ve just read or contact you for help, they’ll just type in a message right there.</p>
<p>A Messenger newsletter offers a more concise, but interactive experience. An email typically has a longer format with title photos, headers, paragraphs and in most cases ends with a CTA (Call-To-Action) button. Due to Facebook guidelines, you are limited to one message per newsletter only, but don’t worry, you can still create eye-catching newsletters with multiple pictures, buttons and more.</p>
<p>Your newsletter is also spared of certain email quirks:</p>
<ul>
<li>it won’t get into spam folder;</li>
<li>it will avoid delivery issues;</li>
<li>it will appear as intended on multiple devices.</li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s look at an example. Lets say 1,000 people already receive a weekly email newsletter from your swimsuit store. They read about new arrivals, special offers and then click your CTA and go to your website. With a Messenger newsletter you can use galleries to make the same experience more interactive. Galleries work similar to Instagram posts, where your visitors can swipe through up to 10 cards. Each card has a picture itself, a description and a button. It makes it so much easier for a person to explore each card and decide which one they want to buy.</p>
<figure><img alt="NTN galleries.gif" src="/cms/static/blog/6286168a5e0b73baf81cf959_32c69911aa63afa49ed4fb1b8bb2875fca268210a82c07cccf4dc24ba2f656fc3a53bbafc034416a3e070e421b410c77124600f91e019e359eae96cefa9ff787765965e03b12d33a3294d6a4a292255a8d88a3d45e6f606077b483bd6c1ce343771a7866.gif" height="942" width="1514" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>A newsletter with latest blog posts to build brand loyalty</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Who can benefit from a Messenger newsletter</h2>
<p>Any business that offers services or sells something via a Facebook Page. Some examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>Creators;</li>
<li>Educators;</li>
<li>Online retailers;</li>
<li>Entertainment;</li>
<li>Health & Beauty;</li>
<li>Restaurants.</li>
</ul>
<h2>How to send a Messenger newsletter</h2>
<p>First, get your letter ready. Creating a Messenger newsletter follows the same steps as a regular email newsletter: figure out a goal, gather content and design a template. Next, you’ll need to subscribe a visitor or a client to your newsletter. You can subscribe anybody who messaged your Facebook Page or left a comment by sending them a special message with a subscription button. After they subscribe, you will be able to create campaigns and send daily, weekly or monthly messages.</p>
<p>There is only one rule you need to keep in mind. You need to subscribe a person to your newsletter within 24 hours after their last message.</p>
<h3>Subscribe your readers</h3>
<p>First, you’ll need to <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com/sign-in">register at Chatfuel</a>, it’s a tool that lets you create newsletter campaigns for Messenger. After you do the initial setup, go ahead and create one or several Flows. A Flow is a conversation logic that is automatically triggered when a user sends a message. It is activated when a user interacts with your page by sending a direct message, leaving a comment under one of your posts, etc. Remember those pop-up chat windows that offer answers to common questions, as if you are talking to an agent? Flows are what’s going on under-the-hood.</p>
<p>Next, you need to add a special subscription message. You can add it anywhere you want, but in general the end of the Flow makes the most sense. After you do, your users will be able to subscribe by clicking a button and you can start crafting your first newsletter.</p>
<figure><img alt="NTN notify button.gif" src="/cms/static/blog/6286168ad3e2e8b016adb12c_7b67baf69ea00ab56e4d11fc6c38b05ddc36c3e52a6b57601b819a803e0e589af127014d151e17311d4635325d44577e14e979a0261e2327c8fec9c18b08aff2321c508510175d2d4532f21f3aabceaed6ecee1e3b11c8ce1a85cbd56c92debe6b8ac935.gif" height="940" width="1336" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Visitors receive a subscription request</figcaption></figure>
<h3>Send your newsletter</h3>
<p>Creating newsletter campaigns is done in the separate Reengage tab that works the same way as any email automation platform. First you choose details of your campaign: date and time, topic, segments of your audience. Next, you add your content. Try to experiment with adding photos, using galleries, buttons and spicing it up with emojis. After you’re done editing, enable your newsletter campaign.</p>
<h2>Create your own Messenger newsletter</h2>
<p>Messenger newsletters are available to all <a href="https://chatfuel.com">Chatfuel</a> users. Try following this guide and create your own newsletter campaign. You can see how it works on your own Facebook Page. First 50 chats are free which is enough for you to get familiar with Chatfuel, try newsletters and other available features.</p>
<p>Newsletters is just one of many features available for Facebook automation. If you enjoyed reading this guide and want learn more about automation, see how you can <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/attract-customers-facebook-faqs">use FAQ buttons to attract more customers</a>.</p>

Do you want to get 600% higher engagement compared to email? Then, read about the new Facebook feature—a newsletter right in Messenger.

