Chatbot For Business – Molly Mahoney
chatbot for business
SUMMARY
Many people have no idea that Facebook chatbot for business exists, or some have heard of it but don’t know what really it is and the right strategy to utilize it.
On this episode, we are here with Molly Maloney, also known as the Prepared Performer to talk about a new technology on Facebook, and how it allows you to communicate with your audience, and learn more about them.
With messenger bots, you are able to connect, build trust, and nurture the relationship with your potential and current clients, and in the long run, boost your sales.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A messenger bot is a way to automate your Facebook messenger on your business page.
With a messenger bot, you could give your audience buttons and options to push, and ask them questions and respond based on how they answer.
Why use messenger bots:
- It allows people to have a more human experience
- Higher open rates and click-through rates compared to email.
There’s a 24-hour window to send something that’s promotional.
When utilizing a comment growth tool and someone comments below on your post, make sure you ask them a question in the messenger bot.
A strategy you can use with messenger bot:
- Pre-schedule a Facebook live on your business page.
- Create a post that announces a free upcoming training.
- Have people comment on your post to get access to the training. This directs people to your pre-scheduled Facebook live.
When sending a message, give these options to people; “yes” “not yet” “not interested”
Messenger bots can help you increase your email open rates.
- You can use ManyChat or Zapier and connect it to your email service provider (ConvertKit, MailChimp, Infusionsoft).
- As soon as someone enters their email address, it automatically sends them an email. Then, you can say “Open your email to get that thing.”
Create a character inside your messenger bot so you’re not tricking your audience.
When jumping into messenger bots, read Facebook’s term of service.
Make your messenger bot fun by doing quizzes and adding gifs or videos.
TRANSCRIPTION: CHATBOT FOR BUSINESS – MOLLY MAHONEY
Luis Congdon
Hey Thriving Launchers, have you guys heard of Facebook messenger bots?
New Technology – Chatbot For Business
Luis Congdon
It’s the newest technology that allows you to communicate with your fans, potential clients and leads through Facebook in an automated and yet, very intuitive and natural way.
Well, on today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about how to use Facebook messenger chatbot for business to increase sales. If that’s something that interests you, stay tuned.
Today’s guest, Molly Mahoney, is known as the prepared performer. She’s a master at helping entrepreneurs, artists, and direct sales professionals up their visibility online presence with Facebook. Today, she’s going to join us to talk about some new technology on Facebook.
All right, Thriving Launchers, we’re here with Molly. Molly, are you ready to launch?
Molly Mahoney
I am ready!
ChatBot For Business As The Future
Luis Congdon
Let’s talk about chatbot for business. It’s the future.
Bots
We’re living in a time now where this whole thing of social media being segregated from email and other ways to use business or utilize business and great customer service is shifting.
Now, social media has become intertwined with all these levels of communication, and messenger bots are big. Aren’t they right now, Molly?
I think there’s something bigger coming with messenger bots.
Molly Mahoney
Yeah. That’s something I was going to say. It’s like there’s this crazy magical gap of opportunity that is still open right now.
A lot of us have heard about them and know what’s possible, but there are many people who have no idea that they even exist and so, I just think it’s such a magical time when we can jump in and make it your own, and take it to the next level.
Luis Congdon
I want to back up just for one second because I sometimes just get wrapped up in my head and assume that people know exactly what I’m talking about because I’m living my world.
So Thriving Launchers, Molly, briefly, can you tell us what a messenger bot is? So that for anyone that doesn’t know will understand.
What A ChatBot For Business Is
Molly Mahoney
Yes.
The simplest way to explain it is that it is a way to automate your Facebook messenger on your business page. Just like you would do with Infusionsoft or ConvertKit or MailChimp in your email, it’s a similar thing and it’s also totally different.
It gives the opportunity to take your audience on a little self-guided adventure. You could give them buttons and options to push and ask them questions and respond based on how they answer. It all happens within Facebook messenger on your business page.
Kamala Chambers
I would love to hear why we would want to use that.
I know that there are a lot of different uses for it, but why would we want to use it and how would we use it?
Why Use ChatBot For Business
Molly Mahoney
There are two reasons.
One is it allows us to have a more human experience.
Molly Mahoney
Our audiences are becoming more and savvier. When they get an email from your email service provider, they know that it’s an automated email. This thing that we do on messenger creates a brand new experience where they want to have fun and engage and it makes things more personal, more one on one, and more customized for exactly what they want so you can be solving their problems.
The other thing is that as you probably know, email open rates right now are around 20%, which is crazy that that’s considered a good email open rate. Then the click-through rate is around 1% right now.
