A shortlist of the top messenger marketing tools for any website

Messenger marketing is fast becoming one of the most popular forms of marketing for many progressive brands. Usage statistics make it easy to see why. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat alone total more than 2 billion users. Not only does it offer access to unprecedented numbers of people, but it also offers it easily and inexpensively.

Unlike many other forms of marketing, messenger marketing is immediate and offers exceptionally high open rates. Some studies have found that messenger marketing open rates can be as high as 80% to 90%, which is just one of the reasons we think it is the future of digital marketing.

Chatbots

One of the most commonly used messenger marketing tools is a chatbot creator. Chatbots are automated response tools that save you from having to message or reply to people individually. They’re powered by artificial intelligence and use machine learning to understand more complex language. Any business, small or large, can take advantage of a chatbot. As a relatively new marketing tactic with demonstrable results already, early adoption of chat widgets into your marketing strategy can deliver exceptional value.

What can Chatbots be used for?

Marketers can use chatbots for a variety of different business use cases. This includes customer service, promotion, scheduling appointments, lead generation, placing orders and much more. Some of these uses are explained in more detail below.

• Customer service – Chatbots are extremely effective with routine tasks such as responding to common customer service queries and complaints. Since they’re able to work around the clock, they help to reduce the workload of real employees.

• Advertising and promotion – Chatbots are a great tool for promotional marketing messages such as exclusive offers and discounts. They can be integrated into wider marketing campaigns, for example, targeting customers with exclusive discounts. Your message may include something interactive such as “Would you like an exclusive 20% discount off all items?” The chatbot would then present a simple yes or no poll to the user. After responding ‘yes,’ the bot would send a message to the user offering a discount code along with a link to the website.

• Scheduling appointments – Chatbots can streamline the process of booking appointments by offering interested parties forms that they can easily fill-out using messenger. They can very easily be integrated into sales campaigns as well. For example, a user could be prompted to book an appointment at a hair salon after receiving a discount code via the chatbot.

The top messenger marketing tools

At present, messenger marketing tools are still few and far between. Even so, we’ve compiled a shortlist of some of the best ones we’ve come across to date.

ManyChat

ManyChat came to life in 2015 and focuses specifically on Facebook Messenger – one of the most popular messenger apps available. The platform has numerous capabilities and can be used as both a marketing tool and an automated customer service tool for a wide range of businesses. The setup process is simple. It requires a one-click authentication process to connect ManyChat to the Facebook account. From there, it will guide you through several steps to grant access to your business’ Facebook page.

Advantages of ManyChat

• **User-friendly:**No coding experience is required to create a chatbot with ManyChat. Even a novice can quickly be up and running in minutes.

• Sleek interface: ManyChat’s layout is clean and uncluttered. When building a chatbot, you can see the elements needed to build it as well as a preview of the bot conversation rules.

• Wide range of features: This tool offers many useful and intuitive features such as (1) growth functions to help you increase your subscriber list, (2) broadcast and automation features for messaging, and (3) an audience insight feature.

• Live chat: You can interrupt your bot or instigate a live conversation with any of your subscribers through ManyChat.

• Templates: ManyChat provides a number of pre-existing templates to help you build your chatbots. These are based on your field or industry, for example, eCommerce or automotive.

• Payment option: ManyChat allows payments to be made for goods or services without leaving Facebook Messenger.

Disadvantages of ManyChat

• A lot of features require a subscription: While ManyChat does offer a free plan, it’s fairly basic and this is a big downside. It means that to get the most out of this tool you’re going to have to open your wallet.

• Limited number of chatbots: You’re limited to creating 4 chatbots on ManyChat unless you subscribe to one of their paid plans. Many other messenger tools allow an unlimited number chatbots.