How to create a newsletter in Facebook Messenger

Guest Experts

<p>Every social media manager says you should add interactive posts into your content strategy to increase the engagement rate. Not only to have better statistics but to sell more and become closer to your customers. And marketing analysts prove this: recent research <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43039-021-00035-8">showed</a> that “engaged customers display greater brand loyalty and satisfaction, and are more likely to contribute to new product development, service innovation and viral marketing activity spread by word of mouth.”</p>
<p>But, it’s hard to engage the followers if you don’t think up anything new. So, we collected nine examples of engaging posts for Instagram showing promising results. Use them as your inspiration, adapt them to your brand, shake up your usual posting process and reap the fruits of your ideas.</p>
<h2>Secrets of good engagement</h2>
<p>Before posting interactive content, take a look at the rules applied to all types of engaging posts:</p>
<ul>
<li>Don’t post them too often to keep the followers surprised. Remember that you don’t sell at once with such posts, and you won’t get comments in a few days after posting a piece of interactive content. So save your resources.</li>
<li>Don’t ask customers to do random activities or actions when you run games in socials. Instead, slightly nudge them to mention your product or to share the values of your brand with their followers.</li>
<li>Ask to follow easy steps. The easier the rules, the more comments you’ll receive. For example, asking to tag a friend in comments is better than demanding visitors to go through several steps, like following your page, leaving a like and tagging a friend. But, sometimes, thought-through comments are needed.</li>
</ul>
<p>Explore the best practices below to understand which approach is better for your case.</p>
<h2>9 examples for interactive content on social media</h2>
<h3>Take what you need</h3>
<p>Shopify published a post with options users can take as if they see tear-off ads hanging on a lamppost. They mixed options for business and private life to grasp a bigger audience.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post Shopify" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c942061530b631aa45b_67f041139170cffd2ddeb7b758778d16497a5feefe0dffefdad732e386c222aac209bdbd1558a017ccd673087e11bf6c9c85e5fb0b5db3080b44209590593c339a4315a0ce26a0aecc625f0becd3c99bb2eb46a0cb95792ddfa04b8a0bf8be8f34ad0399.jpeg" height="1267" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAIAAAAECAIAAAArjXluAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAJUlEQVR4nGPYOEPn0FJ7BmsGHgsGEQYXbgYbBgaGx9en/f+6EQBvDQkv6IoKNQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Such design takes very little time but gives good engagement.</p>
<p>To adapt the idea to your brand:</p>
<ul>
<li>Write the list of effects your product or service delivers to clients. For example, strong hair, freshness, rich scent — if you sell shampoos.</li>
<li>List the products or services you provide. For example, a full-body massage, uniform tanning, fresh manicure — if you run a beauty salon.</li>
<li>The values your brand broadcasts. For example, consciousness, sympathy, cooperation — if you’re a non-commercial organization helping someone.</li>
</ul>
<p>To encourage the followers to leave comments, ask them to choose a thing from their wishlist and tag a partner or a friend using @ so they know what the person wants. Or say you collect statistics about your clients and will share the results with everyone, so every comment matters. Another thing you can do is to make options funny. So you won’t have to ask people to tag their friends — they’ll share the post just to make other people laugh.</p>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>The first words you see</h3>
<p>This is Olie asked followers to find three words in a set of letters. They devoted the post to the skills the followers should practice as the brand provides training programs and clothes and stands for self-improvement.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post Olie" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c95a73c187d852982a1_e7b3922f4da1e814c236eeff8ead069fe1ab6767f1973355f20df8cc66dc39664d458bdb932cbf2f35926bb0f8b0c328297de187d81b8030fe6665b438c505854378f5d4f67981bed38c6492bd61da6d95f46799f09d4592890c5f921dc5f7a81143c84b.jpeg" height="1152" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAMAAAAECAIAAADETxJQAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAMUlEQVR4nGNgsIji0fdU9cxkEBMx5WdRE+QzZAjV9Yg1DQjT9WI4cfzE08dPf3z9DgCjeg0337AMwwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Add your brand logo to the design to prevent author’s rights infringement.</p>
<p>To adapt the idea to your brand:</p>
<ol>
<li>Create a list of words connected with your brand, values, or products.</li>
<li>Place them in the square vertically and horizontally.</li>
<li>Randomly fill in the whole square with letters. Make sure you didn’t create new words out of your list.</li>
</ol>
<p>To get more attention to your interactive post, ask the followers to tag friends in the comments to get them playing in the game. Or promise to create a giveaway and give them a small reward for a random comment.</p>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>A simple question to the audience</h3>
<p>People like talking about themselves and sharing their success and news. So, sometimes you can effortlessly get hundreds of comments just by asking your audience a simple question.</p>
<p>Girlboss simply asked the followers whether they have any good news to share and gathered 366 comments. The followers shared their news, tagged friends, and exchanged positive comments with each other.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post: simple question" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c95d486a0eb59a21fdf_afe0ced47eb645e114b1d25b8776b49840b090cd4854ee012adae85e90430fa52953fee2ac8c12d481b966181da5409e172333640b1d93f793c264dce26bdc18bbb1c29e782ec81cdd51edf2b573431948d42acd4718c645720edd4bb0c1067f8cef0881.jpeg" height="1267" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAIAAAAECAIAAAArjXluAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAJUlEQVR4nGPILFP4/m8jg5ouw5RpeQxmLgwF1ZoMQgIiV6/eAACNZgnX/TNMTQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Experiment with the design: make a screenshot from Twitter, add a sticker from Instagram stories, or call the post a “Honorous board” to get more attention.</p>
<p>The sphere of your business shapes which questions to ask — they should be connected with your brand. But there are questions suitable for everyone:</p>
<ul>
<li>Which three things inspired you today?</li>
<li>What do you think about the (latest event)?</li>
<li>Which (product) do you like the most?</li>
<li>What’s your superpower?</li>
<li>If you win $1 million, how would you spend it?</li>
</ul>
<p>Make sure it’s easy to answer to your questions, and you ask for a little effort or provide options.</p>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>Relatable meme</h3>
<p>Memes gather all likes, comments, and tags if they’re relatable. Think of a meme or a catchy phrase that makes people laugh and share.</p>
<p>A Swedish fintech company Klarna posts memes relatable to their followers. They write comments that they think or feel the same and tag their friends. They connect the memes with shopping as it’s their sphere.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post meme" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c94127362c94abd65a4_a5e0043d2196c83032db73a561fcfda1cdc601ccb6bb0c403142cf0244fc66c33a878e70db79da069ddc35e90fca9092bbde4589db79f380062348e4913fdc345ccdf2ba777af66b498e4720736b3dc681f7a97fe5312be746df1c6c6e8e2f65c8f12bb1.jpeg" height="1082" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAMAAAAECAIAAADETxJQAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAM0lEQVR4nAEoANf/ACUAAMKvq25MZwBMNjT2/PyHYWwAnY2H3N7dZ0FCAKObmK2ko6iYm1tAEzLJOYf/AAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Get even more likes and comments — create a funny illustration or take a popular meme and adapt it to your brand.</p>
<p>If you need help and inspiration in meme creation, use meme generators:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://imgflip.com/memegenerator">ImgFlip</a> — a vast library of popular memes. Take them as a template or upload your picture, add the text and customize it. View the most popular memes in a special section to know what’s popular now.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.kapwing.com">Kapwing</a> — a more complex meme builder for those who want to create them like a pro. Here you can create not only an image but a video, add emojis, control the picture using layers, record the screen, and add transitions, audio, and different elements.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.canva.com/create/memes">Canva</a> — a free meme generator that allows editing popular memes available in the app library. They offer over 5000 meme templates and two mln watermark-free images.</li>
</ul>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>This or that</h3>
<p>People adore voting, sharing their opinion, and waiting for the results to know who won. So, give them such an opportunity — ask the followers to choose between:</p>
<ul>
<li>products,</li>
<li>flavors,</li>
<li>colors,</li>
<li>looks,</li>
<li>shops at different addresses.</li>
</ul>
<p>A clothes brand, “Her Treasures Boutique,” regularly publishes posts where they ask to choose one of two looks on the same model. They get comments, involve users, and show the product. People write “A” or “B” in the comments, increasing the engagement rate.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post: voting" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c95d486a07d79a21fe0_fc51245416103d961eae60a5feb24b3b6736b9694c2894b325ca564d22441637b14ba35c188633da0032c21ffa8bc6eb7cc30a864274a9ee9c06ed1e711aefe869cea70f07f1834c28a6ae5ae2a4a4a1eaed08974a7b9a0798b7aba567fd926ca8a5e448.jpeg" height="1267" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAIAAAAECAIAAAArjXluAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAJUlEQVR4nGN4/erVh/fvGQSYGRgFmBj8tfWCzU0ZPrz7/P/vfwCtjAznnljLswAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>And don’t forget to leave the shopping tags to lead the followers to make an order.</p>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>Guess the product</h3>
<p>This game works well only with the existing customers or loyal followers as they know your brand and product range. Ask them to guess which product you propounded, give hints for the novelties, and check whether your audience knows the differences between your products.</p>
<p>Coca-Cola asked followers to guess which flavor was hidden. They hid two words plus gave facts that followers may not know. You can take this approach as an example and test it for your followers.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post: the game" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c95bc2be18bc66afb52_d7c535d611332208abd3d2da0d6e72ed2daaeed63e111a659636df9d01caefa4f528e1de9465c55c654535e1b51cb943e270625d12885cc03daec475eb2f14dfb15db76c1074704a368ce90c4971f7c3b2a3c8a5605c78e1da9d3027c9692fa7940f913e.jpeg" height="1118" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAMAAAAECAIAAADETxJQAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAM0lEQVR4nAEoANf/AJuFfsy6t/Xv5ABOPTVnWllkVkoAIwAAgG1uJAEAAMCwq/Th3v/v7mmTEs9rg0dKAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>And don’t forget about the hints — you’ll get more comments.</p>
<p>To increase the engaging effect, offer discounts and give a reward to one of the participants. But don’t reward a person who answered the first — others won’t be motivated to participate.</p>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>Match</h3>
<p>Add a few columns and lines to make them cross. Put products, flavors, or services recommendations in these squares. Such “matches” make people feel that the recommendation is personalized and increases leads and sells. To adapt it to your brand:</p>
<ol>
<li>Choose a few products or services you want to focus your followers’ attention on.</li>
<li>Write short characteristics for them.</li>
<li>Match them with anything simple: favorite color, weather, or mood.</li>
</ol>
<p>Starbucks offers followers to guess what their spring will bring. They are to choose a favorite drink and their spring vibe to get an answer. Most of the followers write their results in the comments. Starbucks got 452 comments on this post.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post Starbucks" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c951496aea1c437da11_4c8f2c6c1539758cf13ddd56d3784a17f85e370e4f697ca4fdb450e168b9f99aa2cbba641a34cd5636475da7455a6e7fda3f64f54090222ac006503466f5eba9ae1369b690b44ca1d9964d19a0096818a0f935e7cfe6ec3f352806ff38239c43ecb7bbaf.jpeg" height="1149" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAMAAAAECAIAAADETxJQAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAM0lEQVR4nAEoANf/AKqsq766vdzU2ADAwrwJDgABAwAAtLKsbm4va20nAJOTk8LAwu/u8IwqE/4Jf3IQAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Don’t forget to ask for comment on the results.</p>
<p>Motivate the followers to leave the comments — say they’ll find co-thinkers or that you do the research and will show the results later.</p>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>Tag a friend</h3>
<p>Sometimes people tag their friends without asking when they want to share the post and don’t send it to DM. But if your followers aren’t used to tagging — ask them to do it a few times to create a habit. Their tags help you grow the audience faster for free — don’t ignore this instrument.</p>
<p>HelloFresh asked followers to tag a friend the followers love more than food topped with melted cheese. They got 38 comments. People tagged their friends and wrote “definitely!”, “hahaha you” and “hey bestie lol.”</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post: tag a friend" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c966f5bad0ae7e5c2d1_c91f98267af7f0ccad410f225a6d34984e4eda373e70a141bc6bf53622e1a490c098332c52160de37a013e072b4adb6754f6bf27b3211a228114815ac8b613e944dd2f3e5593a25964d316f01b3bb8f22722e9c863a6b74cfc3ba8cb59e8b5658d172d82.jpeg" height="1224" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAIAAAAECAIAAAArjXluAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAJElEQVR4nGPwSnLOaKxnYBBiUDXQZRDW4tX3cGHYvW/vt98/AVzxCRH8qa/uAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Support the picture with a good joke to make closer contact with the followers.</p>
<p>Make sure you create a positive post, and a tag will make your followers’ friends smile or laugh. This way, you connect people’s good feelings with your brand, and there’s a bigger chance your followers’ friends will become your customers.</p>
<p>‍</p>
<h3>Giveaways</h3>
<p>Don’t wait that people who subscribe to you during the giveaway will stay with you for a long. So don’t try to increase the audience with giveaways; use them for engagement and organic growth.</p>
<p>To create an engaging giveaway, think of a unique algorithm. Don’t ask users to write emojis and numbers — it asks too little effort from the users. Ask intriguing questions instead.</p>
<p>Daisy, a jewelry brand from London, posted a giveaway on the 8th of March. They ask to tag inspirational women in the comments and share the stories of why these women are inspirational. They got 652 comments and warm stories and then chose a winner from the comments.</p>
<figure><img alt="example for interactive post: giveaway" src="/cms/static/blog/62680c96e78044aa3ed5e930_c1b3652eddf714f90c32f95503be1d925495cf19954d6653cbc3106d297d29dc1497a910d09bf69dedd6f8b2f2d2b48493746613c89553add7f330603bc69285b42359d39e0c88f88f5078f80f64b2c5890af6c1a4c7fb199a99bf3f42d7961d6e597874.jpeg" height="1270" width="750" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAIAAAAECAIAAAArjXluAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAJ0lEQVR4nAEcAOP/ALWvqffy6wAtHxYjFQkAnpeRr6ehAGNjZPr6+7TZDVswrz9SAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>It’s better to say it’s a giveaway in the picture to catch more attention to it.</p>
<p>To make the giveaway even more engaging:</p>
<ol>
<li>Choose a winner not randomly but for the best comment.</li>
<li>Ask the followers and their friends to put likes on the best comments.</li>
<li>Announce the deadline and see who got more votes.</li>
</ol>
<p>It works as there’s more competition, and while putting likes, people read each other’s thoughts, find new friends, and comment on the comments.</p>
<p>Also, make a screenshot of the results when the deadline comes to prove everything is fair. And if you choose a winner randomly, make a screencast of the process and share it in Stories or the post with the results.</p>
<h2>Turn the engaged followers into customers</h2>
<p>Gathering comments isn’t enough if you want a better conversion and increased sales. Chatfuel automation allows <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/automatically-respond-instagram-comments">answering all questions automatically</a>, creates a CRM from users’ comments, and helps to lead the followers further to the marketing funnel. Connect your Instagram page with Chatfuel no-code automation builder and start the first 50 conversations for free.</p>

