Have you ever heard of the 3:30 rule?

Legend has it that the 3:30 rule is a concept created by the US Post Office.

It means that when a person receives a piece of mail they decide within three seconds whether or not they’re going to open it or throw it away.

If they decide to open it, they will spend, maybe, 30 seconds deciding whether or not they want to continue reading it or throw it away.

This was, and continues to be, a major hurdle for businesses that market themselves by using physical mail.

But, now we have a much more powerful way to communicate with our prospects and customers that does a far superior job in grabbing attention.

It’s called Messenger Marketing.

And today I want to share with you a little bit about what is Messenger marketing, how does messenger marketing work, and how you can get started with Messenger marketing today.

Ready to dive in?

What is Facebook Messenger Marketing

Messenger marketing, or more specifically Facebook Messenger marketing is one of the fastest-growing and most successful ways to communicate with our prospects and customers. It allows us to deliver our message and even our faces right into a person’s personal messenger app. And because of that, there is a specific etiquette to follow to get the best results.

Let’s talk quickly about what not to do.

Facebook Messenger marketing it’s not there for you to blast people all day long with sales messages. This is not a direct response channel and we do not want to spam our prospects and customers with unwanted communication.

One of my favorite entrepreneurs and inspirations in the digital marketing world is Gary Vaynerchuk and he has a saying that goes, “marketers ruin everything!”,  and he’s totally right.

Gary Vaynerchuk. GETTY IMAGES

Once a new device for communication comes along marketers inevitably latch onto it and overuse it to the point that people feel pestered rather than interested in what you have.

If you understand this idea you can really set yourself apart from all your competition.

Use Facebook Messenger marketing to build a relationship with your prospects and your customers, specifically using it to build a brand relationship. You can do this by providing tons of value before you ever make an offer for your product or service. 

How does messenger marketing work

Messenger marketing works by grabbing attention more effectively than almost any other source currently available.

You see, while email marketing has been the standard method to deliver business message its ability to control attention is slipping. It still has a very important place in the overall promotion of our products and services, but current national open rates are around 14 to 16%.

Now, to contrast that, Facebook Messenger marketing is seeing open rates of 80 to 90% and sometimes more.

That’s pretty good, right?

Well, think about this too, as email open rates are around 15% the click-through rates are even lower; sometimes only 3 or 4%. So, how many people, do you think, are actually getting to your website, your online store, or coming to visit your brick-and-mortar store?

Again, we contrast the email to the messenger marketing and it’s a night and day difference. Messenger marketing is seeing click-through rates in the high teens, sometimes even over 20%.

So as it stands right now one of the best ways to use Facebook Messenger marketing is to offer tons of free content that actually help people accomplish something or solve a problem for them. But, make sure that it’s related to your actual products and services.

Here’s why.

I mentioned before that Gary Vaynerchuk is one of my favorite entrepreneurs in the digital space and he has a concept, that I’ve always agreed with, that he calls jab, jab, jab, jab, right hook. In other words, offer free content that helps people first and then offer them the opportunity to go even deeper by purchasing your product or service. 

How to start Messenger Marketing

To get started with messenger marketing is actually much easier than you might think.

Yes, you can start on the Facebook platform and create some very basic automated communications, although I suggest using the ManyChat software. It really allows you to unleash the power of personalized back and forth communication with your prospects and customers. But, you’ll need to get a few things done before you launch your ManyChat Messenger marketing channel.

Answer this question first.

How am I going to make the world a better place with my product, service or information?

Once you have the answer to that, you need to discover what questions people have related to your topic. An excellent free resource to use for finding questions is www.answerthepublic.com.

Now, I’m not affiliated with answerthepublic.com and I make no money from it. It’s simply an amazing free resource that you can use to discover what people are searching for on the internet and how you can use your knowledge to answer those questions.

Your next step, now that you know how you’re going to make the world a better place and you’ve stockpiled questions to answer that are related to your topic, is to start building your Messenger channel.

When I do this, I begin with a menu and then I move on to sequences that answer the questions. The process that I use is to have 60 days worth of helpful content programmed and ready to go before I promote my channel.

What you want to do is sprinkle in offers to purchase your product or service throughout your 60 days worth of content. If you’re sharing valuable content on a daily basis then maybe once a week you also give people the opportunity to purchase something from you.

You also want your messenger marketing channel to be engaging and entertaining to your prospects and customers. One example of this is to create quizzes, which helps turn basic information into a game for your prospects and customers. The more engaging that your content is the more attention your prospects and customers will give you and that leads to an increase in the know, like, and trust factor they have for you, which leads to more sales.

If you’re interested in getting started with Facebook Messenger marketing today I have a free mini-course that you can access right now.

Go to  www.ManuelSuarezTraining.com/manychat-mini-course.

Inside the course, you’ll find 6 video modules that teach you the basics of Messenger Marketing and how to use the ManyChat software to help you grow your business, communicate with prospects and customers, and build a relationship that leads to more sales.

Check out this fun fact,

I actually won an award for the most engaging ManyChat Messenger bot at their Conversations 2019 convention. Along with winning this award, which was amazing and humbling, I was also one of their stage presenters and if you would like to see my stage presentation from the event you can click here.

By implementing Messenger Marketing into your own business you no longer need to be concerned with US post office’s 3:30 rule, although current studies have shown that people’s online attention span is actually less than the attention span of a goldfish.

So, be sure to keep your messaging entertaining and engaging so that your prospects and customers look forward to the next time they see your message and your face.

 See you next time.