In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses are constantly seeking direct, contextual, and personalised ways to connect with their audience. WhatsApp, with its 2 billion active users worldwide, has emerged as an efficient platform for businesses to engage customers, nurture leads, and drive conversions. It’s no longer just a messaging app—it’s a powerful marketing channel and customer engagement platform that enhances your brand’s visibility and fosters customer relations.
For aiming to build stronger connections with customers, offer instant support, or deliver highly targeted promotions, WhatsApp has an offering for you that other platforms simply don’t match. But as is with everything, harnessing its potency requires a well-thought-out strategy.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through the steps to create a WhatsApp marketing strategy that aligns with your brand’s goals and delivers quantifiable results. Let’s dive right in.
Jump ahead to:
What is WhatsApp Marketing ?
WhatsApp Marketing is a type of messenger marketing through which different businesses can advertise their brands on WhatsApp. This now serves as a communication channel that positively impacts customer relationships since it enables the brand to reach out and directly communicate with so many individuals.
With a variety of rich message types such as media, buttons, carousels, and CTAs, WhatsApp allows for highly personalized communication, ideal for promoting new products or services, sending cart abandonment reminders, offering adapt deals, and more. Through providing timely updates and deals, and customer support, WhatsApp marketing can improve direct and effective interaction between the brand and consumers, as well as foster sales and customer loyalty.
The benefits of using WhatsApp as a Marketing and Engagement Channel
WhatsApp has emerged as a powerful tool for brands looking to connect with their audience in a more personal, direct, and impactful way. Below are some key benefits of using WhatsApp as a marketing channel, explained in detail:
- High Engagement – WhatsApp marketing stands out for its ability to generate high levels of engagement. With an impressive open rate exceeding 98% for both text messages and calls, it significantly outperforms email marketing in terms of audience engagement. This high open rate is a game changer for marketers, as it ensures that message sent via WhatsApp are far more likely to be seen and acted upon compared to to other marketing channels.
- Straight and one-on-many interaction – WhatsApp lets organizations touch base with their customers directly and reliably. Different from most of the marketing channels, WhatsApp messages are delivered directly into the pocket of a customer, hence making it easier to be trusted. Brands can also target and send messages of their choosing than P2P messages to a customer depending on the interest and activity level the customer demonstrates.
- Cost-Effective – WhatsApp marketing is good for brands as they can reach many people at a remarkably low price. All you need for WhatsApp to work is an internet connection and a smartphone. Thus, the brand is able to utilise its first-party data to directly connect with its audience segments without incurring substantially high costs of advertising or marketing. It provides one of the best ROAS amongst all marketing channels.
- Customizable – WhatsApp provides many features of customization ranging from messages, images, to videos. This enables brands to take their marketing messages directly to the target consumer and make their marketing promotions more relevant.
- Viral Potential – Marketing communications can be shared in group chats or even with several friends, thus the coverage of a marketing campaign on WhatsApp can reach many audiences. This can go a long way in helping brand people reach more people hence increasing the number of prospects as well as sales.
- Real-Time Communication – Several benefits of using WhatsApp include communicating with customers directly and in real-time, and the ability to answer various complaints and queries immediately. It also helps the brand build trust and establish a reliable business-customer relationship.
Several benefits of using WhatsApp can include Communication with the customers directly and in real-time, and the ability to answer various complaints and queries immediately. It can also help the brand build trust and establish a reliable business-customer relationship.
Why WhatsApp is a Game-Changer for Marketing
WhatsApp provides a distinct set of advantages that traditional marketing channels often can’t compete with:
- Direct Customer Reach: WhatsApp takes interactions to the customers’ mobile devices, making communication faster and more direct.
- High Engagement Rates: Several studies show WhatsApp keeps 80% of the messages received within minutes, making it among the highest engagement levels among people using messaging platforms.
- Rich Media and Interactive Features: It allows using media files, buttons, images, carousels, and calls to action, allowing brands to develop much more appealing and multipoint, captivating advertising campaigns.