Secret of good engagement: read about best examples for interactive content on social media and adapt this ideas to your brand.

9 ideas you can steal for interactive posts on social media in 2022

Industries

<p>Attracting customers is one of the main parts of any business. For tech companies the market is even more competitive when you add other international players in global markets. Luckily, acquiring new customers with lead generation strategies is something any business owner can learn.</p>
<h2>What is a lead generation strategy?</h2>
<p>Your relationship with any customer always starts the same. You need to find people who are potentially interested in what you’re selling. In marketing, this process is called lead generation. You guide your clients through the marketing funnel to eventually sell them your products. For many businesses creating a simple website and asking customers for their email via a form might work just fine. But to truly scale up your business you need to become flexible and try different effective lead generation strategies.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/62567388744ac017e634f0f9_term lead generation strategy.png" loading="lazy" alt="What is a lead generation strategy" height="1168" width="2080" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAI0lEQVR4nGOYU7spwrT2zrU7f/7+ZrAL6GZgDf76+dOvnz8BvVMPj9jdOq0AAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Such strategies include building landing pages for your website, republishing your content elsewhere, hosting online events and many more. Trying out and testing different strategies is a must for any business owner. Below are 3 lead generation strategies that will help you get more leads. They’ll also show you ways to better qualify your leads and attract customers who are more likely to buy.</p>
<h2>Building landing pages</h2>
<p>Most social media ads or marketing emails want you to click a link. And most of the time this link leads to a landing page. Businesses create such pages on their website with a specific goal in mind: advertising campaign, test-marketing or something else.</p>
<p>Landing pages differ from regular web pages in one key element, they all have the same goal — to lead your visitors to a call-to-action or a CTA. Simply, to make them do a certain action. A common example is to include buttons like ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Try free’, or to provide a form to ask visitors for their contact info. A landing page takes someone who’s interested in your product and converts them to a potential customer.</p>
<p>The most common and effective way to use landing pages is to choose a CTA and then ask people to leave their contact info. It could be an email or a phone number, or both. This way, you can continue communication and cultivate their interest in your product.</p>
<h3>Works best for</h3>
<p>Software companies, e-commerce, B2B or a small to middle business owners. Most companies benefit from landing pages.</p>
<h2>Content syndication</h2>
<p>Content syndication is the process of reposting content from your website to third-party websites. You can republish anything: articles, video tutorials, blog posts and guest columns. But since Google doesn’t like duplicated content, you need to follow certain rules. Otherwise, your customers won’t see your content in search top results. So instead of duplicating the original, syndicated content refers to it, which helps you keep a healthy search engine optimization (SEO) score.</p>
<p>A simple way to try this strategy is to do a Google search for ‘‘originally published by” or “original post by”. Make sure you include the quotes as well. This will show articles from sites that often post syndicated content. Go through these results and find sites that might be interesting to your audience.</p>
<p>Another way is to start with an already established platform. A site like <a href="http://medium.com">Medium</a> already has a reader base and a higher authority compared to your website. Find someone who writes about similar things and ask them to republish your content or start your own column and do it yourself. Either way, make sure you refer to the original content in all of your reposts.</p>
<h3>Works best for</h3>
<p>Companies who already have their own blog and want to expand their audience, for example, <a href="https://zoom.us">Zoom</a>, <a href="https://www.dropbox.com">Dropbox</a> or <a href="https://chatfuel.com">Chatfuel</a>.</p>
<h2>Organizing webinars</h2>
<p>An online webinar lets you interact with potential clients, answer their questions and address their concerns. A casual atmosphere of a webinar doesn’t feel like a one-on-one interaction with a sales manager. This naturally builds an organic relationship and shows people they can trust you.</p>
<p>To prepare for a webinar, answer two questions: who and what. Answering the 'who' helps you choose a segment of your auditory. For example, decide whether you want to invite your current customers only or attract new leads via social media like Facebook. For the ‘what’ part, choose a format. Do some planning and prepare materials, if necessary. When you are ready, make an announcement on social media and host your webinar. Your main goal is to answer any questions or concerns your leads have and remove any doubts they got about becoming your client.</p>
<p>You can quickly test this strategy on social media without creating a website or any web forms. After you get your content ready, sign up with <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com/sign-up">Chatfuel</a>. It’s a no-code automation platform for social media like Facebook and Instagram. In our case, we need it to gather leads from comments, so when people leave a comment to your webinar announcement post, your bot will react and collect emails or phone numbers automatically. Connect your page to Chatfuel, open Home tab and use Get Leads From Comments template. Change text information and tweak this template to your liking. Then, make your announcement post and enable automation. You’ll start receiving leads.</p>
<p>If the strategy works and you like the results, you can expand automation for webinars even more. Everything from start to finish: collecting leads, sending out invitations, providing a Zoom link to the webinar and exporting your leads to a Google Sheet. This frees up a lot of time for you to scale this strategy and even get more customers.</p>
<h3>Works best for</h3>
<p>Any size technology company can benefit from webinars. Tech giants like IBM use this strategy and offer customers valuable info to nurture their leads.</p>
<h2>Try, then scale</h2>
<p>There are plenty of other lead generation strategies. We recommend choosing one or two at a time, depending on your goals and the resources you can allocate. After you evaluate the results and feel comfortable, try to explore new strategies and scale up the ones that work.</p>

