Do you get Instagram DMs for your business? Wouldn’t it be great if you could automate your answers to your fans and customers? You’ll discover how to utilize Instagram direct message automation to simplify company interactions in this post.
Why DM Automation on Instagram Is a Game-Changer
You’re not alone if your company is swamped with Instagram messages. Every day, Instagram users send more than 400 million messages to companies. They’re responding to tales, asking about goods, and wanting to learn more about how to collaborate, among other things. While companies get these types of messages 24 hours a day, they usually only respond to DMs for a few hours each day. Filtering all of the many sorts of DMs is also a major undertaking. It’s easy to overlook a crucial communication (like a product enquiry) amid all of the story tags and mentions if you get a huge number of them. You might possibly lose a sale if this occurs.
After all, Instagram is a platform for buyers. Eighty-one percent of Instagram users are looking for items and services to purchase. Because the algorithm, adverts, and Explore pages are so effective at giving people what they want to see, it’ll only be a matter of time until someone sees a competitor’s product, DMs them, gets a quick response, and ends up buying from them rather than you.
You can reply to consumers and prospects right away using Instagram DM automation. And you’ll be able to use Instagram to create income and leads in ways that weren’t feasible with simply the organic feed. If your company isn’t yet receiving a lot of organic DMs, you may start sending out more messages and automate the process. You may use DM automation to send a message to someone with a certain phrase you want them to send to you. This term activates the automation, resulting in an increase in the amount of DMs received. Instagram DM automation is currently being rolled out in stages. Even if you don’t have access yet, it’s still a good idea to outline your approach ahead of time so you’ll be prepared when you do.
1- DM Automation on Instagram vs. Messenger Bots
There are a few significant distinctions between Instagram DM automation and Messenger bots.
For starters, the Instagram audience is half a billion people fewer than Messenger’s. In addition, Instagram’s messaging forms are more easier. Messenger allows you to construct a gallery (akin to an Instagram carousel), send GIFs, and perform a variety of advanced integrations. Instagram automation hasn’t yet included much of that intricacy. Another distinction is how individuals might choose to participate. Because Messenger is its own platform, you have a one-of-a-kind link that takes someone to a conversation with your Facebook page whether they’re on a desktop or mobile device. With Instagram, however, this is not the case. People must initiate a DM discussion by requesting to contact you, either via your Instagram profile or through a story.
While there are just two options for individuals to join an Instagram DM discussion, Messenger has more than eight, including a QR code that leads to your page link, the direct link, or a chat widget on a website page.
The way you can follow up with folks is another distinction between Messenger and Instagram DM automation. Changes to Messenger policy regarding when and how you may follow up have been made. As a result, there is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation surrounding Messenger bots, which has forced several companies to cease employing them. You only have a 24-hour window to communicate with someone on Instagram after their previous engagement. If someone messaged your company profile on Instagram and you responded, you have 24 hours to follow up with them after the previous time they communicated with you. After that time period has passed, you won’t be able to contact that individual again until they re-engage with you.
While this method works on Messenger as well, there are alternative free and paid options for restarting the chat. Instagram is not one of them.
Without getting too technical, you may send messages using Messenger’s one-time notice or message tags. For example, if you register someone for a webinar in Messenger and they specify they want to get webinar reminders in the run up to the event, you may send outbound messages to them for free as long as they come under the definition of a reminder. Messenger’s rules specify expressly that you may send follow-up messages in a certain situations. However, their primary purpose is to safeguard the platform’s integrity. They don’t want marketers bombarding consumers without taking into account previous contacts with them.
2- Begin Using Instagram DM Automation
If you want to use Instagram DM automation for your company, make sure you have access to it first. If you don’t, at the very least, make a plan as soon as you acquire it.
Signing up for a platform like ManyChat, Chatfuel, or MobileMonkey is the easiest way to find out. All three enable you to create Messenger bots and, most recently, Instagram DM automation. When you have access to Instagram automation, there are a few things you should do straight immediately to begin testing it.
To begin, do a basic narrative test on a keyword for lead generation or direct sales. Because 50 percent of Instagram DMs begin with a narrative, it’s the greatest way to run it.
Second, you can start automating the replies that come in by using icebreakers—the small bubbles that appear when you first contact a firm. Your icebreakers will ask the user basic questions that people could have about your company.
