Have you ever looked at your business Facebook Messenger, only to find that you have weeks-old messages you never replied to? Yep, I’ve been there! On more than one occasion.
On today’s episode of the Stories in Small Business Podcast, Jenna Dancy is sharing how to use messenger bots to build relationships with followers and turn those into sales–without feeling sleazy.
Jenna goes into how you can make the messages feel like a conversation, how they work, and what you need to get started. Hint: You need to have a strategy!
Tune in now!
Mentioned in This Episode
About Jenna Dancy
Jenna Dancy has always had a love of marketing and advertising. Having spent the last decade-plus in PR, sales, marketing, and coaching, Jenna has been in the online space since long before digital downloads and evergreen masterclasses–I’m talking since coaches were printing and mailing binders as product! These days, Jenna specializes in lead-generation messenger marketing campaigns (also known as Facebook chatbots) that help coaches step away from their computers while continuously growing their client list. While tech implementation of bots sounds intimidating, Jenna makes this marketing strategy super approachable and regularly sees her clients booking more calls, selling more courses, and interacting with more potential followers, all without being hooked to their phone 24/7. Spending just six dollars, Jenna herself made $500 in sales this Black Friday through her personal bot messenger system.
To learn more, you can visit her website and follow Freedom Funnels on Instagram. You can also find Jenna on Facebook and Instagram.
Transcription
Abby Herman: Hey there, and welcome to Episode 94 of the stories in small business podcast, a podcast experience that puts to rest the idea that we all need to do business the same way and celebrates the unique stories and paths that we’re all on. I’m Abby Herman, content strategist and coach for online business owners who are ready to make a bigger impact online. I’m here because when I first went full time in my business in 2013, I struggled to find the help and support I needed to figure out what the heck I was doing so I could grow my business. My business is the sole income in my household, and I struggled really hard. I vowed to myself that if I was able to grow, I would be a resource to other business owners when I could afford to do so. This podcast is just part of that journey.
If you are new to the podcast, welcome. I work really hard to bring you informative and to the point content, because let’s face it, no one has time for fluff these days- if we ever actually did. If you liked what you hear, hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss another episode. I usually release episodes every Monday morning and every other Thursday morning. However, as we prepare for the Content Experiment Summit coming up in March, My plan is to release two and three times a week, every week until March 15. So what’s this summit that you keep hearing about? Well, I talked a lot about it in Episode 84. But I’m gonna give you the rundown here too.
the Content Experiment Summit is a five-day summit for coaches and course creators who are tired of feeling overwhelmed and frustrated by their content. The summit features about 25 speakers who are sharing bite-sized tips and tricks on how to get a better ROI on their time and financial investments in content and marketing. There are so many people out there telling you what’s right and what’s not what to do, what not to do when it comes to your content and marketing. And I know that it’s a lot. And often we are listening to the same people over and over and over again talking about the same things in the same way. That’s one of the things that I think makes the Content Experiment Summit so different. I intentionally looked for business owners who we haven’t heard from a lot of business owners who have amazing ideas, stellar results, and so much knowledge to share. But we don’t hear from them because so many summits, conferences, podcasts, and partnerships, focus on email list size, social media following numbers, and other arbitrary numbers that have nothing to do with the impact that they could give you.
Some of the other cool things that you might want to know about the summit is that the talks are 10 to 20 minutes long, so you have plenty of time to implement and stay on top of your work during summit week. The summit is free, but a portion of all All Access Pass sales will go to Women of Color Connecting, an organization that builds bridges between women of color and those in positions to open doors. And the summit is also accessible. I’m working with someone specifically to ensure that all the content is as accessible as possible. It’s not going to be perfect, but it might be a step above what some of the other summits that you’ve attended have done. You can sign up for the waiting list right now at thecontentexperiment.com/summit. Registration begins at the end of February. Are you wondering who the speakers will be?
Well, everyone who has been on the podcast since the first of this year is on the speaker lineup, along with today’s guest, Jenna Dancy. Jenna is a messenger pro and you’ll notice during the interview that I’m definitely not. I learned a lot in this interview and I think that you will too. now let me tell you some more about Jenna so we can get to the interview. Jenna has always had a love of marketing and advertising having spent the last decade-plus in PR sales, marketing, and coaching. Jenna has been in the online space since long before digital downloads and evergreen masterclasses. Were talking since coaches were printing and mailing binders as product. These days Jenna specializes in lead generation messenger marketing campaigns, also known as Facebook chat bots that help coaches step away from their computers while continuously growing their client list. While tech implementation of bots sounds intimidating, Jenna makes this marketing strategy super approachable and regularly sees her clients booking more calls, selling more courses, and interacting with more potential followers all without being hooked to their phone 24 seven. spending just $6 Jenna herself made $500 in sales this Black Friday through her personal messenger bot system. Without further ado, let’s learn from Jenna.