What is lead generation strategy? Read about best lead generation strategies for technology companies and choose one that fit your business

3 best lead generation strategies for technology companies

Platforms

<h2>Missing comments in activity feed</h2>
<p>On Instagram, you get a notification every time somebody posts a comment. And if you are running a business, you can’t afford losing a single lead. But notifications about new comments are in the same feed as your likes, new subscriptions, recommendations, etc. This is by design. A unified activity feed helps Instagram engage users, but it makes comments harder to track. So business has to work around it. You can track comments yourself or hire somebody to do it for you. But, there is a more elegant solution. Automation.</p>
<h2>What you can do with automation</h2>
<p>Automation lets you send your customers a message and engage them right away. Instagram has the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1274133/engagement-rate-per-post-social-media">highest engagement level</a> compared to Facebook or Twitter. Around 1.16% per post, compared to 0.27% and 0.07% respectively. This means that users post more, but also expect you to reply quickly. That’s key. Automation easily solves two things. How fast your business replies and what engagement level your profile has. It also helps your business save money on staff.</p>
<p>Automation can help you:</p>
<ul>
<li>increase conversion;</li>
<li>retain customers;</li>
<li>increase online sales.</li>
</ul>
<p>You can do all that with Chatfuel. It’s a no-code automation app for small and medium business owners. It lets you create a conversation logic between your users and a bot. Kind of like a chain of messages. In our case, we need to track and reply to Instagram comments. Let’s start with a conversation example.</p>
<p>A user leaves a comment asking if the item is in stock. Our system replies and gives them a link to a website to check availability. A customer then goes to the website. After several minutes, your bot offers them a promo code for a future purchase. All they need to do is leave their email. You can set up responses to FAQs, run promo campaigns or send people a link to your website. In this tutorial, we will focus on replying to Instagram comments.</p>
<h2>How to automate Instagram comments in Chatfuel</h2>
<h3>Sign up with Chatfuel</h3>
<p>To start, you need to create an account at Chatfuel. Go to <a href="https://chatfuel.com">chatfuel.com</a> and sign up using your Facebook account. We recommend using a Facebook account for registration. This is because you will need to connect your Facebook Page before turning on automation. After creating an account, you will get first 50 conversations for free.</p>
<h3>Preparation</h3>
<p>Next, open Flow Builder. It’s a tool that lets you create automation in Chatfuel. Go to Flows tab in the left sidebar menu and create a new Instagram Flow. Then, click on the plus sign button on the right to open a menu. Add Comments Autoreply Entry Point. This will be the place where user starts conversation. Now, it’s time to configure comments reply settings.</p>
<h3>Decide which comments to respond to</h3>
<p>First, decide if you want to respond to all comments or to comments from specific posts. Then, think about keywords. Do you need them for your business? They are useful in case you want automation to react with a different message to a particular keyword. For example, you decide to run a promo campaign. Set up a separate message that responds to a keyword #iwantdiscount. Now, when your clients leave a particular comment, automation responds with this specific message. After that, choose the response to be private, public or set up both. Add more content if needed.</p>
<p>Look at the example below. In this Flow, our system sends a DM to a user after they post a comment. The message contains a link to the online store. After 5 minutes, a bot sends a second message offering a user to leave their email to stay tuned for new promo campaigns.</p>
<figure><img alt="Instagram comments autoreply flow example" src="/cms/static/blog/6202647615d70905a39051af_cf6df8b5a4993c71d4cdc6caea3fa263c7ccfc299ca430e7ac9c1ec24b729420aa2e0260e5e0f4b45c0f97e7e9820076900bc364e69a78204831db3781e464a6e4e61e0edd09504e2c426b64b072936abfe55590ef97800c5934fc029b1dc81e23dd0c2e.png" height="479" width="1420" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAABCAIAAAB2XpiaAAAACXBIWXMAAA7DAAAOwwHHb6hkAAAAFUlEQVR4nGPQUFHLzcmpq6nat28fABraBWbdYuvSAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<h3>Connect your Facebook and Instagram</h3>
<p>Finally, you need to connect your Facebook Page. Click on Grow tab in the sidebar menu and find Connect button next to Facebook Page and Instagram Account. Connect your Facebook Page first, then connect your Instagram Account. Your Instagram Account is linked to a Facebook Page, that’s why we need both connected.</p>
<h3>Turn on auto replies to comments</h3>
<p>After connecting your pages, go to your Flow and activate Comments Autoreply Entry Point. Your bot status will change to Live. It means that automation is on and your bot is now responding to comments.</p>
<p>Find this article helpful? We appreciate it. We believe that automation can take your business to the next level. <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com/sign-up">Sign up</a> for Chatfuel and never lose a new lead again. If you want to read some more, check out our <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/low-cost-hypothesis-testing">latest customer story</a>.</p>

Missing comments in Activity Feed? You can automate responses to Instagram comments with Chatfuel. This tutorial will show you how.