Difference Between Emails And ChatBot For Business
Molly Mahoney
With a chatbot for business, the open rate on average is about 80%, and the click-through rate is about 50%. We’ve seen that proven time and time again with all of our clients that it’s like a drastic difference.
Luis Congdon
Thriving Launchers, I want to tell you guys about a brief experiment that I did with a chatbot for business. Again, it was very brief. It was just a little experiment, but I released a product called Profit From Facebook. Maybe some of you guys listening have purchased that.
Little Experiment With Chatbot For Business
Luis Congdon
What I did is I released the free guide. It’s a 25-page guide that shows you how to use Facebook, and I ran some low-cost ads to it so people could see the ad. It was video, and you could just comment. Whether or not you want it, you could comment “I want it” or there are certain key phrases that would trigger this messenger bot.
If you say those key phrases, the trigger would automatically go right into your Facebook messenger and say, “Hey. You wanted the guide, let me know. Just say ‘yes’.” You would comment ‘yes’ there in your own private message with the bot. Then my book would be sent to you, and we had something around 500 new people download that.
Chatbot For Business Can Increase Sales
Luis Congdon
I spent maybe around $50-$60 on ads and when you think about that, that’s incredibly good to have that many new leads with ads. What was cool is pretty much everybody that commented on that post opened and clicked. They downloaded the guide, and that definitely increase sales.
I made a mistake, Molly, and this is where I want to get in because I expect a lot of you guys are going to go and look at the bots, and Molly will give you a couple of suggestions of some different chatbot for business that you can try out.
I think the question that I want to dive in, and I want to leap ahead for you guys is what’s the best strategy with the chatbot for business?
One of the things I did is gave the guide and then, I quickly assumed the sale or lead people to the sales page. And so, I had a fair amount of people unsubscribe from my bot. I expected that anyway, but I know that there’s this better way to do it. Whereas we want to think of email as more business-orientated, and the bot, we want to have more of a conversation and say, “Hey, would you like to…”
Do you get what I’m saying, Molly?
Molly Mahoney
Yeah, one million percent.
First of all, if you go straight into the sale, there are two main things.
Things To Avoid When Using A Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
Number one, you’re being what some people in my community refer to as a “salesy” weirdo. You could turn people off if you jump right to the sale right away unexpectedly but, the most important thing is that you’re risking getting your account shut down because Facebook has pretty clear rules about sales.
If you say I’m offering you information on how to purchase something, “click this button,” that probably could be okay.
But if you’re saying I have a free thing that I’m going to give you, and then the next message that you send them, here’s what has to happen.
You only have the 24-hour window to send something that’s promotional. After that, you have to be careful. It’s like you unlock this 24-hour window again. You need to get them to respond to you in a way that seems like they’re messaging your page, and then you can make an offer.
Does that make sense?
Kamala Chambers
Yeah, makes perfect sense.
One question I have is what are the other things that we absolutely need to know that we don’t do?
Molly Mahoney
Yeah.
Using The Comment Growth Tool And Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
There’s one other thing and it sounds like Luis like you did this correctly in the way that you did it, but a lot of people will set-up the comment bot. In many chats, they call it a comment growth tool, where you comment below and then it sends you a message. They think that just because you’ve messaged your audience, that they are subscribed, but that’s not the case. They have to message you in order to be subscribed.
There are a few different places that you want to make sure you implement this. One is with the comment growth tool.
If someone comments below, you have to make sure that you ask them a question in that next message. It’s like “Hey, it looks like you’re interested in my free book. Reply to this message with the word ‘book’ and we’ll send it to you.” Does that make sense?
Kamala Chambers
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Success Campaigns With Chatbot For Business
Kamala Chambers
Can you kind of walk us through an overview of a successful campaign that you ran through a chatbot for business?
Molly Mahoney
Yes. We’ve had two that have been seriously amazing for us, and then we’ve had some other awesome ones for clients too.
The one that was the coolest was we had a video that had a reach of one million people because we used this strategy with the chatbot for business that I’ll walk you through.
A reach of a million is not normal on our page at all, and I had this all written out in the Case Study like step by step because it’s a little complicated.
Strategy With Chatbot For Business That Reached A Million People
Molly Mahoney
You pre-schedule a Facebook live on your business page using like BeLive for example, and then after you pre-scheduled a Facebook live, you do a post on your business page that announces a free upcoming training. You don’t say a Facebook live. You say a free upcoming training and you make it something juicy and like solving a major problem for them.
