Why Chat Apps Will Be A Critical Marketing Channel in 2019

Messaging apps have become a staple in consumers’ daily lives. As marketers prepare their strategies for 2019, messaging apps should be at the top of their priority list—allowing them to build loyalty, drive revenue and grow their customer base, says, Debbi Dougherty, Head of B2B Marketing, Rakuten Viber.

The marketing paradigm experienced major shifts in 2018. With a deluge of new applications and other innovative platforms, marketing heads were tasked with identifying the touchpoints that would resonate best with current and prospective customers. While tools like augmented reality, virtual reality and even next-gen digital assistants created a lot of hype, marketers are quickly finding that more “traditional” platforms are the most effective.

Messaging apps have become a staple in many consumers’ daily communications—and the trend isn’t slowing down anytime soon. In fact, research forecasts that nearly 150 million Americans will be using mobile messaging apps by the end of this year, and this number will only grow—with more than half of U.S. residents expected to use one of these apps by 2022. By taking advantage of this massive pool of consumers, marketers can ensure they’re reaching and engaging customers where and how they prefer to interact.

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As marketers prepare their strategies for 2019, messaging apps should no doubt be at the top of their priority list. Here’s how chat apps allow marketers to build loyalty, drive revenue and grow their customer base:

Create loyalty - Driving valuable, two-way engagements

When consumers follow a brand on Facebook or Instagram, they’re experiencing one-way engagement. In other words, the brand is pushing out content—from images of new products to vlog tutorials on how to use them—but that’s essentially where the “interaction” stops.

Messaging apps create a unique opportunity for consumers to directly engage with a brand, whether it’s to quickly resolve a customer service issue or just to receive more details on an upcoming product line. Since consumers already use these messaging platforms to communicate with friends and family, it allows brands to take on that interpersonal quality.

In addition to chatting with a live brand representative, many chat apps also offer the opportunity to leverage chatbots. These tools are perfect for offering 24/7 support, getting quick answers to questions and managing and resolving simpler customer situations or issues. By offering both live and chatbot interactions, brand marketers can ensure they’re driving the valuable, two-way engagement customers crave resulting in long-term loyalty.

Drive revenue - Create new opportunities to shop, browse and share

When marketers are determining a “good” platform to invest in, it often comes down to ROI. Marketers understand the value of customer loyalty, but they want to see how that translates to driving revenue for the brand. For chat apps, this is where e-commerce features come into play.

Messaging apps have quickly become a go-to platform for consumers to seamlessly browse and share products. Take, for example, a group chat for an upcoming bachelorette party. If they’re is using a messaging app with shopping keyboard features, the bridal group can easily browse and share potential outfits or props they’re considering for the big event creating the opportunity for instant feedback before completing a purchase.

This kind of enhanced e-commerce feature results in real, measurable value for brands that use messaging apps and for helping shoppers naturally discover and purchase new products.

Reach new customers - Getting smarter about ads, without crossing any “creepy” lines

Improving engagement is an important goal for marketers, but this doesn’t just include interacting with current customers. With the massive user-base on messaging apps, marketers can reach new customers that could be interested in their brand through smart (but not invasive) advertisements.

Privacy and targeted ads are hot topics in the social media marketing realm today, and consumers are hypersensitive about data misuse. By working with the right messaging platform, brands can ensure they’re not crossing any boundaries when collecting or analyzing user information. This means finding apps that don’t read and sell insights from personal conversations and only target users based on anonymized data and actions on the app.

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2019 will be the year marketers recognize that investing in the newest or flashiest technologies isn’t necessarily the best route to engaging customers. By instead putting resources toward messaging apps, which are steadily growing in popularity, brands can achieve all their customer engagement goals in the new year.