How to automatically respond to Instagram comments

<p>My name is Mary, I’m a Product Manager at Art&Fact. Personally, I care about my health and my skin in particular. I would even call myself a full-time beauty enthusiast. I usually spend a lot of time reading about different skincare products and take my time to choose a good fit for myself. Now, working at one of the largest beauty brands in Russia — I can help our customers build their skincare routine easily.</p>
<h2>How to make it nice and easy?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.art-fact-products.com">Art&Fact</a> is a Russian beauty brand that manufactures cosmetics and skincare products. Since April 2020, the company has brought out more than 35 face, skin, and hair products to the market. I think we’re growing pretty fast for a young company. Our brand has its own philosophy regarding the production process: using only effective and clinically-tested formulas.</p>
<p>We develop these formulas in collaboration with leading labs in Europe and the US. And then manufacture them in Russia under stringent standards (quality control). No artificial fragrances, dyes, or flashy ingredients, nothing like that. And, of course — no animal testing. At the same time, the company successfully keeps the products at affordable prices, so most of our customers can purchase high-quality products for each stage of their skincare routine. There are different customer needs, even though there are only a few skin types. So we realized that choosing a right fit might be challenging for some of our customers.</p>
<p>Art&Fact has a nice Instagram account, and many customers prefer purchasing products right there. So we get lots of very similar questions in our DMs: ‘Is it better to buy serum or cream? ’, ‘What products are a good to use in the winter? ’, ‘Are your products safe for my skin? ’</p>
<p>My team and I decided to run a test promo: free Zoom consultations with skin care professionals to help our customers choose suitable products. Initially, we wanted to see if it will simplify selecting and purchasing process for our clients. We kept it simple: 100 video consultations on Zoom, 30 minutes each.</p>
<h2>Please, try again</h2>
<figure><img alt="Art' Fact Chatfuel bot" src="/cms/static/blog/61ee6db90b9790661fb871ad_4edb0cfce434a0a1e13737b7342ea996de316cdb33e4365890310f7a21f8f1c07450393df8c63c3c495f8a9bdd5426c36f16da54dfc4a557e066ead023f840e49eeb8693f09e1334ef1033fbfe2b4a753c9873e0752e1f0ea75e873937514786a908cff7.jpeg" height="1280" width="1280" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAAECAIAAAAmkwkpAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAP0lEQVR4nAE0AMv/AOP//4BifFVoZrnFnQClhnxyYUEACS5gZWMAOhQkhGZMMEtVWISPALLH2pWcrGNygavI1FzxF0g7lvj7AAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>I went through several important steps. First, I hired 5 skincare professionals and prepared info cards for each of them. I added qualification and experience details, so clients could learn more about each professional and choose one to consult with. Next, I created a short survey about the skin type and other details to make each consultation more productive and personalized. Finally, I had to find a platform to put everything together.</p>
<p>Like most beauty professionals, I’ve already heard about YClients. So, I decided to go with them. They can schedule Zoom meetings, which was very important for my project. My initial plan was to make an Instagram post with promo details. Then send a Typeform link to people who replied to the post. They would complete a pre-consultation survey and receive a link to YClients. Finally, they would book a meeting with a skincare professional.</p>
<p>I spent several hours setting everything up: profiles, schedules, small pre-consultation survey, then I tried to launch the whole thing. Bam, error message: please try again. It just wouldn’t work. I was bombarding support and nervously explaining the delay to my manager. It was late in the evening when I left the office feeling really hopeless. I spent two weeks trying to get this ship sailing and still didn’t depart.</p>
<h2>Why don’t we make a chatbot?</h2>
<p>When I got back home that night, my husband Nick noticed that something was off. He asked me what happened and told him the whole story. Why don’t we make a chatbot? — he said. Nick works at <a href="https://chatfuel.com">Chatfuel</a>, and at first, I thought he was joking. I couldn’t manage a platform made for beginner users, and he was suggesting I make a bot. Why not try? — I thought. So I grabbed a laptop and started building my first bot.</p>
<p>It was important for me to make it so that clients wouldn’t leave Instagram. My bot would DM users who commented on the post with the keyword ‘I want consultation’ and offer them the survey. Clients then can answer the key questions before the consultation. Their answers would be saved to Google Sheets. After this, our customers would choose skincare professionals right in Instagram DMs.</p>
<p>I updated the profile cards with pictures and descriptions. After the survey, clients would receive a link to Calendly and schedule a Zoom meeting. Calendly supports sending follow-ups for both email and SMS. That allowed me to solve another problem. The skin care professionals could now recommend products after the consultation with a couple of clicks. 40 minutes later my bot was ready.</p>
<h2>Here we go</h2>
<p>Our marketing team launched an ad campaign and published a post the very next day. And a few days later we got measurable results of my project. Feeling confident, I went to show metrics to our CEO:</p>
<ul>
<li>We raised our outreach and engagement rate. 100 applications made within 2 hours.</li>
<li>We tested a hypothesis with relatively low costs and resources involved.</li>
<li>86 out of 100 applicants made a purchase right after the consultation.</li>
<li>Another 200 users got a discount code.</li>
</ul>
<p>Participants who didn’t make it on time got a discount code and most likely will use it to make a purchase. After the promo was done, we received tons of messages from people asking when is the next one, which indicates a high engagement rate.</p>
<p>And the setting up process wasn’t as difficult as I thought. You just need to get the main idea of building a bot — add one block after another, connect them, add attractive content, and use the integrations that are useful for you. If you want to see an example before building a brand new one, check out <a href="https://chatfuel.com/share/?flow=61c2f9c231fd7715e0b4b33b">my bot</a>. Feel free to use it as a template.</p>
<h2>Against the odds</h2>
<p>When I look back at the path I went through, I feel so proud. I didn’t give up, even though I was so close to doing it. I learned a lot of new things, and I realized that walking a beaten path is not as easy as it seems, and it’s good to venture out. Nowadays it’s very important to think outside the box and try new useful tools.</p>
<p>And a cherry on the top — I got a bonus for my successful project. And I know exactly who’s going to help me celebrate it.</p>
<figure><img alt="" src="/cms/static/blog/61ee6db984ecfbeae202f483_13690b8a038380140a9afaf1e64b139bc4aace22d0586b6a58df65b6c4af806cecf1fc2f5e8902addd1320c29815d0b480467cc20ca5096c1c1b0ea0b078f0a03fa0ff6d0dfa9367c324b7d2312cd2e1e69a76a46bb2d39203fed46fa225804634c2d15e.jpeg" height="1280" width="945" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAMAAAAECAIAAADETxJQAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAMUlEQVR4nGNoLyutaJ5ZEBnKkJ/iEepoaiMnydAyoWNqS83tozsZfv35y8vO++3bewA+SxH3rkkgJQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"></figure>
<p>Cheers, Mary 🙌</p>
<p>‍</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">Sign up with Chatfuel</a> for free today — no coding skills, previous experience, or credit card required. You can also <a href="https://chatfuel.com/share/?flow=61c2f9c231fd7715e0b4b33b">use the template</a> Mary used for her bot as your starting ground.*</li>
</ul>

Beauty brand Art & Fact creates an Instagram bot with Chatfuel. It helped them test a hypothesis easily and at a low cost.

