Getting Started AhaChat

Let’s have a comparison by the daily communication today with 10 or 15 years before. If you are to do the same way with other, it means that you changed email and telephone to SMS and messaging apps.

I.What is Messenger Marketing and its importance?

Messenger Marketing is a strategy to advertise to customers by Messaging app.

You can build a subscriber list by attracting potential customers, educating potential customers by sending contents as well as their answers. And finally, you can change potential customers to new paid customers.

About its conception, it works as what email marketing did. In actuality, Messenger Marketing works totally differently comparing Email Marketing. It has more talks – with Messenger advertisers who are seeding 1-1, almost emails of companies are one-many. Unlike Email Marketing (low open and click rate and reduce yearly), Messenger Marketing is actually developing.

And the following reasons are proven for important of Messenger:

1. Messenger interaction is higher than Email Marketing

In the report of Statista in 2016, they compared the open rates and click rates of different types of emails. In their study, they found an average email open rate of 5.9% -18.8% and an average clickthrough rate of 0.4% -2.1%.

Compared to ads on Messenger, advertisers now have 80% or more open rates and 30% click-through rates - you will begin to understand the potential of this new advertising medium.

People are more likely to open and click Messaging apps than using email. This is good news for any companies that want to attract leads and online leads.

2. Messenger is less restrictive than Email marketing

One of the strong point of Messaging apps is that they provide a basic user experience with minimal restrictions.

To further prove this point, let’s think about the limitations of Email Marketing:

First, imagine that checking your inbox which can make you feel nervous. Likely most people, your inbox contains tens or thousands of unread messages. Seeing all these "open loops" can make your head hurt, especially when you know it can take hours to sort out all unread messages.

Secondly, email comes with persistent threats from spam and viruses. We get annoyed by unwanted emails every day and we all know that probably someone accidentally downloaded the virus from an innocent email. As a result, the credibility of email advertising continues to decline.

Finally, consider how much work you need to do to open, read through and use email? Emails tend to contain a lot of text and it also depends on the format of the email as well as the device you use because the text may not be formatted correctly.

Have you tried reading the un-optimized email on your phone?

This is very difficult, even big companies like FedEx also make this mistake. There is no minimized text. But in some cases, if there is a lot of text, you have to scroll through the content.

The Messaging app doesn't have any customizations. For us it's safe and familiar to use them. The messages we receive in the Messenger app are usually short, easy to read, and they are automatically formatted to make it look good and complete.

3. Messenger is more suitable for advertising than SMS

Email marketing is a saturated advertising channel. Why not switch to SMS Marketing instead of using the Messenger app?

Because SMS is definitely not popular with the market.

If you have subscribed to a text message list, you will know that text messaging is very simple. The options are very for inserting an image or video, unless it is sent via multimedia message. You cannot link text links, which means that any URL you enclose will be long and ugly. Also, you cannot include buttons or other custom call to action.

In other words, SMS Marketing is not suitable for everyone and contains a lot of limitations.

The most important thing to note is that you have to pay to use the texting service. We have to pay $0.003 for one message.

4. Messenger is more personalized

Here are some reasons why SMS ads have never been really helpful and why Messenger Marketing offers a better opportunities for advertisers.

Messenger Marketing is more personal and interactive versus traditional advertisement.

Almost all traditional advertising channels - TV, direct mail, email, printing, radio, etc. – are one-way communication. The company would not know if they actually touched base with a potential customer until a costumer reaches out with a product inquiry.

But Messenger has changed this.

With Chatbot Marketing, you can easily customize the messages you receive based on the links you click while moving forward in the message stream. At any time, you can send a message for the company and receive personalized feedback from your on-site customer service representative.

This makes communication on messaging apps more personal. This is a two-way street, where the message can actual be seen by the customer. Most importantly, this is how people expect companies to deal with them.

5. Messenger is developing rapidly

In most countries, the most popular application is the Facebook Messenger app. Its popularity and range grew as it has been around for a while. As early as 2015, messaging apps surpassed social networks for monthly active users:

The specific applications used today are different from country to country - Facebook Messenger is the most commonly used app in North America while WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook) is at the supreme position in Europe. In China, WeChat is the most popular winner. But regardless of the specific application, it's clear that Messenger is a favorite channel for people around the world when communicating with friends and family.

II. Create Your First AhaChat Chatbot

1. Log in to Create a Bot

Click on button +Create bot

2. Automation settings

There are 3 automations:

Welcome Message: It is your bot’s response to anyone who messages your business page via Messenger. It generally includes a warm greeting, a bit of basic information to orient the user, and options to engage and further conversation. Similar to a homepage of a website: it is the first place a prospect lands when they want to learn more about your brand and what you have to offer.