Then, you have them comment on your post in order to get access to the free upcoming training. Then what happens is you direct them back to your pre-scheduled Facebook live. Is this making sense?
Kamala Chambers
Yes.
Luis Congdon
So far it’s making sense and one other thing I want to say is Thriving Launchers, you guys know that we always have links to this stuff.
Molly, I know you’re very generous, and we’ll grab that link from you so that we can share it here in the show notes so people can read that case study as well.
Molly Mahoney
Perfect. Yeah, and I have screenshots and everything. Like Owen Hemsath, Owen Video, he was like, “Oh my God. You changed my life with this case study. It’s all written out so you can go through the whole thing.
How The Magic Happens With Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
So after you send them the link to you pre-scheduled Facebook live, the reason the magic happens is that you’re not able to boost a pre-scheduled Facebook live before you go live. It’s not allowed on Facebook.
If you have another comment growth tool on the live and you say “Comment below with the word ‘show notes’ if you want the show notes.” People will start commenting on your Facebook live before you go live.
Kamala Chambers
That’s cool.
Molly Mahoney
It totally boosts the organic reach.
Kamala Chambers
Thank you so much for that first of all.
Luis Congdon
That’s incredible.
Kamala Chambers
I like to hear how you could use this to get people on your list or to turn this into people buying your products.
Molly Mahoney
Yeah.
Turn People Into Buyers With Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
I have another cool example that we did. We had a training that we were doing. The training had not happened yet. It was solving a specific problem. It was a $97-training, and I did a video that said “Hey, this training is coming up. If you want access to it, comment below.”
We gave them the information about the training in the messenger response. We did a Facebook ad, and it was $900 in Facebook ads that we had spent. By the time we had spent the $900 on Facebook ads, we had brought in 200 sales because we were tapping into such a specific problem and engaging them first. Then, it got even cooler because what we realized was, we had 200 sales, and we had 12,000 people who had opted in for more information.
I was like “What do I do to connect with those extra thousand people?”
Sending A Follow-Up Broadcast With Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
You’re allowed to send one follow-up broadcast about a specific topic or product. I sent one follow-up broadcast to the entire list. This a specific way that I did it, and it brought in an extra 40 sales within 30 minutes, and then eventually, it brought in an extra 200 hundred sales.
We ended up bringing 400 sales in for this $97-product plus five high-ticket private coaching clients as well. Can I tell you this stuff, the message?
Luis Congdon
Yeah, we would love to hear that.
Kamala Chambers
I want to hear that.
Molly Mahoney
Okay, cool.
So, the message was this, and this is important, the way the language is crafted.
How To Craft Your Message For A Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
We sent them a message that said, “Hey. We saw that you’re interested in our upcoming course called Connect and Convert. Did you get a chance to grab it yet? Have you registered yet?” That’s what we said. And they could say “Yes,” “Not yet,” or “Not interested.”
We always give them an option to say “Not interested” so we’re not spamming people. We don’t have people in there who don’t want to be there. We let them self-select out.
We had some people say “not interested.” We had some people say “yes,” and the people who said “yes,” we said “Great! Go check your email. We sent you information there.” The people who said “Not yet,” we took them to this little journey where we said “There’s no pressure. We’re actually seeing amazing results in the group already. Here are some of the results people have gotten, and I just wanted to let you know the price is going to go up tomorrow.”
Make People Open Your Message Through Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
We weren’t planning on raising the price, but this little message ended up skyrocketing the results like cuckoo because we gave them something that was time-bound and urgent. They actually opened the messages.
Luis Congdon
That’s so incredible.
Something that I’m enjoying about all of this is there’s so much interaction that’s happening.
Guys, I’m still a fan of email. I love email but one of the things I love about this is that you’re getting to see people interact with you live.
Key To Sales Using The Chatbot For Business
Luis Congdon
If they write the bot, and it’s something that’s not completely within the algorithm, you could respond to them personally so there’s a lot of connection happening, which is one of the keys to sales.
Molly Mahoney
Totally!
Like I was just building a bot with a client this morning that was set up like a strategy session for her. There are ways you can send out a notification to yourself anytime someone responds a certain way or fills in a certain answer to a question.
Using Chatbot For Business To Increase Email Open Rates
Molly Mahoney
I know you would ask about email, and we love email too. We’ve used the chatbot for business to increase our email open rates because you can use Zapier and connect it so that as soon as they enter their email address, it automatically sends them an email. Then you say, “Go open your email to get that thing.”
Luis Congdon
Whoa! So there’s a software.
I want to repeat that one more time so that we have that here in the transcription for everybody listening and also just for my own memory.
What are those two pieces of software you mentioned?