ManyChat pricing

ManyChat does have a free plan but it’s very limited in terms of what you can do and the features you have access to. Pricing for ManyChat Pro depends on how many subscribers you have. For example:

• 500 subscribers – $10 per month

• 1,000 subscribers – $15 per month

• 5,000 subscribers – $45 per month

• 15,000 subscribers – $95 per month

• 25,000 subscribers – $145 per month

Case study: Say2eat

Online food agency Say2eat used ManyChat to create a native chat ordering system on Facebook. Working on behalf of local restaurants, Say2eat provided a quick and easy way for their clients to capture online orders with a Facebook chatbot. Through integrating an ordering service via Facebook messenger, the company could combat the high drop-off rates commonly seen in the use of websites and mobile apps.

**Figure 1:**Rapid Fire Pizza boosted sales with ManyChat by offering customers a special deal.

In the case of Rapid Fired Pizza in Fairfield, Ohio, the chatbot generated $16,715 in sales within just four months. Their ad spend was just $2,504, offering high-profit margins. The sales tactic employed was simply a buy one, get one free scheme. It allowed customers to choose from collection or delivery using a simple question and answer feature. To receive the offer, customers needed to type the keyword “RAPID” into the Facebook messenger chat, which allowed Rapid Fired Pizza to track their campaign engagement.

MobileMonkey

One of the newer kids on the block, MobileMonkey began operating in 2017. Even in its short existence, it’s already giving its more established competitors a good run for their money. MobileMonkey has a low skill barrier, meaning those who know little about coding can still use the service with ease. MobileMonkey really shines is in its offering of sophisticated features to marketing professionals. These include tools for drip marketing, mobile app for live chat, multiple chat channels in a unified inbox, advanced live chat features for customer service teams, in addition to the ability to target campaigns toward a specific demographic.

Advantages of MobileMonkey

• User-friendly: No previous experience required, this messenger marketing tool makes creating chatbots a simple process.

• Expansive range of features: MobileMonkey gives you everything you need. From a bot builder to audience insights that help you understand your target market. In addition to this, there are also tools to increase your subscriber list, send sequential and broadcast messages, automate Facebook Messenger ads, and integrate with your martech stack. MobileMonkey recently expanded chat automation beyond Messenger into real-time messaging channels including native chat and SMS marketing tools.

• Unlimited subscribers: Unlike other tools, there are no limitations on the number of subscribers you can have in your account. All of MobileMonkey's plans including the free plan, have unlimited contacts.

• Unlimited growth tools and chatbots: With MobileMonkey there are no restrictions on the number of chatbots and growth tools you can create.

• Native on-site chat: MobileMonkey has a unique feature among Messenger marketing platforms. The web chat widget checks to see if your site visitor is signed into Facebook or not, then responsively serves Messenger chat or native chat (no Facebook login required). This flexibility opens up chat options to your customers who may not have a Facebook account.

• Unified multi-channel chat inbox: MobileMonkey's native chat functionality necessitates an inbox where businesses can view and respond to the conversations happening in Facebook and native chat, simultaneously. MobileMonkey takes it a step further with the ability to connect an SMS account to the multi-channel chat inbox.

• Advanced live chat features: The live chat tools in MobileMonkey include the ability to assign follow-up to agents, and chat with leads and customers sending messages across Facebook, web chat and SMS from one inbox. In addition, MobileMonkey's free live chat mobile app for iOS and Android makes live responses possible from anywhere. You can also set up email alerts, app notifications, or browser notifications so you're notified when someone needs a live support rep or sales rep.

• Templates: A range of templates are available to start building your chatbot. You can select a bot template by type of business or purpose of the messenger - for example, a survey.

• WordPress plugin: For those running a WordPress site, the MobileMonkey plugin for WordPress makes on-site chat widget installation as easy as possible.

• Customer support options: MobileMonkey has a variety of instant support options for all subscribers, including live chat, email, and dedicated Messenger marketing strategists.

Disadvantages of MobileMonkey

• Interface: The interface on MobileMonkey is unfortunately not as intuitive as some of the alternatives on the market.

• Facebook Messenger ads: You can create ads for Facebook Messenger using MobileMonkey but not with the free plan.

• Preview function: While most chat campaign types in MobileMonkey give you a preview of your chatbot conversation on the screen where you’re creating it (including Messenger broadcasts, ads, and website chat), some chat content (such as Q&A responses) requires that you preview the chat through Facebook Messenger or your phone.