Default Message: It is your bot’s response to anyone who types in something your bot cannot recognize, for example — they typed in something that doesn't match any of your Keywords.

Keyword Message: It is your bot’s response to anyone who types in something your bot recognizes, for example — they typed in something that matches any of your Keywords.

3. Create Block on your Flow

3.1 Create new Block.

CONVERSATION: These are messages between the bot and the audience, which can include first and last name, email, phone or any information.

JSON API: Allows sending requests in the form of GET/POST/PUT/DELETE to get external information and send it to bot or audience messages.

ATTRIBUTES: Save or change audience and bot attributes.

CONDITION: Navigates audiences to the next block based on conditions. The condition from top to bottom will correspond to the branch from left to right.

SMART DELAY: Stops conversations for a period of time (minutes/hours/days) before moving to the next block or flow.

RANDOMIZER: Branches in a predetermined proportion, used to perform A/B Testing.

SEND EMAIL: Sends email to audience.

GOOGLE SHEET: Saves and collects data from Google sheet.

3.2 Create Block

1: Name of block
2: Integrate external API to transfer information from outside into messages.
3: Bot text message, can use variable to get gender and or to get Customer's name.
4: Bot image or video message.
5: Set the waiting time for the following message compared to the previous message. If the message is longer, you should set the time to wait as long as the message to make communication appear natural as if chatting with real people.
6: Select the type of user replies (in this example, it is a button function), in addition we also support buttons: quick reply, text, photo tags, etc.
7: Add actions after audience Click buttons.
8: Add options to add buttons.
9: Select Branching so that when audience clicks the button, it will connect to the desired block.
10: Similar to Branching, you can add AND / OR conditions to run to the desired block.
11: Checks if the message entered is valid or in the correct format. (i.e. email, phone number, etc.)
12: Skips and goes to the next block without waiting for audience to select or enter a message.

3.3 Connects blocks to show conversations as audience choose.

3.4 Types of Messages supported:

– Text: There is a box to enter a user's message from the keyboard (some options can be set to check if a user has entered an email, a name, etc.). This type is often used to collect user information.

– Buttons: Maximum display 3 buttons for the user choice. It comes with the Branching option to choose connection with the next conversation. For example, when you select "Buy", you will be directed to the conversation which gives a list of products. But if you select "Not Interested", you can end the conversation. This type of message is very useful for flow development.

– Quick Replies: It is similar to buttons but it can be arranged horizontally. Comes with the Branching to choose connection with the next conversation.

– Cards: It is similar to Button but it has space for more images and more detailed information. It is very suitable for displaying products to order.

4. Add +Actions for Audience

Actions are the way we want the bot to respond when customers interact with bot messages. We can save audience information such as phone number. email address, and even tag them for later customer care, etc.

Actions can be manually attached at the Audience menu or automatically attached by including Flows or Keywords. There are 10 types:

  1. Add Tag: Tag to classify customers. It is used for later remarketing purposes, number of tags assigned are unlimited.
  2. Remove Tag: Removes tags from customers in case we don’t need to use anymore.
  3. Subscribe Sequence: Once attached, the message will automatically be sent to the customer based on the time setting of the Sequence.
  4. Unsubscribe Sequence: If you remove Sequence, the message will no longer be automatically sent. It is noted that if after the sequences are removed and re-attached, they will be sent back from the beginning.
  5. Set Attribute: Save user messages into Attribute such as date of birth, date of purchase in order to send better Sequence for later customer service.
  6. Clear Attribute: Clear the user's message from the Attribute when it is no longer needed, if the user does not have a custom field, this action will be automatically skipped.
  7. Unsubscribe Bot: With this status, customers will not receive messages from broadcast and Sequence. Of course, the bot's autoresponder function is not affected.
  8. Handover to Human: Bot will stop answering automatically with this customer to wait for staff to answer directly within 24 hours until you Mark “done” in Live chat section.
  9. Open Website: Open the website after customers click the button.
  10. Call Phone: Open the phone call after the customers click the button.
  11. Notify Admins: The bot will send a notification via messenger to the selected admin.
  12. Start another Flow: Go to another Flow to continue the conversation.

III. How to Use AhaChat Chatbot

Now, we've explored some strategies to use Facebook Messenger to grow our business, let's really dive into how to implement these strategies with AhaChat.