How a beauty brand easily tested hypothesis at almost no cost

Bojana Vojnović

<p>Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is customer loyalty. To get customers to stick around, you can invest your time and effort in improving your product and your customer experience.</p>
<p>Great customer service is an extremely valuable tool for building exceptional experience and more loyal customers. That’s why we’ll explain how customer service makes a huge impact on your business and give you concrete ideas for <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbot-for-customer-service">making improvements</a> to your current offerings.</p>
<h2>Customer acquisition vs. customer retention</h2>
<p>One of the age-old questions in customer marketing is: should you focus your efforts on customer acquisition or customer retention? There is no “right” answer, but both are important for building a sustainable business.</p>
<p>Acquiring a new customer, although necessary, is <a href="https://www.huify.com/blog/acquisition-vs-retention-customer-lifetime-value">five times more expensive</a> than retaining an existing customer. Loyal customers are also more likely to make a purchase from you since they are already familiar with your brand, products, and experience.</p>
<p>So, how do you get customers to keep coming back? Offering great customer service is one of the most powerful ways to retain the customers you’ve worked so hard to acquire.</p>
<h2>What influences customer loyalty?</h2>
<p>Customer loyalty is influenced by the perceived value you bring to your customers, brand trust, and customer satisfaction—all of which can be increased through having great customer service.</p>
<p>A reported <a href="https://www.nextiva.com/blog/customer-service-statistics.html">96% of customers worldwide</a> say customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand, and the vast majority are willing to spend more if it means receiving great customer service in return.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/610a694aecea9356b0ce9cfd_01-min.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="2336" width="4160" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAABYlAAAWJQFJUiTwAAAAJUlEQVR4nAEaAOX/AAADZmJp2b23//nr/wDBiv//zv9+hv+2rf+//RDfJjVuLgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>When asking consumers what impacts their level of trust with a company, offering excellent customer service ranked <strong>number one</strong>.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>How loyalty is built with customer service</h2>
<p>A great customer service strategy, at its core, means having a consistent game plan for addressing all types of customer questions and feedback.</p>
<p>If you can deliver answers quickly, efficiently, and politely, your customers will be much more likely to return.  To improve your strategy, here are a few key areas you should evaluate:</p>
<h3>Through your onboarding process</h3>
<p>Whether your onboarding process is human-led or automated, it’s a critical part of <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/customer-loyalty-chatbot">building customer loyalty</a>. Onboarding is one of the first interactions your customers have with your company, so it’s extra important to make sure they have a positive experience. If you have a self-guided onboarding process, give your customers opportunities to seek more information whenever possible.</p>
<h3>Through self-servicing options</h3>
<p>If your product or service is complex enough to require more detailed tutorials, it’s a smart idea to build out a knowledge base or support center. Your knowledge base can contain in-depth articles on product features or short, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A499Eeq9Lq8">easy-to-read FAQs.</a> The easier it is for your customers to find the answers they need, the better.</p>
<h3>Through agent-assisted support</h3>
<p>Your agents may be responsible for chatting with customers through several different channels, including phone, online chat, email, and social media. High levels of customer retention stem from consistent and compassionate service.</p>
<p>Train your agents and check-in with them regularly to ensure they are handling customer interactions with the same level of excellence across the board. Go for meaningful conversations, rather than just closing as many tickets as possible.</p>
<h3>Through feedback implementation</h3>
<p>Evaluating your strategy and performance to make your service even better is always a good idea. You should be examining feedback from your customer service team as well as your customers. Ask customers how they feel about your service <a href="https://surveysparrow.com/blog/guide-product-feedback">via feedback surveys</a> on social media or <a href="https://blog.lemlist.com/best-email-verification-tools">email</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, survey your team members to identify strengths and pain points in your current strategy. These are just a few of the many proponents of implementing a successful customer feedback loop.</p>
<h2>4 parts of customer service you can automate</h2>
<p>Good customer service doesn’t necessarily have to be entirely human-powered. Your customer service strategy may actually benefit from being partially automated.</p>
<p>If you want to provide round-the-clock, consistent service and let your agents handle more complex cases, here are a few areas of customer service that may be worth automating.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/610a6ac9b289383ee9949a25_03 (1)-min.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="2336" width="4160" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAABYlAAAWJQFJUiTwAAAAI0lEQVR4nGNgYHU/fvH/s5f/+Y1mMTCwO3z++f/i9f8Myo0Ao8ANCq2U2Y0AAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Automating services is made easy with chatbots</figcaption></figure>
<h3>1. Your onboarding</h3>
<p>An <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/onboarding-chatbot">automated onboarding flow</a> lets your customers get situated with your product or service at their own pace.</p>
<p>For example, you can use a chatbot to create automated flows that are as simple or complex as you’d like. A chatbot can walk your customers through a proper onboarding checklist, recommend related tutorials or videos from your support center, or guide them through certain features in more detail based on how they interact.</p>
<h3>2. Frequently asked questions (FAQs)</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A499Eeq9Lq8">How to Automate Customer FAQs on Facebook Messenger</a></p>
<p>If you have a running list of the questions your agents get asked the most often, you can save a lot of time and effort by integrating them into a chatbot. Once it’s been programmed, a bot can anticipate what your customers are looking or asking for, and deliver those answers quickly.</p>
<h3>3. Advanced routing to the right teams</h3>
<p>When phone calls can’t be routed to the intended recipient, it creates a frustrating experience for both you and your customers. <a href="https://www.nextiva.com/blog/what-is-call-routing.html">Call routing</a> is a great tactic to ensure that customers who reach your business by phone will be able to speak with the person or department that can provide the help they need.</p>
<p>With routing, customers will hear a list of departments they can speak with and the action required to connect, i.e. press “1” to speak with the billing department, press “2” to speak with customer support, and so on.</p>
<p>In addition to connecting customers with the right people, automated redirections of calls also reduce wait times and can give you the option to forward calls to a partner or outside firm when you’re unavailable. Given these benefits, it’s no surprise that call routing is a proven way to boost your customer satisfaction ratings.</p>
<h3>4. Keeping databases</h3>
<p>Detailed database-keeping is essential for providing exceptional service. A <a href="https://blog.appsumo.com/crm-software">Customer Relationship Management system (CRM)</a> that integrates with your communication channels (phone calls, texts, emails, chatbots, etc.) will help your customer service team capture notes and information about customer interactions. You can then refer back to this data to make more informed decisions to increase customer loyalty.</p>
<h2>Investing in loyalty pays off in the long run</h2>
<p>Building up your customer service strategy to increase customer loyalty can help you cut costs and generate more revenue. A loyal customer is easier to sell to, cheaper to maintain, and tends to <a href="https://blog.smile.io/repeat-customers-profitable">spend more on new purchases</a>. They’re also more likely to recommend you to others, making them one of the most valuable acquisition tools. Customer service has immense benefits for your bottom line and is a powerful way to set yourself apart from others.</p>

To get customers to stick around, you can invest your time and effort in improving your product and your customer experience.