Mobile Monkey pricing

MobileMonkey offers a more advantageous free plan than ManyChat. To access all features, however, you’ll need to sign up to one of the premium plans. These range from $19 per month for their advanced Messenger bot Pro plan to $199 for the Team plan which is designed for freelancers and agencies who are working with multiple Facebook pages.

Case Study: Car Loans Canada

A leading example of MobileMonkey in practice can be found with Car Loans Canada. The online automotive loan company used targeted Facebook ads to attract potential clients. Once the user clicked on the ad, the messenger chat was automatically opened to a MobileMonkey chatbot. From there, the chatbot helped customers complete a loan application all through messenger.

Figure 2: Car Loans Canada encouraged their target audience into the sales funnel by prompting them to send a message via Facebook Messenger.

Car Loans Canada utilized information from targeted Facebook ads to erase 5% of questions on their standard form. These questions were answered by the data already provided by the click-to-messenger ad. As a result of shorter questionnaires and targeted ads, Car Loans Canada saw an increase in their conversion rate compared with their traditional website ad landing pages.

Chatfuel

Chatfuel has been around since 2015 and also helps you automate messaging on Facebook. Much like its competitors, Chatfuel offers to help businesses build automated bots with no coding required. Like other chatbots, Chatfuel provides both a live chat feature in addition to a visitor dashboard with a slightly more advanced interface.

Advantages of Chatfuel

• Extensive free plan: Chatfuel’s basic plan is impressive. For no charge at all, you can access many of the tool’s features for up to 1,000 subscribers.

• Plenty of useful features: Including extensive broadcast, sequence and campaign messaging, and analytics, along with easy integration with third-party analytics software.

• Export users: Pro Plan subscribers of Chatfuel can export all their users into a spreadsheet at the click of a button. This can then be used to put together more focused marketing.

• Free templates: Available to users on the basic plan, Chatfuel offers free templates via its Template Marketplace.

Disadvantages of Chatfuel

• Interface: While Chatfuel’s interface isn’t difficult to use, it can appear intimidating on first inspection. While you’ll soon start to find your way around things, it’s not as clean as some of the other messenger marketing tools.

• No tag feature: Unlike some other messenger tools, Chatfuel does not have a tag option. This means you can’t divide your subscribers into segments for more targeted messaging.

Chatfuel Pricing

Chatfuel offers an excellent free plan, which is perfect for getting started if you don’t have heavy usage needs. Upgrading to one of the paid plans will give you access to more features and pricing is reasonable. The Pro plan starts at $15 per month and allows you to remove branding and create focused Facebook Ads. If you need extra assistance - for example, with bot-building - then the Premium plan at $199 per month will get you a dedicated account manager. Both paid options come with a no subscriber limit feature.

Case Study: HelloFresh

HelloFresh delivers fresh ingredients to its customers’ doors and provides them with a step-by-step guide and tips to show them how to cook nutritious meals. However, the company was facing two major issues. One was an increasingly high volume of incoming messages, which required at least one employee to always monitor customer service complaints. Their second major issue was response time. It was taking between 6 and 12 hours for customers to receive a response from the customer service team. Employees were overworking and underperforming. Something needed to change.

Figure 3: HelloFresh's chatbot sent individuals who answered the riddle correctly a discount code.

In late 2017, HelloFresh enlisted the help of ChatFuel to initially improve their quality of service. The automated customer service bot alleviated some of the pressure placed on employees by automatically answering incoming customer queries. After this problem was resolved, HelloFresh used Chatfuel to boost sales. Between Black Friday 2017 and 2018, the team created a riddle for potential customers. When the riddle was answered correctly, a discount code was sent to the user for their order. This campaign had a staggering 64% conversion rate.

Octane AI

Octane AI was released in 2016 and just like many of its competitors offer chat automation via Facebook. The standout feature of Octane AI is that it can be linked directly to your Shopify account. This allows you to track revenue earned and prompt users with abandoned carts to finish placing their order.