For simplicity, we will explore each part in sequence. If you look at the menu on the left side of the AhaChat screen, we will explain in this part of the tutorial:

1. Bots

List of all fanpages that have bots integrated. You can turn off, clone or delete bots on this screen.

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2. Dashboard

Your dashboard is a simple overview that provides general details about your account. You can see the chart of active subscriptions, the number of messages sent by bots or sale staffs per day:

3. Audience

List of all subscribers with some basic information. If you click on the audiences, you'll see more detailed information such as their tags and their registered order:

You also change subscriber here:

If you click on the "Bulk Actions" button in the upper right corner, you can add or remove tags, subscribe or unsubscribe sequences, even adjust their attribute:

4. Livechat

This keeps track of all AhaChat conversations in real time.

If anyone will send you a message at any time of the day - whether it's providing feedback, asking questions, thanking - these messages will be displayed here. In this way, customer service representatives will have a central location that can handle customer issues.

On the right of the screen, AhaChat displays some details about subscribers. It shows their name, photo, gender and language.

You can also add tag audiences or subscribe them in a sequence:

5. Broadcast

Broadcast is one of the best marketing tools to grow your business using your connections with existing customer base. Reactivate your existing subscribers, reveal their needs and interests, make up-sales and useful proposals based on their replies. This is the next amazing AhaChat feature that gives you a chance to start a dialogue with your subscribers instantly, so you can:

  • Deliver a content to a list of subscribers and target them using audience filters
  • Get to know your audience and segment it with tags depending on users' replies (conversational actions).

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Please read this piece carefully as it directly relates to Facebook Messenger Platform Policies that regulate the ways different types of content should be delivered and the type of audience it can be delivered to.

Subscription Broadcast allows you to deliver non-commercial content to your subscribers at any time you want provided. Use it as a conversational option to start a dialogue with your audience or notify on subscription-related topics. Keep in mind, however that Broadcast messages cannot contain any ads or promotional materials and it is limited by Facebook to following cases:

  • News: Integrations whose primary purpose is to inform people about recent or important events, or provide information in categories such as sports, finance, business, real estate, weather, traffic, politics, government, non-profit organizations, religion, celebrities, and entertainment.
  • Productivity: Integrations whose primary purpose is to enable people to manage their personal productivity with tasks, such as managing calendar events, receiving reminders, and paying bills.
  • Personal trackers: Integrations that enable people to receive and monitor information about themselves in categories such as fitness, health, wellness, and finance.

You should use spintax to randomize different contents for each customer to increase personalization, for example: Congratulations you have been {given|received |blessed with} a Gift worth $299 from shop.

Promotional Broadcast allows you to send commercial messages. Note that with this option, your targeting will be limited to subscribers that were active (interacted with your bot) within the last 24 hours. Use this option carefully, you don't want to annoy your subscribers with mass promotions.

Segment allows you to choose the first and last order of the subscriber list and the speed at which messages are sent:

  • Sent from subscriber [x] to subscriber [y] to split the number of submissions to avoid spam. For example, if you have 9,000 subscribers and want to send broadcast messages every day to 3,000 subscribers, you can choose Send from subscriber [1] to subscriber [3000]
  • Number of messages sent per minute [x] also used to split submissions to avoid spam.

Schedule Broadcast choose whether you want to send your message immediately or at some points in the future.

6. Sequences

The Sequence is a feature that allows you to subscribe users from your Audience to the chain of messages that can be separated by delays of different length.

Please note that a user can receive the same Sequence only once. If you're testing the Sequence by yourself, in order to receive it again from the start after editing it, you need to unsubscribe yourself from the Sequence and then Subscribe to it again.

7. Trigger

Triggers allow you to perform Actions based on different Conditions: when something happens in AhaChat — the following action will be performed.

For example:

  • Send a confirmation email or update contact details in your CRM as soon as subscriber's email address is changed
  • Send a birthday message to your subscriber or remind them about the upcoming event
  • Notify Admins when someone gets a particular Tag in one or multiple Flows

8. Setting

Refresh Permissions. Messenger platform can unexpectedly drop page permissions on admin password change or due to its internal reasons. In case of any trouble with content sending or service setup, we recommend you to refresh permissions.

Menu is a simple way to provide your subscribers with always accessible options, like a help button which will send the user a message with helpful information, or a link to your main website.

9. Growth

This is one of the most interesting parts of AhaChat. In Growth Tools you can customize many different overlays, widgets and pop-ups to help encourage people to contact you through Messenger and become your subscribers.

