Real-time messaging services are crucial when it comes to boosting businesses. Opting for the best messaging app for business is almost as important as coming up with a successful marketing strategy or choosing the right sales CRM for your startup. Excellent instant messenger apps enable effective project collaboration, speed up communication with employees, facilitate constructive decision making in teams and even promote your product/services to your potential customers. 

Yearning to tap into the instant messaging scene to bolster your business? A few smart steps taught by our online marketing pros are guaranteed to smooth out your journey. Here are some more tips on choosing the best corporate messenger service for your business needs.

1. Evaluate. To figure out which type of chat app you need for your marketing campaign, evaluate your customers’ needs. Do your clients appreciate personal messages? Would they like to be able to make purchases directly via an instant messenger service? Perhaps, your potential customers would be more active if they could have a live conversation with your managers? These stats will be handy at the Evaluation stage.

2. Examine. Concentrate on the most popular instant messengers that work like a charm for business needs and study their features. Analyze their pros and cons while examining their potential in the closest detail. Do their features sound like something to enhance your communication in teams or improve your marketing efforts? Excellent. Now it’s time to move on to the next E-step. 

3. Experiment. If there’s one most important thing this post should teach you, it’s that experimenting is the key to success. The IM scene is still at its early stages of development, which means a metric ton of enhancements is going to take place here. What’s perfect for you today may be replaced by something even better tomorrow. Don’t hesitate to test it all out until you pinpoint the best corporate messenger service for your business as well as the strategy that works best.

4. Extend. In this highly imperfect world of instant messengers, is one app enough for your business purposes? In fact, to achieve the greatest possible effect, we recommend extending your use of messaging apps. In other words, opt for as many of them as you like. Based on your target audience, the features of each IM app and the essence of your product/service, feel free to choose several apps for your needs. 

Why Instant Messaging is Important in Business

Based on relatively recent research, some of the most frequently used IM apps boast almost 6 billion active users combined. It’s only natural that these statistics are only going to grow in the future. As a matter of fact, a great deal of companies is still slow in their efforts to make the most of the best business-friendly IM applications. 

Mark Zuckerberg once said that instant messaging was one of the few things people engaged in more often than communicating on social media. Today’s state of affairs on the online promotional scene is the living proof of his words. Last year’s survey revealed that only 20% of businesses utilize instant messaging apps for their online promotional campaigns. Take these stats, compare it with the most recent reports stating that real-time messaging applications have long outdone social networking platforms and take action!

Are you on the prowl for the best corporate messenger service for your needs? Then you definitely want it to assist you in connecting with remote workers, discuss urgent tasks and exchange a hefty volume of information with colleagues in real-time. And it should be perfect for your online marketing endeavors. The ideal IM service for your business should be convenient, straightforward, intuitive and functionality-rich.

Our experts recommend opting for a real-time messenger app that supports the highly effective video conference calling function. And guess what - the perfect instant messaging platform for your business does exist. We’ll help you analyze the most popular options and focus on the best one for your business growth.

Choose the Best Messenger App for Your Business

Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Snapchat – there’s a multitude of instant messaging apps out there. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by the quantity and want to wrap your head around them as fast as possible? We’ve got you covered. To save you the hassle of scouring the net for tons of instant messaging and productivity app reviews, we’ve rounded up our selection of the best apps along with their pros and cons for your effective analysis. 

So here is a lineup of the top 4 free instant messenger applications that are great for small business. 

Slack: 5 Million Active Users

Slack is a workplace instant messaging platform that is enjoyed by 5 M people on a regular basis. Uber, eBay, Shopify and Amazon are among the most acknowledged businesses that use Slack. This corporate messenger service is most frequently utilized in the United States. So if you’re a B2B company, opting for Slack is the best strategy for enhancing your promotional efforts. 

Here are a few recommendations on how to use Slack to boost your marketing success:

• Launch an appealing community for future customers and partners. Create value: let them in on various secrets and tips, offer useful guides and step-by-step instructions. Link to your product/service only if it strengthens your point. Most of your potential contacts are already on Slack on a daily basis, which makes this platform almost perfect.

