How to set up a product drop notification campaign
7 min read

How to set up a product drop notification campaign

Build hype around a new product drop and schedule a DM notification to boost early sales with this chat marketing campaign.
How to set up a product drop notification campaign

With all the retail competition out there, you need to be able to speak to your audience directly and keep them up to date. Build hype around a new product drop and schedule a DM notification to boost early sales with this chat marketing campaign.

Why set up a product drop notification campaign?

If you’re in online retail you probably know that competition is fierce. Especially now that more and more businesses are offering their products online. A popular online retail trend - especially for luxury brands - is building hype well in advance of a new drop, so you can move your products fast.

Example-of-an-online-store-showing-product-drops
An example of an online store showcasing new product drops

You do this by stressing the date and time of the product drop in the days, weeks, or months leading up to it. This builds anticipation, especially if we’re looking at a special release or limited edition item. Customers can benefit from getting their hands on something exclusive, or purchasing an item before it’s available to the general public.

If people are interested, let them opt in to receiving a DM when they can actually make the purchase. This ensures no one misses the moment your product drops. You boost early sales and can start preparing for your next campaign.

If your brand is already established and has a large social media following, use this to gain traction for your product promotion. If not, you might want to consider running a Click-to-Messenger ad to build hype for your next product drop.

Product-drop-notification-campaign-Click-to-Messenger-entry-point
Use a Click-to-Messenger ad as an entry point for your campaign

If you’re promoting your product drop through the usual channels, make sure you drive traffic to Messenger. Let people opt in to receive a one-time DM notification the moment the product goes live.

This is like building an email list, but for this drop specifically. The difference being that the notification you send out has an open rate that’s 3-4 times higher than any emails you send!

In your Messenger flow, you’ll want to showcase your product and use a ‘one-time notification’ component that opts people into receiving a notification from your page. You can expand on this flow and ask people to subscribe to your newsletter, or direct them to a customer service representative.

Use Zapier to sync POP audience data with your CRM (integration coming soon!). You’ll be building hype, growing your email list, and opting in people for a DM notification, all on auto-pilot. Lastly, schedule the DM notification for the moment of your product drop, and you’re all set!

Here’s a visualized example of a product drop notification campaign workflow in Messenger:

Visualized-example-of-product-drop-notification-campaign-workflow
An example of a product drop notification campaign workflow

How to set this up in minutes

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Step 1. Log into your POP dashboard

Sign in to your POP account, and go to ‘My Campaigns’ to get started. This is where you create new flows and start all of your chat marketing campaigns.

We added a simple ‘Product Drop Notification’ template Flow in ‘Templates’. This is a framework for you to edit to your liking. Select it and save it to ‘My Campaigns’ to start building your own.

Step 2. Choose your campaign type

There are several ways you can share a flow online and drive traffic to your Messenger channel. Since we’re building a list of people to notify when your new product drops, getting people into the flow is essential.

You can share a direct link, set up a Comment-to-Messenger campaign, or run ads that drive traffic to Messenger.

Choose a campaign type that best works for your brand or business. Do you have a ton of followers on Instagram? Post about your product drop and link to the flow in your bio. Better yet, drop the link to your flow behind a swipe-up in an Instagram story.

We’ll run with the example of a Click-to-Messenger ad, for now, since not all Instagram accounts are allowed to use swipe-ups, but everyone can buy an ad to grow their business. These ads are perfect for small businesses trying to sell online by promoting their goods and services to a larger audience.

Step 3. Write your Messenger flow accordingly

Click-to-Messenger ads start with a greeting message you set up in Facebook Ads Manager, we’ll have to slightly tweak the copy of the Messenger flow in POP.

The first thing you’ll need to do is go to Facebook Ads Manager and:

  1. Create an Instagram or Facebook post/story
  2. Write the initial response message
  3. Add a button and link it to your campaign flow

Here are some essential components to add to your Messenger flow to ensure you’ve got all bases covered:

  • A description of the product to build hype
  • Gallery carousel showing off the product
  • One-time notification opt-in with a clear CTA

To these, we can add more options, of course. In our case, we’ve included the a menu card after people opted in to receive a DM by clicking ‘Notify Me’:

  • Newsletter subscription button with email capture component
  • Get support button which raises the conversation to Inbox
  • Menu card itself linking to your ecommerce website when tapped

Here’s what that looks like in Messenger:

Product-drop-notification-campaign-one-time-notification-opt-in-and-support
Notification opt-in, email list building and support in Messenger

To automate the process of adding people that leave their email addresses to your email list, you can use Zapier to sync data to your CRM.

Simply add an action component after the email capture in the flow, and set it up to add people that reach this point to a segment called ‘newsletter subscribers’.

Next, create a ‘Filter preset’ based on the people in this segment, and share the data in this segment to Zapier. You’ll be growing your email list on autopilot, so you can promote your online store, products and services and keep people up to date on all your new product releases across several channels!

Step 4. Launch your product drop notification campaign

Now that your campaign is all set up, it’s time to start promoting. If you’re running a Click-to-Messenger ad, simply publish the ad and check the incoming conversations in your POP Inbox.

The best thing about running the Click-to-Messenger campaign type is that you’ll be reaching a new audience and growing your online shopping business in the process.

If you’re running an established ecommerce business with a large social media following, you could also consider launching your campaign in different ways:

  • Activate your newsfeed with a Comment-to-Messenger post on Facebook
  • Create an Instagram swipe-up story that links to your flow
  • Add the flow to your Instagram bio
  • Link to it in your Facebook story
  • Tweet a link to the flow

It all depends on where you interact with your existing audience. The entry point doesn’t matter much, as long as you get people opting in to receive a notification when your product drops!

Step 5. Schedule a notification for when your product drops

Once you’ve got your flow set up and it’s being promoted, you will automatically grow your list of people who want to receive a notification when your product drops. The final step in your campaign is to schedule this notification.

Go to the ‘Notifications’ tab in the ‘Automations’ section of your POP dashboard to draft and schedule your DM notification. The best part: the open rates for these notifications often average at 90% and up, way higher than that of regular emails.

If your Messenger flow is engaging, this will drive a lot of traffic to your ecommerce store on release day, which means a massive boost for your online business. Basically, you product drop campaign will live up to its hype!

One-time-notification-ending-the-product-drop-notification-campaign
Boost sales with a DM when your product drops

An example of the product drop notification on a lock screen.

Pro-tip: add another ‘one-time notification’ opt-in component at the end of this flow and build a new list for your next product drop campaign. You’ll create a rolling messaging workflow reaching your most interested clients.

How you'll benefit from this campaign

Using exclusive product drops as a business model is perfect for luxury or streetwear brands that offer limited edition products and want to ship and move them fast.

Creating a lot of buzz on social media surrounding an upcoming drop is one thing. But making sure that interested customers get to make a purchase as soon as the product drops is key to a successful launch.

You will have to promote your product well in advance to build that anticipation! But all of that effort will be a waste if you don’t reach your target audience with the right message at the right time.

Setting up a product drop notification campaign on Messenger will:

  • Promote your product by way of conversational commerce
  • Opt in clients for a DM notification and boost early sales
  • Build your Messenger audience and email list on autopilot
  • Open up a direct channel for support
  • Create a seed audience for retargeting your next ad campaigns

Best of all, you can set this up on POP in minutes and grow your business using the power of chat marketing!

If you need any help with setting up your product drop notification campaign, don't hesitate to get in touch. Our customer success team is more than happy to help you out!


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You can download this product drop notification campaign tutorial here.

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