In an unexpected update, Meta has announced that they have launched ‘Recurring notifications’ in its Messenger platform.
Recurring notifications allow for people to better connect with businesses online, making it much more simplified to “deliver tailored messaging at the right time to your customers, ranging from conversion-focused messages, like sales notifications, to content that drives engagement, such as newsletters”.
These prompts will enable businesses across the globe to send out automated notifications to their customers, to maintain that connection and drive deeper engagement.
However, only those users who choose to ‘opt in’ will be receiving such messages.
This is the opposite to how Meta, in particular Messenger, as to how often businesses can message customers from their business account.
As stated by Meta themselves, this updated in-house feature will permit businesses to:
- Create personalized messages about a chosen topic, such as a shoe store alerting customers when a specific size is back in stock.
- Spark discovery with recommendations, brand inspiration content and newsletters.
- Boost the odds of consideration with product alerts, behind-the-scenes news, presale alerts and recommendations based on past purchases.
- Use tactics such as discount codes, promotional content, loyalty rewards and partner offers to trigger conversions.
- Increase engagement with tips, community stories, cross-sells and product service reminders.
- Remain in contact throughout the customer journey, with the choices of sending messages daily, weekly or monthly.
At this moment in time, this vital shift is available for free during its trial period, however looking at this long-term, the platform aims to cost companies to use it.
Results from Meta’s trial period
Meta has reported that companies who have put this feature to the test “are seeing deeper connections and new business value”.
In fact, one business called Outer Aisle, had sent promotions and various product alerts through Recurring Notifications. The results from this depicted that customers were excited and Outer Aisle witnessed a 20x increase in notifications CTR, as opposed to through email.
Another business, ChicMe, which is a woman’s retailer decided to plunge into the use of Recurring Notifications as well.
Going beyond the measure of simply using SMS and email campaigns, they noticied a “13x increase in revenue per customer versus email campaigns“.
Furthermore, 33% of first-time buyers who derived from these Recurring Notifications, made repeat purchases within just 60 days.
This was an area that many brands struggled with prior, as communication between customers were cut short after the initial purchase.
e-Ticket, a leading ticketing platform, successfully managed to engage fans through sending daily notifications for concert pre-sales and monthly messages on upcoming events.
Moreover, they used the ‘Send to Messenger Plugin’ in order to initiate Messenger conversations with customers and as a result received a 72% opt-in rate for Recurring Notifications.
In addition to that, e-Ticket managed to seamlessly translate this into sales! It was found that 65% of fans who received a notification purchased a ticket on the same day!
The final verdict on Meta’s plans
This recent update unveils Meta’s plans for creating monetization tools to further fund the platform.
It is a large shift towards how they previously seeked to operate, placing a large emphasis on not enabling brands to be deemed as a nuisance when communicating through their platform.
However, they have evidently reformed their approach and mindset towards this as of recently and are focusing more on allowing businesses to market freely on their platform.
This new feature is a great way to evidently drive engagement, customer retention and boost revenue through increasing sales (as seen by the given examples).
Stay tuned, because Recurring Notifications are set to come out later this year to Messenger API for Instagram as well!
For more of the latest updates in the world of social media, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.