Molly Mahoney
Yes.
Software You Can Use With The Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
The way that we do it, we start with ManyChat, and then I use a Zapier.
So far I’ve connected it with ConvertKit, MailChimp, Infusionsoft. I think those are all the ones we’ve used for our clients so far, but it’s super easy. It just connects right to your email service provider. If you set it up properly, it will send an email right away.
So you can say, “Great! Go get your show notes there in your email inbox.”
Luis Congdon
That’s amazing, and now you’re training.
Using Chatbot For Business To Get People Open Their Emails
Luis Congdon
Thriving Launchers, what you’re doing with that is you’re training people to then go open their emails, which is just a deeper training to get them excited about looking forward to your emails and trusting that your emails are useful. Then when you make an offer, they’re going to open it and they’re going to see it.
Molly Mahoney
100%. Yeah, totally.
Luis Congdon
Molly, I know Kamala’s going to have a wrap-up question here, but one of the things I want to mention, and then Kamala, you can go into your last question here is about companies like Domino’s and KSM.
Big Companies Utilizing Chatbot For Business
Luis Congdon
KSM is a very large European airline company. If you go into the social media pages of various big companies like Coca-Cola and GEICO, I’ve noticed these large companies are using bots that are very intelligent. They’re hiring companies to build this out especially for them.
ManyChat is one of the companies that offer you the opportunity to go in and the software is all set-up and you can do this. But the key thing that I’m trying to give you Thriving Launchers is that big companies, small companies, and entrepreneurs are doing it. Yet you’re kind of a big fish in the small pond because in the context of everybody on Facebook, very few people are utilizing this strategy.
People are still like “Whoa! This is cool and it’s novel.” We’re not in a saturation space where it’s like “Oh, I got ten bots messaging me. This is annoying.” People are still excited about it. Is that right, Molly?
Molly Mahoney
Yes, 100 percent.
Gaining Preeminence With Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
And so, if you’re thinking about building bots yourself for other companies, it’s a huge opportunity right now to jump in and capitalize on the newness and the fact that you can gain pre-eminence and still standout in that way.
I just want to shout out Domino’s bot because I think it’s so awesome how they’ve created a character. They named him Dom.
Chatbot For Business – Create A Character
Molly Mahoney
This is what we teach. We teach that you don’t pretend it’s you having the conversation. We teach that you create a character inside your messenger bot so that you’re not tricking your audience. You’re being upfront and letting them know “This is your automated assistant.”
Create a character inside your messenger bot so you’re not tricking your audience. – Molly Mahoney
On Domino’s, you can order an entire customized pizza. It’s crazy. It’s cool.
Kamala Chambers
That’s amazing.
Before we sign off, I would love to hear from you, is there any last thing, any ninja tricks or strategies that you want to make sure the Thriving Launchers include in this process?
Molly Mahoney
There are two things.
Read The Terms Of Service Before Jumping Into The Chatbot For Business
Molly Mahoney
First of all, because I should have said this with the beginning, Facebook’s changing the rules all the time. Thus, make sure when you jump into this that you read the terms of service because they could change the rules tomorrow.
Remember, we do not own this platform. It is still important to get people opt-in to email and make sure you’re following the rules because I don’t want to be responsible if you’re not.
Making The Chatbot For Business Fun
Molly Mahoney
Two is there are many ways to make this crazy fun. You can do quizzes, or add gifs or videos. You can have your audience upload a picture and then save it in a spreadsheet file.
There are many cool things you can do to learn about your audience, to give them a better experience, and in the long run, to be able to boost your sales because you’re offering this experience to your audience and allowing them to move into the next level of service.
Luis Congdon
That is incredible.
Thriving Launchers, for me, it’s been a deep dive into learning just another method that we can connect, build trust, and nurture the relationship with our potential clients, current clients, and millions of people online.
Also, we’re tapping into a new tool that is so new and novel that the open rates are outranking email, the click-through rates are outranking anything else that we’ve seen online. I just highly encourage all of you to take a look at it.
Free Software You Can Use With The Chatbot For Business
Luis Congdon
One of the cool things just to plug since I’ve tried various different chatbot for business is ManyChat is incredible. Molly happens to represent them, work with them, be part of that team, and they offer the service for free. Then, you can upgrade and pay differently for different services that they have, and it’s all incredibly affordable. I’m not getting paid to say this. I get nothing out of it other than just putting in a plug for incredible service.
Thank you so much, Molly, for joining us.
Thriving Launchers, go out, take something away from today’s episode, and take action, and we’ll see you on the next episode. Keep thriving you all.
