Spend any time marketing a business these days and you’ll know that getting ‘eyeballs’ on your content is harder than ever. The world of multi-channel consumption is upon us, making it incredibly hard to reach, and then stay connected, with customers.
Is email still the way to reach people?
No not really.
Email, the go-to communication method of the last 20 years, is now a hit-or-miss crapshoot. With email open rates at a dismal 15% average, and click through rates even lower (as low as 5%), emailing clients is a shot in the dark.
So what's the alternative?
There is one channel that is today by far the most effective way to get customers to listen and consume your business messages. That channel is, rather ironically, messaging apps.
By messaging apps I mean Facebook Messenger, but also Skype, Slack, and WhatsApp. Apple is also set to enter into the market with their offering, Apple Business Chat.
With any of these channels you can build a high level of engagement with your customers. Just like email marketing worked back in the day, you can do everything you did and more via messaging apps.
And when i say higher levels of engagement with chatbots, when Neil Patel ran experiments he found an 88% open rate and 56% clickthrough rate.
Messaging apps are like email marketing in it's heyday. People are actually excited to receive your messages, and the open / click through rates are insane.
Why is that? One word: novelty.
We spend hours on messaging apps (on average 200 minutes per week). When that little red 'notification' dot pops up, we get a shot of dopamine and we tend to open it. We're so used to friends and family contacting us on these apps, we consume these messages like gangbusters.
Summary
Inevitably, messaging apps will go the way of the email. Before too long, you'll be as suspicious of a messaging app message as you are an email.
But until that time, let's make hay while the sun shines. Just don't go abusing the channel or you'll spoil it for everyone!