Why Great Customer Service Builds More Loyal Customers

Chloe West

<p>For apps and software companies, properly onboarding new users is crucial. Your goal is to help them find success on your platform as soon as possible so that they’ll become a long-term, satisfied customer. Having a human agent run personal onboarding sessions with each new users and checking in with them frequently would be ideal. But of course, that would take major resources that most companies can’t reasonably provide.</p>
<p>Instead, some software companies are turning toward chatbots to manage and improve their user onboarding process. Whether the user has just signed up or is logging in for the first time in a while, a chatbot can help guide them toward success with your app.</p>
<h2>Why chatbots make excellent tools for user onboarding</h2>
<p>Chatbots—especially those integrated with Facebook Messenger—are useful for <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/top-9-reasons-your-business-needs-a-chatbot">lots of different sales and marketing tasks.</a> They can <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/lead-generation-on-autopilot">generate leads</a>, recommend products, <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/lead-generation-on-autopilot">answer FAQs</a>, and more. The characteristics that make chatbots so helpful in these use cases are the same ones that make them helpful in the <a href="https://www.liveagent.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-an-effective-customer-onboarding-program">customer onboarding</a> process.</p>
<p>The main one is that chatbots are available any time, 24/7. They don’t need time off like human agents do, which means they’re ready to help your customers at any time of day or night, in any time zone. That means they can onboard new users or engage returning users whenever, helping retain customers for your business while you sleep.</p>
<p>In addition to their constant availability, here are a few other reasons chatbots are fantastic tools for customer onboarding:</p>
<h3>Chatbots can offer personalized experiences 👥</h3>
<p>Messenger chatbots can pull data from the user’s Facebook profile, or from past conversations with them (if applicable). They can also gather information about the user by asking them questions within the bot, or importing information from your CRM or <a href="https://leadgenapp.io/multi-step-or-single-step-forms-how-to-get-the-best-conversions">multi-step forms</a>. From there, your bot can use these details (stored in the form of user attributes) in conversation with the user, so the whole experience is personalized to them and their needs.</p>
<p>For example, the chatbot could have the customer’s name, their signup date, last login date, etc. all at hand. When it incorporates this information into the conversation, the customer knows that the advice they’re receiving is specific to them. They’ll feel listened to and will enjoy a better user experience, since they’ll be more likely to get assistance that’s relevant to their situation.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb5e1ddead74_User Onboarding chatbot.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAMklEQVR4nAEnANj/APv7+////0dLTjg8QgDw8PD29/kcHSACAgIA+vr6////MjM0IiIjxHkUhXfTqqgAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Here's a simple example of how a chatbot can incorporate personal details into the conversation, like the user's name.</figcaption></figure>
<h3>Chatbots are easy to customize for your brand ⚙️</h3>
<p>Your chatbot, like any other marketing channel or tool, should be an extension of your brand. That means you should write copy for it that matches <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/craft-a-brand-voice-that-converts">your brand voice</a>. You can <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/chatbot-names">give it a name</a> and a personality that will resonate with your users. And of course, you can equip it with all the information they need for a smooth <a href="https://academyocean.com/blog/post/the-best-onboarding-plan-for-a-b2b-saas-company">onboarding process</a>, including answers to all the common questions new users have when interacting with your product.</p>
<p><em>Here’s how to set up your chatbot to answer common FAQs about your app or platform.</em></p>
<figure><iframe allowfullscreen src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A499Eeq9Lq8"></iframe></figure>
<h3>Chatbots can save you time ⏱️</h3>
<p>Each member of your customer success team is only one human. There will be times when they’re simply too busy to respond to new-user questions immediately, or even within the same day. This is where chatbots can step in and assist.</p>
<p>A Messenger chatbot can manage an unlimited number of user conversations at once. They can provide all the basic onboarding information and answer up to <a href="https://www.invespcro.com/blog/chatbots-customer-service">80% of routine questions</a>, taking all that work off the plate of your human customer service team. That way, you can have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of new users being onboarded by your chatbot at once. The bot can send only the ones with complex inquiries through to <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/849315-live-chat">a live chat session</a> with your human support team, so they’re not overwhelmed or wasting time answering repetitive inquiries.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb1580dead75_Chatbot live chat.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="509" width="980" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAJUlEQVR4nAEaAOX/AN/g4urm5u3r7Njb3QD39valo6MFBwqpsb0EAxGnFEv0WAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Setting up live chat for your chatbot takes just two clicks in Chatfuel! <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/849315-live-chat" target="_blank">Here are the full instructions.</a></figcaption></figure>
<h3>Chatbots are easy and pleasant to interact with 😄</h3>
<p>Create an onboarding experience your users will actually enjoy! Because chatbots are still a bit of a novelty for many consumers, interacting with them can be a unique and fun experience. Plus, they’re easy to use. As long as you avoid the common bot-building mistakes and have your chatbot give clear instructions, even inexperienced and non-tech users will go through its onboarding process easily. And the easier your chatbot is to use, the more successful the onboarding process will be, which leads to higher customer satisfaction and lower <a href="https://www.realbookies.com/4-tips-for-preventing-customer-churn-3599">customer churn</a>.</p>
<h2>How to onboard new users with a chatbot</h2>
<p>If we’ve talked you into considering chatbots to onboard new users into your app or software, let’s get into the next step: the how-to. Your onboarding chatbot will need to be customized closely for your specific platform or tool. But the basics are the same for any business. Just follow these three steps.</p>
<h3>#1. Map out your onboarding process</h3>
<p>First, you need to list out the key steps of your onboarding process. What needs to happen first, next, and last? What are the crucial pieces of information new users need to know? Which common questions need to be addressed right away? If you’ve already got an onboarding process on another channel (like email), you can use that framework to guide you here.</p>
<p>You might use pen and paper or a <a href="https://www.visme.co/flowchart-maker">flowchart tool</a> in the early stages of this process, to help organize your ideas. Or, you can jump right into Chatfuel’s visual, drag-and-drop <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/4237017-how-to-build-a-flow">Flow Builder</a> to start mapping out the flow this way.</p>
<figure><iframe allowfullscreen src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HX-zA-DkPaU"></iframe></figure>
<h3>#2. Create your list of initial questions</h3>
<p>Asking a few questions is arguably the best way to start a customer onboarding experience for your software or app.</p>
<p>First, the bot can store the user’s answers to these questions as user attributes. You can then use them for research and <a href="https://www.conversific.com/blog/customer-analysis-behavioral-segmentation">customer analysis</a>. These questions might allow free-form user input (using the Save User Input plugin) or offer multiple-choice options (using quick replies). Some examples include:</p>
<ol>
<li>What are your goals for using [name of tool or app]?</li>
<li>What industry do you work in?</li>
<li>How big is your company?</li>
<li>How did you hear about us?</li>
</ol>
<p>Second, the chatbot can use the customer’s answers to the questions to customize and guide the onboarding experience it provides them. For example, your Messenger chatbot could ask new users:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is this your first time using a tool like ours? (Yes/No)</li>
<li>Would you prefer to start with X or Y?</li>
<li>Do you want to learn how to do X, Y or Z?</li>
</ol>
<p>After all, brand-new users won’t always know exactly what to expect from your service or what they can do, so it’s a good idea to put together questions that can guide them. Figuring out these questions should be relatively easy for you. You’re the one <a href="https://mariopeshev.com/entrepreneurs-running-business-customers">running your business</a>, so you know exactly what you want customers to get out of your app or software.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb0770dead76_Onboarding chatbot questions.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="788" width="940" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAIAAAA7ljmRAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAKUlEQVR4nGP4//9/SEiona3D////Gf7//6+sosbELALlxMbFu3p4ATkAra0WHk3Meq0AAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>A chatbot can start the onboarding conversation by asking a series of questions.</figcaption></figure>
<p>Once you’ve created the list of questions you want your Messenger chatbot to ask, you can set them up in Chatfuel’s Flow Builder easily. Just type the question into a text box and drag and drop the arrow to connect it to the next one. <em>Learn more about <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/4237017-how-to-build-a-flow">the basics of using Flow Builder</a>, or get expert tips on conversational design for chatbots.</em></p>
<h3>#3. Test and monitor your chatbot</h3>
<p>Before you launch your chatbot for all new users, you should test it. Have a few colleagues go through the flow to make sure it includes everything it should. Then, have a few beta testers try it out too. Choose people who have never used your software or app before, so you can get a real sense of whether the chatbot provides clear, useful instructions for new users. Take all their feedback into account and make the necessary adjustments.</p>
<p>And once you launch your chatbot, keep an eye on its stats and make changes as needed over time. You can use Chatfuel’s built-in stats to help you track how many users are going through the bot, and where they get stuck or drop off, if applicable. You can also have your chatbot ask users to rate their onboarding experience at the end of it (and even leave comments). Then, you should regularly make changes and updates to your bot based on all of this data.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bbe957deacf8_Chatbot statistics.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="248" width="584" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAABYlAAAWJQFJUiTwAAAAJUlEQVR4nAEaAOX/ANTZ39/k5/z///T09gDu8fTQ0NEDAwPR0tUNZBLUzcwVQgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Chatfuel shows basic stats for each card in your chatbot's flow, so you can easily monitor performance and make adjustments based on user behavior.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Tips for building an excellent onboarding chatbot</h2>
<p>Keep these tips in mind to create an outstanding onboarding process via bot, so you can engage and retain even more new users.</p>
<h3>Use images, GIFs, and video in your chatbot 🎥</h3>
<p>When it comes to using a new app or piece of software, you’ll find that most users are visual learners. That means you should make use of images, GIFs, and video in your chatbot, so users can see its instructions and advice in action. Plus, media like this helps keep users engaged till the end of your onboarding sequence.</p>
<h3>Write copy for an eighth-grade reading level 📖</h3>
<p>Readability is important for any type of sales, marketing, or support collateral—but it’s especially important in onboarding. The way you write copy for your onboarding chatbot can be the difference between users staying engaged and going on to be life-long customers of yours, and users dropping off and abandoning your tool altogether.</p>
<p>Around <a href="https://readable.com/blog/the-flesch-reading-ease-and-flesch-kincaid-grade-level">80% of adults</a> can read at an eighth-grade level, minimum. So it’s wise to keep your chatbot’s copy around this level for maximum readability. Use short, simple sentences. Avoid jargon and industry-specific acronyms (or define them clearly, if you do use them). You can even put your chatbot copy through a tool like the <a href="http://www.hemingwayapp.com">Hemingway App</a> to test its readability and get suggestions improvement.</p>
<figure><img src="/cms/static/blog/60afa6a88bd1bb8402dead77_Readability app.png" loading="lazy" alt="" height="1098" width="1928" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAABYlAAAWJQFJUiTwAAAAI0lEQVR4nGMoLS1taGhYv2FDWXUdw+vXrz99+nz29CkxXgYAvFMOexm6wU4AAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"><figcaption>Tools like the Hemingway App can help you make sure your chatbot's copy is readable and accessible to your entire audience.</figcaption></figure>
<h3>Make it easy for users to chat with a human instead 👩🏾‍💻</h3>
<p>Not being able to find the answer to a specific question about your app or software is frustrating for users. If they have an issue or inquiry about your platform that the chatbot doesn’t address, let them use <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/849315-live-chat">live chat</a> to connect to one of your human agents right away. The longer you keep them waiting or make them search for the solution themselves, the less likely you are to retain them as a customer. Set up your chatbot to handle as many questions as possible, but keep some human agents on deck to jump in and help as needed.</p>
<h2>Try a chatbot as your new onboarding method</h2>
<p>Any app or software company knows that onboarding is one of the most crucial steps in the customer lifecycle. When you use a Facebook Messenger chatbot for onboarding, you can offer a unique, interactive, and trackable way to onboard users. Your chatbot can offer all the information new users need and can answer most of their questions. As a result, you’ll save time and resources and will retain more customers in the long-term.</p>
<p>To build an onboarding chatbot for your software or app, <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com">sign up for a free Chatfuel account</a> today. There’s no coding or previous knowledge required to use our platform; just use our visual builder to drag and drop text and other elements into your bot’s flow. Happy botting!</p>

The onboarding process is crucial for any app or software. Here's how to use a Messenger chatbot to onboard new users.