When someone starts an Instagram DM chat with you, you may have three appropriate buttons display, similar to how we spoke about concentrating on marketing, sales, and support. “Here’s a free lead magnet,” for example, may be said. “Here’s a discount coupon” or “Book an appointment with us” might be used as a sales pitch. You’ll be able to watch what people are clicking on and how they’re acting in the channel as a result of this.
We’ll look at three aspects of a business: marketing, sales, and support, to see how marketers may utilize Instagram DM automation in various ways.
3- Using Instagram’s Direct Messages to Generate Leads
Instagram DM automation for lead generation is the quickest approach to start seeing results right away. Let’s pretend the user experience begins with someone reading your Instagram story to explore how this may function. You utilize the poll option in that article to ask your audience if they’re facing any obstacles or problems to which you have a solution. Your query should put the user in the correct frame of mind to take advantage of what you’re going to give.
The call to action should be included in the final narrative in this series. You advise them to DM you with a certain trigger phrase instead of encouraging them to swipe up to acquire your download, podcast, or discount coupon. If you’re an eCommerce business giving a Mother’s Day discount coupon, for example, you may say, “If you want a 15% discount code, SMS us the word’mother’ or’mom’.”
When someone sends you that message, they’ll get an immediate response from your company, which will start a dialogue. If it’s a discount code, you may first get the user’s email address and include it in the message. “Here’s your discount code,” you may say, and add them to an email cart abandonment sequence.
Unlike Messenger, there is currently no method to automatically include someone’s email address into a discussion. You can really simply ask someone on Instagram, “What’s your greatest email?” and they’ll fill it in. You may also see whether the email address is correct or if they put “skip” or anything like.
People will notice that the buttons on Instagram’s automation vary from those on Messenger. You have two possibilities with Messenger. Up to three vertically stacked square buttons or more bubble-like buttons that users swipe right and left may be used.
Because Instagram only offers bubble-type buttons, using them to help someone in a discussion is much more successful than asking them to enter anything at each step. It’s far simpler for the user to click on the alternatives rather than put anything in if you’re attempting to guide them through lead qualification, a product suggestion quiz, or anything else where they need to provide you with information.
4- Using Instagram’s Direct Messages to Sell
Now let’s look at how you can sell using Instagram DM automation.
You may give anything from a free quotation to a product quiz that culminates with a discount coupon for company models that go immediately into the sales process, such as info commerce, software, services, and real estate and insurance agents (after you recommend your best product). You’d start the discussion by qualifying them right away, particularly if they’re already familiar with the answer you’re offering.
To achieve two goals, you may ask for as much information as you desire up front.
To begin, you may want information from them in order to deliver a free quotation or something similar. You may ask them to respond to questions by selecting pre-filled buttons or typing in their answers.
You could even make it super-fast by just asking for their email address and then providing them with the discount code. That’s the greatest method for lower-ticket items—just offer them the information they need to make a purchase. Then you may schedule some follow-up messages to go out throughout that 24-hour period.
You may establish a handoff mechanism if it’s a high-ticket transaction or needs a person to step in and close. By asking a few questions, your Instagram bot may qualify someone. You could then have your sales or support personnel step in to conclude the discussion when it comes to the point of sale. At this moment, the chatbot automation will be suspended. To clinch the transaction, it’ll only be the person on the business side talking to the other human—the lead.
The chatbot may then take over once the deal is complete, so if the client writes you again in the future, the chatbot will respond.
All of this can be done with only one tool. ManyChat, for example, can handle all of these scenarios and keep track of everything. It will enable you to create a high-ticket or handoff sales system as well as serve as a CRM. If you want to use a third-party service like Zapier to ping a channel like Slack when a lead needs assistance, you can do it rather simply.
5- Automated Instagram DMs for Customer Service
Support messages are the third use case for Instagram DM automation.
Personnel may have to wait up to 23 hours for a response since many firms can only commit a few people and hours each day to answer to their Instagram DMs. However, using Instagram DM automation, you can respond to someone right away and enhance any interactions that aren’t automated.
There’s also artificial intelligence and natural language processing that can inform them how someone feels about their message.
The simplest method to expand your company is to use marketing automation. It has the potential to save you a lot of time and work while also assisting you in achieving fantastic outcomes. When you set things up using the tactics described above, you’ll be able to build excellent marketing campaigns that bring more value to the consumer. You can now build your company with significantly less effort.