Welcome, Jenna, thank you so much for joining me today.
Jenna Dancy: Abby, I’m super excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me on.
Abby Herman: Yes. Thanks. And I am excited to learn from you both here on the podcast episode and as part of the Content Experiment Summit. So thank you for saying yes to both. I’m excited. So I already introduced you. But I would love for you to tell listeners in your own words, what you do and who you do it for.
Jenna Dancy: Absolutely. So I work with women entrepreneurs who are, they’re busy, they’re either Mama’s they’re running a side hustle, they are not connected to their computer all the time. But there’s so many touch points in you know, growing your business and having people reach out to you that you may miss a message, especially if somebody is connecting with you on Facebook Messenger. Right? It can get confusing in there. So I help women leverage that automation and that technology so that they can appear like they’re online 24 seven, follow up with contacts or connections, maybe even make some sales while they’re away through messenger marketing
Abby Herman: And can you talk a little bit about how you work with clients, and how that helps you to live the lifestyle that you want?
Jenna Dancy: Yeah, so I have a program that teaches people how to use messenger marketing. But what I love to do is really help sit down and strategize how messenger marketing can really fit into your own business, because it’s not a one size fits all situation. And really, I hate to say it, but messenger marketing has kind of gotten a bad rap with what’s going on, and how some marketers are using it. So I sit down and help you strategically choose what introduction to your business people are going to have through messenger, whether it’s promoting an offer you have, letting them know about freebies that you can offer them, or even services or even setting up appointments with you whenever you’re not at your computer. So it helps to make life a little bit easier.
Abby Herman: So let’s talk about that bad reputation a little bit. What are you seeing out there that makes you cringe? When it comes to chat bots and messenger and all of that, what are the things that you’re seeing people do that you think that’s just not the right way to do that?
Jenna Dancy: So actually, for me recently, I opted into a few messenger marketing campaigns, because you know, as a marketing expert, I’m curious, and I want to see what else is going on what people are up to you. And if I resonate with them, I’ll stay on their list, if not, I opt out. But I signed up for a messenger bot recently, and I won’t go into any names or name anybody specifically. But I had connected with them. And they sent a sponsored message I ended up clicking on and it just wasn’t an offer that was for me. So you know, I didn’t continue the conversation or buy the offer that they were they were promoting. And a few days, I got a message from them that said, “Hey, what’s up? You didn’t find my offer? Were you just clicking on my ad?” And it really took me aback. Yes, so it’s definitely bad. That gives our industry kind of a bad rap. And instead, you know, it’s really a tool that can be used to nurture relationships and build that relationship to either whether you’re working with one on one clients, whether you’re running an agency, whether you’re selling courses, like there’s so many different ways to use it, but show up in an authentic way, and have fun and get to know your clients better, instead of doing kind of these spammy or robotic type of replies.
Abby Herman: That just floors me, I mean, because the reality is you would never go up to somebody in a store and say, Why didn’t you buy my thing? I mean, that’s just, to me, that’s absolutely ridiculous. And just so icky. And you’re right, that does give the industry a bad reputation. So tell me, you talked about building relationships and you know, nurturing people. So tell me what is like, what does it look like when it’s done Right?
Jenna Dancy: I mean, I think the biggest thing is going in with a plan and not just sporadically thinking you’re gonna message somebody. And the other thing is looking at it differently than email marketing. If you’re listening to Abby’s podcast here, chances are you have your own email list or something that you’re starting and growing. And there’s a different style of communication. So I think number one is really understanding the features of messenger and thinking about it more or less along the lines of a text message, than an email. And that’s really the first step. Because if you’re thinking about your email, typically they’re longer. we’re not sending like one or two-sentence emails, typically it’s a paragraph or two with some links. in terms of a message that you get from a friend and messenger or on your phone, usually, it’s a shorter message, right? And you’re having a more personal conversation because chances are within messenger, not a lot of people are using it yet, there’s really, Neal Patel calls it a first mover’s advantage right now because you really can step in and own this space for your industry. And with that being said, usually your potential clients, or ideal customers, they’re not opted-in to many people in your industries messenger bots. So they’re not getting a lot of notifications inside of messenger. Usually, it’s your family, it’s your friends, those are the people you’re connecting with. So if you approach it like a marketer, you’re going to really stand out in a not so good light. So you want to really approach it as a friend. And just because we’re talking friendly, doesn’t mean we don’t need to be professional, because it is still representing our business. But its more fun, it’s voice messages, it’s gifts, it’s these things that can really help you stand out and showcase your personality.