How to Use a Chatbot to Provide an Engaging, Informative User Onboarding Experience

Angela Skowronek

<p>Automating lead generation means allowing the company to focus on more pressing matters maintaining contact with customers. Chatbots can take some weight off your shoulders in this endeavor. According to APSIS, a four score of automation software marketers drive increased leads, and 77% convert more leads than those who don’t. This article will show how you can embed automation and how it can benefit your business.</p>
<h2><strong>Challenges that business faces</strong></h2>
<p>Sourcing high-quality leads is tricky, whether you create helpful content that leads prospects down the funnel or attracts cold prospects. There are three main challenges that businesses usually face:</p>
<p><strong>Not enough high-quality leads</strong>. Improving the quality of leads is one of the most important goals for two-thirds of marketers, according to Ascend2. Some marketers turn to lead generation agencies, and not all get the desired result.</p>
<p><strong>Too many leads</strong>. Wrong targeted ads and giveaways can bring many leads. But, if resources are limited, companies can spend too much time on leads that <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/posts/cut-operational-costs-with-messenger-bot?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Flead-generation-on-autopilot">turn out to be unqualified</a> or miss their chance with high-intent prospects.</p>
<p><strong>Personalizing experience</strong> <strong>for new users</strong>. According to an Accenture survey, consumers are more likely to shop with brands that offer relevant recommendations.****In addition, tailored experiences that keep users engaged demand constant human interaction.</p>
<p>Automation can solve these challenges. It is more accessible than ever to businesses of all sizes. You can use an online platform as a <a href="https://chatfuel.com/?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Flead-generation-on-autopilot">no-code tool</a> to create different types of automated systems. <a href="https://funneloverload.com/lead-generation-statistics/">80% of marketers</a> say they’ve found that automation like chatbots generates more leads and conversions than other methods.</p>
<h2><strong>How chatbots expand your lead generation sales funnel</strong></h2>
<p>Messages from <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/posts/future-of-chatbots-based-on-data?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Flead-generation-on-autopilot">chatbots have 80% open rates</a>, while emails only have 20% on average. Automation also has 35% click-through rates on messages with links than email’s 2%. It lets you set up triggered email communications easily, without having anything to do with the backend or coding. You can also integrate your CRM or other business tools with your Chatfuel bot.</p>
<p>A lead generation chatbot can work for you 24/7. Users get information without you having to answer repetitive questions with the FAQ template. As a result, you have more time to focus on providing excellent service to your customers and finding new ways to grow.</p>
<figure><div><img src="/cms/static/blog/624ad1b10181b33bd684bb62_example_FAQ.png" loading="lazy" alt="How chatbots expand your lead generation sales funnel" height="1168" width="2080" blurDataURL="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAACCAIAAADwyuo0AAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAAI0lEQVR4nGP48flLUlBMqH/Fg6uvGb7//y+jFc7Ab/f5938AwsMOePmow9oAAAAASUVORK5CYII=" placeholder="blur"></div><figcaption>Users see interactive buttons in your Messenger bot</figcaption></figure>
<h2><strong>How does a chatbot work</strong></h2>
<p>A chatbot is a computer program that has a back-and-forth conversation with users. Simple chatbots follow a script: If the user says X, they say Y. More advanced chatbots use artificial intelligence to provide humanlike answers to user inquiries. Building both types requires no experience.</p>
<p>One of the most common types of chatbots “lives” on Facebook Messenger. It means your business can generate leads from 2.8 billion global users. However, anyone can enter your chatbot without a Facebook account, using a guest mode if it’s embedded on your website. So that’s even more users for your chatbot. Depending on your needs, your bot can attract leads, start a conversation with users, provide information about your services, and ask questions to qualify them.</p>
<p>Example:</p>
<ol>
<li>Users open a chat with your Messenger chatbot by clicking your Facebook ad or browsing <a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/posts/add-a-messenger-chatbot-to-your-website?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Flead-generation-on-autopilot">your website</a>.</li>
<li>The bot offers basic information about your business: their names, emails, or phone numbers.</li>
<li>The bot then asks the user a few questions to determine if they’re warm leads. For instance, it can provide a discount if the user follows your organization on Facebook or signs up for newsletters.</li>
</ol>
<p>Depending on your needs, you can set your bot to take the next step: help users to <a href="https://youtu.be/9jGuWa1sgAw">schedule an appointment</a>, gather their contact details and send them to your CRM, <a href="https://docs.chatfuel.com/en/articles/849315-live-chat?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Flead-generation-on-autopilot">pass the conversation over</a> to a human agent, or more. Once you’ve set up your automation, it can start generating and qualifying new leads. That means you can wake up in the morning to an inbox or spreadsheet or calendar full of promising new leads.</p>
<h2><strong>Chatbot lead generation examples</strong></h2>
<p>Currently, lead generation chatbots can benefit different industries, such as vehicle operations, insurance, real estate, food, and drinks. Let’s look at some of these Chatfuel customers who use a chatbot as their primary lead generation marketing method.</p>
<h4><strong>1. Nissan dealership, Israel</strong></h4>
<p>A car is a big-ticket item that most people aren’t going to buy on the spot. Instead, they’ll make an appointment to visit the dealership, test drives the vehicle, and ask the salesperson their questions. A lead generation chatbot can be the first link between the dealership and these consumers looking to purchase a car — which is precisely why this Nissan dealership in Israel built one.</p>
<p>Their chatbot asks a few questions to confirm that the dealership has the type of car they’re looking for. Then it lets the user schedule an appointment for a test drive to move them down the lead generation funnel.</p>
<p><strong>Results</strong></p>
<p>The chatbot turned out to be a far more accessible and more efficient way for the dealership to get qualified potential customers in the door. The first month after launching the Facebook bot, the dealership sold ten cars ($380,000 in revenue) to customers who came through it. Check out the complete**<a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/posts/nissan-sells-cars-using-messenger-bot?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Flead-generation-on-autopilot">Nissan case study.</a></p>
<h4><strong>2. Real estate and insurance lead generation: Tacobot</strong></h4>
<p>Tacobot is a marketing agency building chatbots that generate leads for insurance brokers and real estate agents. Their clients no longer have to pay more for low-intent leads, thanks to their bots. Instead, Tacobot builds them a Facebook chatbot that qualifies leads through a simple questionnaire. It gathers information about each prospect and functions as a quoting tool so users can get an immediate, tangible benefit to incentivize them to complete the process.</p>
<p><strong>Results</strong></p>
<p>Tacobot’s clients can expect high-quality insurance leads for $2-5 each and high-intent real estate leads for less than $10. Check out the complete**<a href="https://chatfuel.com/blog/posts/marketing-agency-uses-messenger-bots-to-deliver-high-quality-leads-for-clients?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Flead-generation-on-autopilot">Tacobot case study</a><em>.</em></p>
<h2><strong>Put your business lead generation on autopilot</strong></h2>
<p>Whether it’s lead generation for lawyers, lead generation for restaurants, or a B2B lead generation, a chatbot can help. Businesses across industries that depend on leads are turning to Facebook Messenger and Instagram automation for a lead generation more and more.</p>
<p>With Chatfuel, building your lead gen chatbot is easy. Use our templates to load, customize, and launch automation for your own business regardless of your coding experience. With interactive automation, you can save time. Focus on improving things that matter most while providing constant communication with your customers. <a href="https://dashboard.chatfuel.com/sign-in?utm_landing=blog-posts%2Fhellofresh-reduces-support-wait-times-with-chatfuel-messenger-bot&lng=en">Sign up</a> today to get started.</p>

This article will show how expand your lead generation sales funnel and how it can benefit your business

How to automate your business lead generation funnel

Joren Wouters 

Wondering how to increase customer loyalty so you can grow your business? Guest expert Joren Wouters shares how to build a loyalty chatbot.