Media training 101 for small businesses

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Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr
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A Digital Agency Saves 30 Hours a Week Automating with ManyChat and Zapier

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"Our profit increased when we started using Zapier."Mary Kathryn Johnson, Founder & CEO, Messenger Funnels

Once upon a time, analyzing and reporting on data meant big daily exports, importing said data into a new application, and a lot of manual manipulation. It could take hours every single day and if you were analyzing information for clients, you'd be repeating this task for each one.

Messenger Funnels, a digital agency used to spend around 30 hours every week running and analyzing reports on conversion rates, engagement, and more for their clients.

To speed up these reports and remove an immense amount of manual work from the team, Messenger Funnels' founder and CEO, Mary Kathryn Johnson, explored alternative ways to work. She found app automation tool Zapier.

"This was a very time-consuming process that's now automated by Zapier," says founder and CEO, Mary Kathryn Johnson. "Zapier saves my team two hours per client."

About Messenger Funnels

Mary Kathryn founded Messenger Funnels when she recognized the power behind Facebook Messenger, especially in comparison to lower-converting marketing emails. In addition to providing clients with customized chatbots [that do what??], the Messenger Funnels team also provides conversion insights and calculations for their clients' marketing campaigns.

This is a lot of work. To save her team time, Mary Kathryn automates as much of this work as possible, putting the focus back on the customer and fulfilling their needs.

How Automatic Processes and ManyChat Reduces Work

"When ManyChat opened their API to connect with Zapier, it changed our world."Mary Kathryn Johnson, Founder & CEO, Messenger Funnels

Instead of manually building reports, comparing and updating data, and uploading it to the client Mary Kathryn found a way to automatically send that data between the apps they use with clients, like ManyChat, an all-in-one messenger marketing platform—.

"Prior to Zapier, we'd export the data manually, populate Google Sheets, and manually review sales sheets from our customers to change tags and statuses in ManyChat when subscribers make a purchase," she explains.

Mary Kathryn knew this wasn't a sustainable process, especially as their client base grew. Removing the time-intensive data export and review from her team's plates would mean they could get back close to an entire workweek: 30 hours.

Now, with a few Zaps, which are automatic processes, Mary Kathryn has a chatbot to register leads to each client's webinars and another to calculate how much more Messenger can convert customers than email marketing.

"This is our major 'a-ha!' for prospects thinking of using Messenger in their marketing," Mary Kathryn says. "It's our number one marketing tool for growing our business and getting new clients."

Here's how Messenger Funnels does it:

Messenger Funnels's Tools

Icon: App: Used For:
ManyChat ManyChat Messenger marketing platform
Zoom Zoom Video conferences, webinars
Code Code Run custom Javascript or Python

The Workflows

With ManyChat, the Messenger Funnels team creates chatbots for their clients, one of which automatically adds attendees to Zoom meetings. When a lead confirms in Messenger that they want to attend a session—be it a training course, webinar, etc.—Zapier sends the lead's information to Zoom.

Once the registrant is created, Zapier will then send the lead a text message through ManyChat, letting them know that they successfully registered. This all happens within one Zap, but we've broken it up into its components so you can use the parts that fit your workflow:

In order to truly "wow" clients with ManyChat's power to convert, they built a chatbot to show off how many more conversions clients could have—if Messenger was part of their process. The Zap behind the chatbot pulls client information from ManyChat, runs it through Zapier's Code app to refine the results, and, through ManyChat, sends a text message.

The text message has the real prize for clients: hard numbers comparing current email marketing campaigns to campaigns through ManyChat and Messenger.

This Zap could be a bit more technical, since it requires you to write and input code, so we simplified it for you. But if you need to share custom information with your clients, take inspiration from Messenger Funnels' work and check out Code by Zapier:

And if you want to try out some of our most popular ManyChat connections, check out these timesavers:

Now that Zapier saves her team money and time, she says "We get to focus on fulfilling our customer promises."

Want to put your focus back on your customers like Mary Kathryn? Give Zapier a try for free.

All images courtesy of Messenger Funnels.

Our stories explore how Zapier's users solve common problems. From marketers to CEOs, educators to real estate agents, millions use Zapier to automate their most tedious tasks. If you haven't yet, try Zapier for free to see what we're all about.

What's your story? Tell us how you use Zapier to do more. You can also read even more customer stories and find new ways to improve your workflow and productivity.



from The Zapier Blog https://ift.tt/2qJjywo

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