Abby Herman: Yes, I love that. So I am totally guilty. One of the things I saw on your website was, you know, sometimes we respond to our Facebook messages weeks and even months in my case, later after we receive it, because for me on my business page, and maybe I’m doing something wrong, but sometimes it’s hard to see the message, so I don’t get the notification. And so it’s a random occurrence for me to go in and intentionally go in and look at my Facebook Messenger. So I decided to just completely opt-out of Facebook Messenger altogether in my business. And so I turned it off. So for someone like me, who hasn’t used it before, or is not using messenger at all anymore. What does it look like to get started using Facebook Messenger use? You talked about starting with a plan, having a plan in mind. But how does that? How do you have a plan without approaching it like a marketer and trying to not be sleazy? Like, how does all of that fit together?
Jenna Dancy: Great question here. And I just want to touch on what you said. because this is the reason why I fell in love with messenger because I had a very similar experience to you, where I had a client reach out, and they wanted to become a one on one coaching client of mine. And I didn’t see the message on Facebook Messenger for months later. I don’t know how I didn’t see it. It’s not very intuitive to figure out where your notifications are coming from. And sometimes you’ve got a notification there and you’re checking all your opening all the buttons, you’re trying to figure out where it’s coming from and just not seeing it. So that’s why I fell in love with messenger. So I could set up automated replies. So that doesn’t happen again. So tangent over right there. And first, I think the best thing about getting your plan in place is having- So you can have a goal without being a marketer, and thinking from your marketer hat, right? You can come from a heart-centered approach and think about it like how would you have a conversation with a friend.
you said you wouldn’t go up to somebody at the store and say, “Well, why didn’t you buy it from me”? You know, think about if you’re actually on a call and discovery call with a client, how would you start that conversation? Right? Would you be trying to figure out, you know, their goals? Would you be trying to figure out maybe what kind of online assets they have in place, you know, in this all leads to your specific business. So for example, let’s say you’re a content marketer. So you help clients build out that strategic plan. So perhaps your conversation could look like, hey, how many times do you post online right now? Is it one, two times a week? Or is it every day you’re posting? So if I was approaching this differently, I think what I would do is think about what I would actually say to a client call. So if you are a service provider, and you’re doing discovery calls, what would it actually look like For you to be on a conversation and starting a call with somebody? Would you be starting the conversation, like you said before like you wouldn’t go up and say, “Why didn’t you buy my thing?”, you would actually be finding out Why or details or trying to get more information from your client.
Like, for example, Abby you have a content marketing service that you have, perhaps like, if you were looking to bring on a new one on one client, your messenger bot conversation could get more information about what they’re currently doing with their content marketing. How many times a week Are they posting? Is it one to two times a week? Are they repurposing their content? Where are they sharing it? You’re kind of like investigating what they’re doing. And if they’re going to be good for you, as well. And there’s ways that you can you tag and segment and kind of score your leads inside of a service like many chat, so that you know, okay, this person would be a really high-quality client for me to follow up with and actually bring that conversation from automation to either a discovery call or maybe you personally reaching out in your messenger to get more information from them.
Abby Herman: So what does that look like when you are messaging somebody? So you want it to be authentic, You want it to be non-sleazy. You want to gather information from them. So I’m assuming what you said about qualifying the leads within many chat, and that you’re able to score people? Is that all done through automation? Like how are you actually communicating with the person? Or how is messenger communicating with the person on the back end? Like what does that look like?
Jenna Dancy: It’s almost like as if I made an email sequence. So you may have a follow-up sequence when somebody joins your email list, you’re sending them a welcome series, where you’re introducing them to you your services, you’re finding out a little bit more about them. It’s very similar. In a setup, inside of many chat, it’s just a terminology is a little bit different. And there’s several different marketing platforms out there for messenger marketing, I love many chat because it’s free to get started. And I think up until your first 500 subscribers because if it’s a software system, you’re testing out, the last thing you want to do is pay another monthly fee for your business, right? It’s a great way to test it and see if it’s gonna work for your business. And there’s what they call flows, which is almost like an email sequence. And then there’s broadcasts very similar to a broadcast email that you would send your list.
Abby Herman: Okay, so how does- I love that. Because I definitely can see the correlation between email marketing and messenger and how it’s different. How are people like working through the sequences With messenger? Are they sent specific emails based on how they’re responding to the messages?