After clicking the "+ New Growth" button in the upper left corner, you will see a list of options:

All of these tools can measure KPI with the following metrics:

  1. Impressions: The number of users who saw the tool.
  2. Clicks: The number of users who clicked.
  3. Reach: The number of users who were reached.
  4. Opt-Ins: The number of users who subscribed.
  5. Conversion: The conversion rate from impressions to subscribers (impressions/opt-ins).

9.1 Web Form

Web Form is a form to collect user information in Messenger, its benefit is to help customers register information quickly and can confirm customer’s phone number via SMS to avoid spams.

Click here for detailed instruction

9.2 VIP Card

VIP Card is a membership card or discount card used in Messenger. By having membership cards or professional greeting cards, you could help your brand impress the customers.

​Click here for detailed instruction

9.3 Auto Inbox

Auto inbox is a function for auto-inbox, auto-like, auto-reply to the fanpage's post. Most of the time, we use this function in order to send into customers' inboxes the good product deals and attract potential customers by giving free gift/s.

Here's how it works:

Firstly, users see your post on Facebook.

They comment on your post.

After posting a comment, they will receive an automated message from your Chatbot.

If they reply to the Chatbot's message, they will be added to your AhaChat subscriber list.

​Click here for detailed instruction

9.4 Modal

Display pop-ups including messages and buttons after a few seconds on your website.

9.5 Button

Embed button on website. If the user clicks on "Button" then the flow will be launched on Messenger and the user will become a subscriber of your bot.

9.6 Messenger Ref Url

Creates a link to share blogs, emails or social networks. If the user clicks on "URL" then the flow will be launched on Messenger and the user will become a subscriber of your bot.

9.7 QR Code (similar to Messenger Ref Url)

Here, you can also download QRCode to scan on your phone. If the user scans "Code" then the flow will be launched on Messenger and the user will become a subscriber of your bot.

9.8 Facebook Ads Json

Create Facebook ad by JSON. If a user clicks on the "Advertisement" then the flow will be launched on Messenger and the user will become a subscriber of your bot.

​Click here for detailed instruction

9.9 Customer Chat

Embed Messenger into your website (default position is the lower right corner), after the user clicks on "Chat Now", the flow will be launched on Messenger and the user will become a subscriber of your bot.

IV. What Kind of Marketing Strategies Can Be Applied through AhaChat Chatbot?

Now that you know how to set up messaging, keywords and sequences in AhaChat, step back and think strategically. How can you use this new tool to help you grow your business while providing a better user experience for your customers?

Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Chatbot consulting helps close sales with many customers at the same time.

In fact, over 80% of users' questions focus on a small number of frequently asked questions (FAQs), so if we can assemble and answer these questions automatically, we will save a lot of time answering back queries and be able to focus more energy in creating the best bot for your brand. Chatbot automates texting with customer to help give customers feedback fast, thus bringing a good experience to customers. Thanks to Chatbot, you can reply to hundreds of thousands of people at the same time because robots will help you with this. However, take note that this is also depended on your chat script settings based on your keywords.

2. Promotional announcements

Chatbot will help you to send to all your subscribers and reading rate could be up to 80%. Or you can easily filter and re-use the old customers data, send them promotional campaigns or give discounts for important events of your brand.

3. Automated Replies of Comment According to Posts

Since we absolutely sure that you are not a stranger with sponsored posts on Facebook, leaving a comment for details and asking for the product price will trigger automatic replies. This is the way you build a Chatbot in order to direct the customer to do certain actions. This is especially useful for when your page has a large subscribers list - you can use Chatbot to send prices and private messages, or even instruct potential customers to leave their comments. The more interactive comments on a post, the cheaper the ad price you could have.

Besides that, setup a automated replies for comments sent to customer inboxes, you can use to direct customer to your website or do another certain action.

4. Build a Viral Bot to Engage Leads

Viral Chatbot is a Chatbot template used in order to create and spread a message to a huge customer database and increase its audience growth rapidly in a short time via Facebook Messenger.

For instance, a viral Chatbot template can be used for a game that has a giveaway.

A creator uses a present with high value in order to attract other people, the player has to share the game (forward the message) in order to have the gift. The framework is simple---If a person receives a message and he wants to have the gift, he should then share the information of campaign. The message will spread by multiples. And engagement and conversion will be increased by the mini game.

Here some of viral campaigns for game giveaways:

An example of a viral game is Lucky Spin. Players could invite more friends to join the game, if it is invited successfully, they will get more turns.