• Launch a genuinely interesting community for your active clients. By following this step, you will help your customers sort out their issues related to your product/service, encourage their interaction with one another as well as collect precious customer feedback.

• Do your best to engage your business contacts in real-time active interaction. They love it, so give it to them in plenty.

Facebook Messenger: The Giant of the IM App World

Based on the trusted stats, the quantity of Facebook Messenger users in the US is only going to grow non-stop in the upcoming years. People love its straightforward user interface and appealing design. In fact, Facebook Messenger is the only instant messaging application a great number of people are perfectly familiar with. If you’re a B2C brand, this IM application is the ultimate choice to establish a solid connection with your clients.

If you want to make the best out of Facebook Manager for your business needs, follow these steps:

• Use chatbots to engage your customers through Facebook Messenger. People are tired of promotional emails and banners, while chatbots is a shiny and new approach they even kinda like. According to recent research, nearly 50% of your potential clients are eager to make purchases via a chatbot. No wonder - a bot is designed specifically to provide the user with exactly what they’re seeking.

• Convey your message through a chatbot. Make use of your Messenger chatbot to deliver quality content to your potential or existing customers. In this case, your open rate will be significantly higher than with the same message sent via a newsletter.

• Use the chatbot to increase customer engagement during events related to your business. For example, just before the most recent Call of Duty video game was released, the development company Activision had rolled out a chatbot mimicking the personality of a renowned character, Lt. Reyes. The chatbot was an absolute success, with nearly 7 million messages exchanged with happy clients.

Whatsapp: Excellent Platform for Promotion

Almost 1.5 billion people are using this highly popular messenger app monthly, with 70% of them checking their Whatsapp messages on a daily basis. Over 60 billion messages are being sent via Whatsapp daily! So it’s only natural that more and more businesses enjoy being promoted via this IM application. Whatsapp differs from Facebook Messenger because of the target audience. 

Here are a few tips for you to successfully boost your business via Whatsapp:

1. Explore and reach out for the unknown. Whatsapp is mainly popular in developing countries, granting you access to a whole new market that exists outside Facebook Messenger.

2. Offer one-on-one messaging. Because chatbots are unallowed on Whatsapp, business owners have to look for alternative ways to promote their product/services via this real-time messaging app. For instance, you can implement a targeted customized campaign to connect with your clients as a real customer relations manager would.

3. Utilize the Whatsapp ‘Status’ feature. This functionality is perfect if you want to share discount info, various promotional offers and even new product announcements with your customers. By using this feature, you will easily get yourself noticed and i.e. maximize your business opportunities.

Snapchat: Best IM App to Target Millenials

According to Business Insider, Snapchat is being used by over 150 million people on a daily basis. About 75% of them are in their early 20s. So if millenials are your target audience, Snapchat is the best real-time messaging application to promote your product or service. Interestingly enough, only 1% of online marketing pros use Snapchat for the purpose of growing their brand awareness. Here, you will face little to no competition. So take action now!

Below are some hacks and recommendations to help you amp up your corporate and marketing efforts while using Snapchat:

• Collaborate with influencers. Make sure you look thoroughly for the right influencer, with an audience that resonates with your market and exceptional charisma.

• Dive into the world of everything Snapchat has to offer. Snap ads, Sponsored Lenses, Sponsored Geofilters - use it all to promote your business and get yourself noticed.

• Think outside the box. To succeed within this young-minded platform, you don’t have to be a youthful brand. Just add some creativity and modern trends to the way you present yourself as a business, and your popularity will skyrocket.

Cutting to the Chase

Any business that strives to stay ahead of the game and attract more clients every day should start making the most of instant messaging applications. Whether you’re planning to use instant messaging apps for your in-house corporate or promotional needs (or both), the choice of the best application is vital. And it’s exceptionally individual as well. It depends on your business needs as well as your target audience and the product/service you’re showcasing. We hope the tips from our online marketing specialists help you get a glimpse of the IM world and a multitude of possibilities it can create for your business.