93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine. How many of these prospects become customers?
The good news is that consumers who use search are 2.4 times more likely to buy. The bad news is that 12% bounce to a competitor’s site after not finding what they were looking for. The ugly truth? Your customers will ditch you for another brand in the blink of an eye.
We know that standing out from billions of Google searches is a major challenge for marketers. That’s why you need to engage prospects right at the beginning of their discovery and enable them to start a conversation with you.
But how do you stand out and offer a personalized experience that turns searchers into customers?
Google’s Business Messages might just be the answer.
Google’s Business Messages combines organic search, websites, and Google Maps for a seamless cross-channel experience on mobile devices. It enables customers to contact you on their own terms. When they need or want to. It even lets your business directly re-engage them for free. No cookies or ad platform required (more on this later).
Whether it’s Google Maps or Search, your brand is at their fingertips to get product suggestions, content, and information. It’s a platform where your customers already are and where your business needs to meet them.
Read on to learn how you can grow and engage your audience with entry points for Google’s Business Messages.
Entry Points to Direct More Customers into Google’s Business Messages
An entry point is where a prospect discovers your marketing chatbot and enters a conversation with your brand. It’s how you can bring customers into Google’s Business Messages from Google search, Google Maps, and owned channels.
It’s crucial to use as many entry points as possible to get the most value from Google’s Business Messages as a marketing channel. Why? Because entry points allow your business to acquire more leads and nurture them at every stage of the funnel. And the more high intent audience members your business has, the more valuable your audience is.
Paid Entry Points
Paid entry points enable your business to direct prospects into a one to one chat experience from paid advertisements. It’s an efficient way to make your customer journey interactive right from the beginning and stand out from the crowded paid search competition.
You can personalize the post ad click experience before people even hit your website. Without ever having to build a custom landing page.
Paid search is the bread and butter channel for nearly every business on the channel. Paid search budgets are huge for good reason. Search is high intent and specific. That’s why paid search entry points are the best place to start when you want to grow your audience on Google’s Business Messages.
Standalone Ad and Ad Extension
You can send people into your automated Google’s Business Messages bot from a standalone ad or you can also add an ad extension to an existing paid ad. Let’s see the difference between the two.
Standalone ads come with a clickable headline and chat button. They are especially powerful as both the headline AND Chat button direct users to a private chat experience in Google’s Business Messages.
Ad extensions are another type of paid entry points directing users into your bot. You can insert a ‘send message’ button or chat icon to your ads and enable prospects to easily connect with your business once they discovered you. By doing this, you can turn every discovery on search into a meaningful conversation within Google’s most popular products.
Organic Entry Points
Organic entry points are free entry points you can use to drive more prospects into your automated bots while staying cost-effective. Google’s Business Messages offers two organic entry points.
Placesheet
The first is the Placesheet. This is the small bar at the bottom of Google Search when someone searches for a specific brand or location. Customers can instantly jump into a conversation with your brand after searching for your business and seeing a CTA to send a message. Having this available increases the ROI of search marketing as people have one more way of finding and connecting with you.
Google Maps
The second organic entry point you can use is Google Maps. When users search for location-specific queries or your brand, they will be able to start a dialogue with you. When your business secures featured snippets in organic search, users can select the “Chat” option. Sitelinks will also display an option to speak with a brand on Google’s Business Messages.
Owned entry points
Using owned entry points gives you the opportunity to convert prospects who are already on your website or other owned channels. And in case, the customer doesn’t convert, owned entry points will allow you to re-engage and nurture prospects even after they leave your website.
Web widgets
Web widgets on partnered websites give customers a conversation entry point into your marketing bot on Google’s Business Messages. You can even send a direct URL through social, email, SMS, etc.
This means other owned channels can be easily integrated with Google’s Business Messages as well. Help customers easily discover and connect with your business directly through your website. This will help you increase the number of meaningful conversations you have with customers within Google’s most popular products.
Take Away
The multiple entry points into Google’s Business Messages make it effortless for anyone to discover your brand online and instantly connect in a one to one conversation.
Make sure to utilize all entry points, including paid, organic, and owned, to get the most value of your Google’s Business Messages channel.
Want to learn more about the real value of messaging channels? Find out everything you need to know in our in depth article on the main benefits of using messaging channels and entry points.
