How to Develop a WhatsApp Marketing Strategy

WhatsApp is amongst the most popular SMS-based messaging apps in the world, enabling over 2 billion users to message one another across 180 countries. Like Facebook Messenger and We Chat, it uses users’ internet connection to let them communicate with other platform users. As such, most users enjoy WhatsApp as a cheaper alternative to international calls or texts.

Given WhatsApp’s number of users and engagement, WhatsApp marketing for businesses is becoming a popular practice. 

How WhatsApp Can Benefit Your Business

WhatsApp can be used for purposes beyond messaging friends, coworkers, and family –– it can be used to contact customers as well. WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business API were created with businesses in mind. These apps and integrations allow you to connect and support customers with personalized marketing messages.

WhatsApp’s Business tools offer you many benefits.

These include the fact that they:

 ●     Enable a two-way communication street. As WhatsApp’s users access the application daily, you can conveniently direct various marketing communications and campaigns to customers.

●     Offer secure and private communication. WhatsApp Business has built-in security features such a send-to-end encryption and two-factor authentication. These ensure that both consumers and businesses are safe during communication.

●     Allow for automatic messages and quality conversations. Through WhatsApp Business’s policies, your messaging quality is set to a certain standard. While WhatsApp Business allows for templated messages, they impose rigid policies regarding content quality and response times. For example, you’re required to respond to customer messages within 24hours using non-templated messages.  

●     Can help you reach your customers globally. As WhatsApp comprises users in more than 180 countries, it’s the perfect channel for you to reach an engaged, global audience.

To ascertain that your business capitalizes on these benefits, you need a clear WhatsApp marketing strategy. To help you construct this, we offer you 10 tips to improve your WhatsApp marketing strategy.

1. Establish an Engaging Brand Persona on WhatsApp

People prefer to communicate with people, not impersonal businesses. As such, a successful WhatsApp marketing strategy requires you to create a brand persona. This involves establishing a set of traits, attitudes, and values your company embodies. These help you establish consistent and congruent brand communication.

2. Group WhatsApp Audience

When sending messages to your users, you have to know your target audience and buyer personas. WhatsApp Business allows you to distinguish between customer contacts with various labels. As such, you can clearly differentiate between your users, ensuring they receive messages that resonate with them.

 To help you segment your customers, consider how different consumers use your product, what value they derive from it, and what outcomes they hope to achieve from these. Additionally, note where they are on their customer journey. Doing so helps you create distinct customer groups.

3. Share Relevant Content

With WhatsApp's monthly engagement rate being 70%, you can use WhatsApp to offer users relevant content. Through this, you can maintain an ongoing relationship that provides value both ways. To help you deliver the right content, you should adjust your content based on different user behaviors and customer segments. This ensures that content is personalized and relevant to target users.

4. Frequency of Messages

While WhatsApp is one of the most immediate channels available, implying an open rate of 98% within 15 minutes of sending a message, you have to be careful with the frequency of your messages. When it comes to sending personal WhatsApp messages, less is more. Focus on sending max 4-6 messages a month. This stops users from viewing your messages as spam while capturing their attention when you do send a message.

5. Automated Messages

Automated replies play avital role in building trust with customers. Using WhatsApp’s Chatbot function, your users can communicate to a chatbot as though they are talking to a real person. Chatbots deliver a set of automated replies to stimulate human conversations no WhatsApp. Consequently, you can easily automate your sales and customer support.

6. Leverage Your WhatsApp status

You can use WhatsApp’s stories function as a different medium when engaging with customers on the platform. Using WhatsApp stories, you can share images and videos with your contacts. These last for 24 hours and can be a great way of connecting with users. Examples of WhatsApp stories you can create include motivational quotes, infographics, ‘behind the scenes’ content, and promotional visuals.

7. Keep An Eye Out For Third-party Analytics

To effectively deliver marketing messages on WhatsApp, you have to account for what does (and doesn’t)work. You can figure this out using traffic analytics on WhatsApp. WhatsApp gives you access to analytics data, the number of messages read. To gain additional insights into how many people accessed the links in your messages, you can also attach UTM codes to your links.

8. Use Customer Support

WhatsApp Business is a great channel to communicate with customers who have issues. You can use WhatsApp as a customer support channel by setting up a call with customers or by sending them valuable post-purchase information.

Calling up customers provides a personal touch when communicating with customers and is often a more efficient way of resolving customer complaints. Moreover, giving customers post-purchase advice (e.g. product care tips) strengthens your relationship with customers. You can also segway post-purchase messages into a sales opportunity for complementary products or services.

9. Ask For Feedback

If you’re wondering whether there is room for improvement in certain business areas –– or whether consumers are happy –– WhatsApp is a great way to collect customer feedback. It also shows consumers that you value their opinion, boosting your brand image.

To obtain customer feedback, you can share a templated message requesting reviews on WhatsApp.Given the ease with which consumers can leave a reply on WhatsApp, they’ll be more likely to do so.

10. Share Promotional Codes

Lastly, you can use WhatsApp to share promotional codes on your stories. Using captivating visuals,your Whatsapp status can let your customers know about your ongoing promotions.

As such, using WhatsApp marketing for businesses can improve your communication capabilities, helping you reach customers in a more personable and direct way. If you want to enhance your WhatsApp-based communication by leveraging chatbots and enhanced personalization, contact us at Conversely to see how we can help!