The Recurring Notification allows your business to re-engage your customers after 24 hours of last interaction, with prior permission, on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

If you are familiar with the Broadcasting tool with ManyChat, the Recurring Notification expands on this tool by creating an experience that your customers are in control over. 

First, to send Recurring Notifications, you must receive prior permission from the customer to send them a Notification by having them opt-in. Also they have the opportunity to opt-out at any time.

This feature will also include One-Time Notifications, which allows you to send one message to your customers after 24 hours. 

With the Recurring Notification you can:

• Send time-sensitive marketing campaigns 

• Create drip campaigns

• Follow-up with your customers after the conversation has ended

The Recurring Notification is broken down into 3 communication windows: 

1. daily (one message per calendar day)
2. weekly (once every calendar week)
3. monthly (once every calendar month)

Here's a further breakdown:

For example, if the contact opted-into receiving weekly Recurring Notifications, and the Page set the time zone to America/New_York, this is a possible schedule of Recurring Notifications sent by the Page:

1. First Recurring Notification sent on Monday @ 5:00 PM EDT

2. Next Recurring Notification sent on Tuesday the following week @ 9:00 AM EDT

How to use Recurring Notifications

There are 3 main steps to successfully send Recurring Notifications to your customers:

1. Create the Recurring Notification Topic. Recurring Notifications are organized by Topic within ManyChat. The Topic is the internal title of the Recurring Notification messages you will be sending that is not viewable on the customer end. Utilizing the Notification Request block to collect opt-ins within the topic from your customers.

2. Tracking active Notification Requests within Contacts tab

3. Sending out the Recurring Notification messages via Broadcasts, Sequences or through Flow Builder

How to create a Topic and Collect Opt-ins through Flow Builder

The most efficient way to create and use Recurring Notifications is through Flow Builder. You can create Topics and collect opt-ins directly within a Flow. To do so:

1. Go to a Flow → Add a Messenger Content node as the first step
2. Add Recurring Notification Request Block
3. For a new Topic, in the Name section, select “+Create”
4. If you have an existing Topic that you’d like to use, add it in any of the steps 
5. After selecting “+Create”, you may now enter in the new topic’s name and choose the frequency (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, One-Time)
6. In the Notification Request block, you can add an Image, and must use a Title, and Button. The Subtitle and Button title are preset by Facebook
7. Make sure to preview and publish and attach it to your tool of choice. You are also able to add the Notification Request block to an already existing flow

How to find opted-in contacts

After collecting opt-ins to your Recurring Notification, viewing active and all Recurring Notification opt-ins is easily done within the Audience tab of ManyChat.

Here, you can filter and segment by either “Notification available now” or “Opted-in for Notification” and filter down by the specific Notification Topic.

Also, all Recurring Notification history is broken down on the customer level within their individual contact cards such as:

• the list of all current and archived Topics

• Their current Recurring Notification status

How to send messages

Good news is there are multiple ways to use the Recurring Notification within ManyChat to  successfully reach a customer using:

• Broadcasts

• Sequences

• Flow Builder

Let’s break down each of those tools.

Broadcasts

Using the Broadcasting tool to message your customers that opted-in for the Recurring Notification is one of the safest and simplest ways to implement this feature within your ManyChat account. 

1. Go to Broadcasting → + New Broadcast → Messenger

2. Select “Send inside 24 hours” and change the selection to “outside 24 hours window”

3. Under Reason, select the Recurring Notification Topic you’d like to use.

4. Create relevant content to your Recurring Notification within the Flow. Note: The Recurring Notification only supports one message block. Please only use content related to what was previously agreed upon. Failure to do so can result in page penalty.

5. After creating your Flow, select “Go Next” and select Non-promotional or Mixed content as Content Type

6. You can add more targeting, schedule a broadcast, set to send during certain hours, and select the type of Notification

7. After customizing, select “Send Now” once ready to send

Using Sequences to send Drip Campaigns

The Sequences tool allows you to set up multi-message drip campaigns and schedule them to send on a recurring basis.

To use this tool, go to the “Automation” tab, and select “Sequences” from the top selection. 

Here, you can create a new Flow and add a Messenger node. To use the Recurring Notification Topic, click on “inside 24 hours”, and select “outside 24 hours window”. Under Reason, add the Recurring Notification Topic. 

After successfully creating your first message, you can adjust the schedule, add another message and set it active from the Sequences tab. 

For scheduling, make sure that time aligns with the type of Recurring Notification (daily, weekly, monthly).

Learn more about using sequences here 

Using Flow Builder and Smart Delays to re-engage 

Sending Recurring Notification messages can also be done on the Flow level and sent via the same flow as the opt-in with Smart Delays or sent through Live Chat. An example of a sample flow can be found below.

Conclusion

The Recurring Notification is a great tool to utilize if you are looking to re-engage your customers on Messenger in a safe and effective manner for no extra cost. 

Make sure to follow all the steps to successfully implement this tool and take your contact list from a passive audience to an active one.