Growing your mailing list using Facebook messenger bots
Messenger bots continue to grow in popularity and are now commonly used by most of the top artists and brands in the music industry. The benefits provided by these bots are endless both for fans and artists, they offer a unique opportunity to connect with your audience. One of the most beneficial aspects of using a messenger bot is the ability to build your mailing list. We’ve taken a look at the steps that must be taken in order to build your mailing list using a messenger bot of your choice.
Facebook messenger bots became popular in recent years when artists utilised the technology in order to make regular contact with their fans. Built to either respond to prompts or send out promo messages, the bots build on the connection between artist and fan by keeping the communication open. They are a great method for marketing a new release or campaign as they can send a message directly to fans’ messenger inboxes. They can even respond to queries such as ‘when will you next play in New York?’ by picking up on keywords and answering effectively.
Messenger bots have proven hugely popular with fans already as they provide a unique opportunity for communication unlike ever before. In the music industry, it is rare for a fan to receive a response from one of their favourite artists, making messenger bots even more appealing. They give the recipient the feeling that they are actually conversing with the artist in question, making them feel especially connected to their favourite artists.
From an artist’s perspective, messenger bots are also highly beneficial. By picking up keywords used by the recipient, the bot can deliver relevant responses and advertise campaigns. Axwell Λ Ingrosso used their messenger bot to deliver brand new tracks to messenger subscribers before the tracks were officially released. Hardwell used his bot to let his audience know about specific shows he was due to perform. While answering queries from fans, messenger bots can subtly advertise campaigns in an authentic and effective manner. Although bots offer a great deal of benefits for artists, in this article we’re going to focus on using bots to expand your mailing list.
To start the process, log in to your email marketing service of choice, a good example of this is Mailchimp which can be used for free. Add a new list to house all of your new subscribers once they have been gathered from your messenger bot. The next step is to connect your mailing service to your messenger bot. In this example, we’ll use ManyChat and Mailchimp. In your ManyChat settings navigate to custom fields, then add a new user field. Name your new user field and then select ‘create’. Select settings and navigate to ‘integrations’ before selecting ‘connect MailChimp account’. The email field box will allow you to select what you would like to capture, select ‘email address’. Your next step is to set up your messenger bot so that it asks users for their email addresses and captures the resulting data. Through ManyChat, head to the ‘flows’ tab before adding a ‘new flow’, title the flow something memorable.
Next, create messages in your flow that will be sent to users in order to request their email addresses. Then you can select ‘user input’ and set it to ’email address’ so that users can give you their details. Make sure to select that you’d like the response to be added to your MailChimp list, then you are ready to collect details from all of your fans who are subscribed to your messenger bot. This way, you can instruct your bot to pick up email addresses from all of the fans that you are in contact with on messenger through ManyChat.
This is undoubtedly one of the best methods for collecting email addresses from your fans as it is relatively low-cost and is very transparent. It also requires very little time to set up, and once set up does not need to be looked at again for a long while. Many artists choose to simply add a subscribe button to their main website and wait for people to find it, while this will gain some subscribers, it is not an efficient method for building up a list quickly. It is important to remember that it is very rare for a fan to hunt down your newsletter themselves and subscribe without being prompted to do so. Some artists also choose to purchase lists online that have been built up by brands to then be sold on. While this is relatively effortless as a method of gaining contact details, the people on the list may not be completely relevant and may not be happy about receiving emails from you. This is a dangerous method as it could set off your relationship with potential fans on the wrong foot. It may even damage the potential for gaining new fans.
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Once you have set up your messenger bot to collect email addresses, you are then free to send regular mailings to your fans. As with all marketing methods, it is the quality of the messaging that is key to whether the method succeeds. Although you may experience slow uptake at first in email open rates and click-throughs, don’t be disheartened. Learn from your errors and continue to build on your experience in order to craft emails that provoke a widespread positive response.