Jenna Dancy: Exactly. So you can set it up where you’re sending them a message. And then they have optional links to engage with. So for example, you could say, “Are you looking to earn X, Y, or Z in your business this year”, and that would, depending on what option they choose, you could send them a different follow-up message. So it’s almost like a pick your own ending type of movie, that you’re leading them on their own personalized journey with your business. And then going back to kind of that lead scoring and tagging. In your back end, you could actually add a point depending on what option they chose. And I don’t want to get too detailed or talk about something that we can’t really show on audio for better understanding. But essentially, let’s say you only want to work with clients who earn $5,000 a month or $2,000 a month, you can score them, people that then answer, I earn X amount as a higher quality lead because they’re fitting more of your ideal client.
Abby Herman: I love that that’s something that you can do. does it does something like, many chat, does it integrate with email service providers as well so that you can keep track of that within something like say Active Campaign or mailer light or ConvertKit?
Jenna Dancy: Yes, you can actually connect to your email marketing platform. And what I love to do is actually get them inside of my messenger bot. And then it’s literally a one-click add to your email list because since it’s connected to their Facebook, Facebook knows so much about us, right? They probably know our life story better than we could tell it ourselves with our uploading photos and information and everything. So when it comes to collecting their email from Facebook, you can actually set up a story sequence where it says, “Hey, is this your email”, and then a little bubble comes up that has their email address already filled in. And all they have to do is click on it and say, basically say, yes, this is my email. And then either, depending on what email marketing platform you use, there are several that integrate with many chat. Or you can use Napier to connect whichever one that you use, and it syncs it right over to your email list. And you can deliver whatever follow up sequence by email, or freebie, or anything else. You want to send them that way too. So it gives you this feeling of being everywhere Online.
Abby Herman: Yeah, I love that. Yes. Okay, good. Yeah. I mean, clearly, I don’t know a lot about messenger or chatbot or many chats or anything like that. So hopefully my not so smart questions are helping listeners also to understand it a little bit better. What are some things- I guess What are some of the industries that you think that chatbots or messenger works with the best? And is there a specific industry type of work? Or are you finding success across all industries?
Jenna Dancy: So I personally believe it can really work for many, many industries. there hasn’t been one, or a client hasn’t come to me where I said, we can’t figure out a way to get this to work for you. I think it does just need to be a little bit planned with how you’re going to integrate with your business based on your own goals. And we can do some generalization here, but I love how it works with coaches. I love how it works For course creators, network marketers, service providers, there’s so many different outlets, even people that have a storefront. So like either a digital store or e-commerce setup or shop with their own designs or templates. Like there’s so many ways that you can actually use this.
Abby Herman: Okay, so somebody wants to get started using chatbots, Using messenger, what are some of the things that we should have in place before we get started? so we don’t want to just dive in, I’m assuming, even though I know a lot of business owners that’s kind of like their M-O, it’s like, they get an idea. And then they just do the thing. What are some things that we should be thinking about ahead of time, before we subscribe to chat or have subscribed to many chat, or before we actually start doing the thing?
Jenna Dancy: One of the most important things to have in place is number one, I think your email list. So then that way you can build your bots, subscribers, and your email list At the same time. I think that’s really important. And you also want to have just, I would say, at least one sequence set up to follow up with people when they first get connected to your messenger. But this can actually be like I know exactly what you’re talking about, you hear an idea, and you want to dive in and you want to give it a shot. This could actually be as simple as turning on your messenger greeting. And if you’ve ever gone to a Facebook page, and you’ve seen their messenger pop up with like a cute little message or like a welcome that says, Hey, get started. That could even just be your first step.
And when they click get started, you can welcome them and just be like, Hey, I’m Abby, and this is what I do. Can I help you? Or what are you looking for? Do you want my freebie, Do you want to book a call with me? So it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. And especially when it comes to messenger. So often people think of it as I have to be techie to figure this out. And what’s really cool is if you can drag and drop something on your desktop, you can build a messenger sequence inside of many chat. Yes, there’s different flows and technology and terminology. But really, that’s as simple as it can be. So jumping in there and getting your get started message created. And opening up your messenger greeting are two really quick steps that you can take.
Abby Herman: So it’s really intuitive enough- many chat is -so that anybody can log in and just kind of get started once they have their email list set up and once they have at least one sequence written and kind of ready.