Advantages of Octane AI

• Useful features: Octane AI provides many features including guided conversations, time interval responses and smart responses.

• Shopify integration: Easily link your Shopify store. Track sales statistics and other useful data.

• Free trial: Octane AI offers a free trial for its pro service with full access to its wide range of features.

• Shopping cart abandonment: Octane AI promises to help reduce shopping cart abandonment by prompting users with highly targeted messages.

Disadvantages of Octane AI

• Price Plan: After the 14-day free trial period, the pricing starts at $209 a month which is costly for smaller businesses. Their basic package aimed at smaller businesses starts from $9 a month, though it lacks many quality features from the pro version.

Octane AI pricing

The full price plan is as follows:

Basic Plan: $9 a month. This is aimed at merchants just starting out and does not include any access to SMS features. The $9 is a flat rate and does not scale depending on usage.

Pro Plan: Starts from $209 a month. Designed for fast-growing merchants. This includes all features including both Facebook Messenger and SMS. The Pro Plan price will scale based on your usage.

Enterprise: Price unspecified but a free demo is available. It is for high-volume merchants who use Shopify Plus or other high-level eCommerce platforms. This plan is for those seeking expert help and comes with a dedicated account manager.

Case Study: Feat

Online clothing retailer Feat had integrated Octane AI to help sales revenue. The goal was to use the chatbot to target abandoned baskets on their site, hosted by Shopify. Co-Founder of Feat, Taylor Offer, claimed that within 2 weeks of going live, Octane AI had “increased abandoned cart revenue by 5x.” Their open rates now sit anywhere between 70% and 80%. This was a substantial increase compared with the open rates of email marketing.

Morph AI

Morph AI allows you to automate customer support without the need for complex coding and is aimed at businesses of all sizes. Morph AI predominantly offers services for WhatsApp, though access is still available for Facebook and website bots.

Advantages of Morph AI

• Payment and eCommerce: Morph AI will let you collect payment for your products and services directly in Messenger.

• Natural language processing: You can teach your bot to engage and respond with a wider range of responses.

• Super agent: AI powered virtual employee that responds to complaints whilst continuously learning from the additional interactions it has.

• Forms: Morph AI offers a range of conversational forms within the chatbot that allow you to collect details from your users. These have proven more successful with conversion rates than traditional forms.

• Free trial: Morph AI offers a 14-day free trial service without the need to provide credit card information.

Disadvantages of Morph AI

• Limited access: Whilst Morph AI offer Facebook and website bots, access is limited. You must first request access if you wish to purchase one of these bots.

• User interface: Compared with other similar chatbots, Morph AI’s user interface is more complex.

Morph AI pricing

Morph AI’s price plan allows you to grow as you scale. Their pricing starts at $35 a month with an additional one-time activation fee of $100. This is based on 500 monthly active users and 5000 monthly session messages. The pricing will increase based on the amount of monthly active users. Morph AI also comes with a 30-minute WhatsApp Bot training session as part of the price plan.

Case Study: Manchester City Football Club

Manchester is a formidable football team that competes in the top division of English football – the Premier League. They have won 4 titles in the past decade were looking for ways to develop their presence off the pitch as well. They partnered with Morph AI to create a Messenger chatbot that would keep fans in the loop about their beloved team and favorite players with creative content marketing.

As a result of the partnership Manchester City fans were easily able to enjoy the latest interviews and video clips, order merchandise and receive updates from the players’ social media accounts, all through the intuitive Messenger chatbot. This has brought fans even closer to the action and increased engagement significantly to strengthen the football club’s global brand.

Figure 4: Manchester United's Facebook chatbot experience

In a nutshell

ManyChat, MobileMonkey, Chatfuel, Octane AI, and Morph AI are just five of the chatbot tools that are available on the market today. Effective use of any such software can significantly increase sales and also build stronger relationships with your customers. While all of these tools can bring considerable benefits to your marketing communications, be sure to select the one that best meets your specific requirements. Soon thereafter, you’re likely to become the latest in a growing list of advocates who are significantly expanding their reach through the use of messenger marketing tools.