Jenna Dancy: Exactly. And I do have a free guide that walks you through kind of a roadmap which helps you pull out how messenger can fit into your business. So I think if you’re even considering this, it’s worth checking out that roadmap to see where the bigger picture is, of how this can fit into your marketing. Because if you dive in and you start building out your messenger and you getting subscribers, these are people that are raising their hand saying like, please be one of the only businesses I let connect with me inside a messenger right now. So they really want to connect with you, they want to see what you’re doing. They want to know when you’re going live, they want to know when a new podcast episode comes out. So if you get started, and then you kind of ghost them, they’re gonna wonder, what are they up to? Why aren’t they reaching out to me? How do I get some updates? So having a little bit of a plan in place is helpful. So that guide with the roadmap really breaks down exactly where you can get started and the bigger picture,
Abby Herman: and where can people get that free roadmap?
Jenna Dancy: You can get it at chatbotsunlocked.com/roadmap.
Abby Herman: Awesome. So I want to ask you about chat bots, specifically unrelated to messenger. So chat bots, the little, it’s usually in the bottom right corner, and it’s a pop up that says, you know, hey, how can I help you? It recognizes who I am, like, I was under website, and it knew who I was, you know, which I’m assuming is connected somehow, because I think it had my Facebook and my Facebook profile picture, my personal profile picture. But regarding chatbots. So one of the things that has really prevented me from or held me back, I guess, from having a chatbot on my website is that I feel like it’s a- To me, it’s like old school, it’s a human being sitting on the other side, you know, me asking questions them answering. But that’s not the case, right? Like you can actually set those up, so that those have automated responses, just like the messenger bots, right?
Jenna Dancy: Exactly. So if you’ve ever gone to a website, you see that little chat bubble, that could be linked to messenger. And yes, there’s a couple of other platforms that do only focus on your website. But what I love about integrating messenger with it is because then you can connect with them inside of Facebook Messenger, you can grow your bot list this way, and you can follow up with them. What’s really cool, is inside of many chat, there’s an option to create like a live chat simulation. And it’s connected to a flow. If you want to get really into live chat, you can actually offer live chat through mini chat. But for many of us, we’re solopreneurs. we’re doing this either by ourselves, or we have maybe got an assistant or a small team that are helping and we can’t necessarily be on our site doing a live chat all the time, right, we’ve got other things to be doing and many other has to be wearing.
Abby Herman: Mm-hmm.
Jenna Dancy: So you can connect that messenger bubble to a sequence. And what my ninja hack is for this for a sales page is look at your FAQ’s. What are people asking you about your product, about your offer, about your service, and weave them into that live chat conversation. If you have people that are always asking how many modules is your course, break that down in your messenger. if they want to know what the bonuses are? Let them know in the messenger. And what’s really neat about using this type of live chat is you can then create a follow-up sequence that connects with them. You know, I like to set mine for about 23 hours later. So that it’s within many chats, 24-hour window of conversation so that it follows up and says Hey, did you happen to buy my offer? Whatever the course was, whatever the product service, or discovery call to? Do they book that call and get a little more information. And you can find out number one, why they did or number two, why they didn’t, which gives you more information to help either with your sales copy, or other decisions in your business.
Abby Herman: So even though that chat bot is on your website, it’s in reality connected to Facebook Messenger.
Jenna Dancy: Exactly. So even though it is connected to messenger, it’s gonna stay on your web page and not take them into messenger.
Abby Herman: Wow. Okay. I mean, clearly, I have a lot to learn. So this is all really interesting. And I am incredibly excited to have you on the summit to teach me and everybody else too. I guess even more about it, too. So thank you so much for joining me today. Can you remind listeners where to find your free guide roadmap and where to find you online as well?
Jenna Dancy: Absolutely, Abby, and I’m really excited to be a part of the summit. I think what you’re doing is going to help so many people, especially this year as we’re all trying to still continue our pivot and make changes and it’s just a really big powerful way to learn. So thank you number one for putting that together. And if you want to connect more, first, you can find the roadmap. It’s at chatbotsunlocked.com/roadmap. And you can find me on Instagram @freedomfunnels, or you can connect with me on Facebook as Jenna Dancy.
Abby Herman: Fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate it. Such great information right? I don’t have time to dig into messenger right now while I’m planning the summit, but it’s definitely on my list. Especially since I know I’m going to learn so much more from Jenna during the summit. Remember that you can sign up for the waiting list at thecontentexperiment.com/summit. Registration opens February 26. If you found value in what you learned here today, be sure to share it on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode on your phone and share it over on Instagram stories. You can tag me @AbbyMHerman and Jenna @theJennaDancy or @freedomfunnels. The more you share, the more we can get the podcast into the hands and earbuds of more business owners just like you who need to hear the message that they are not alone. Until next time, take care
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