- Enhanced Customer Support: Brands can maintain and develop fast and effective customer service by responding to customers’ questions and complaints immediately thus enhancing customer satisfaction.
- Personalized Marketing: WhatsApp allows brands to shoot messages, offers, and product suggestions, and stand a better chance of making conversions.
- Cost-Effective Communication: Compared to the conventional techniques of mobile marketing such as Short Messaging Service or e-mail advertising, marketing through WhatsApp is much more cost-effective and time-saving as a means of reaching potential customers.
- Improved Customer Retention and Loyalty: With constant, non-impersonal, contact brands would be able to improve relations, resulting in customer satisfaction and patronage.
- Global Reach: WhatsApp makes brands connect with over 2 billion users globally making the app a very effective tool for marketing across the world.
- Secure and Trusted Platform: Because WhatsApp is secure through encryption and its privacy policies meet customer tests, the customers become comfortable and hence willing to engage.
Additional Reading: WhatsApp Marketing: The Basics
How to Increase Your ROAS with the help of WhatsApp Marketing
To increase your ROAS with WhatsApp marketing, you can adopt strategies designed to drive conversions and enhance customer engagement:
- Leverage Click-to-Chat Ads: Change your Facebook and Instagram ads to ‘click-to-WhatsApp’ buttons to engage potential customers. These ads make it easy for prospects to engage in a conversation as soon as the ads are encountered by the audience, enhancing conversion rates.
- Personalized Messaging: It’s about creating sub-lists and using already approved messages that you can send to your customers with offers, information or simple reminders. These engagements make the brand relatable, hence being relevant and thus making the consumer patronize the brand again.
- Abandoned Cart Recovery: Use WhatsApp reminders for those customers who abandoned the cart with items. Such automated and personal follow-ups can help nudge customers towards the final step of a purchasing decision.
- Proactive Customer Support: The placement of WhatsApp chat buttons on your website is another procedure to complete. Real-time communication assists in addressing customer questions hence assisting such customers in the decision to purchase.
- Broadcast Campaigns and Newsletters: Use the broadcast feature to send promotional updates, new products, services or changes of prices, seasonal offers etc. This helps to keep your audience informed and interested at the same time without bore.
Getting Started with WhatsApp Marketing: WhatsApp Business App vs. WhatsApp Business Platform
WhatsApp offers two different products for brands that want to use it for marketing:
WhatsApp Business App: This app is best for small brands and solopreneurial ventures who wish to organize one-on-one communication with each customer. It is text messaging barebone, free, simple, and a good texting interface but hardly more than that, as it lacks the API and no tools for organizing mass communications. However, if you are not involved in sending mass marketing campaigns, dealing with a large number of contacts, or taking advantage of any of the other mentioned features, the app is very useful to start making WhatsApp marketing.
WhatsApp Business Platform (formerly known as the WhatsApp Business API): This is what WhatsApp has for mid-anointed and enterprise brands. It allows you to control interaction with leads or customers, programmatically, using all of WhatsApp advertising and customer support features, as well as connecting your solution to others, like CRM, bots, and others. Compared to the app, this platform is not free because you have to pay for every customer interaction. Further information on the current price can be found in Meta’s documentation available at Meta Connect.
Additional reading: Tips and Tricks: 6 Best Tactics for Ecommerce Marketing
Here’s a detailed comparison of WhatsApp Business App vs. WhatsApp Business Platform:
This side-by-side comparison will help you determine the best fit for your business needs.
| Feature | WhatsApp Business App | WhatsApp Business Platform |
| Audience | Small/medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs | Medium/large-sized businesses or SMBs looking to scale |
| Platform | App or browser | Solution providers App |
| Number of users | Up to 4 agents | Unlimited |
| Features | – Business Profile – Product Catalogue – Limited broadcast messages (1 message) – Limited automated messages – Group chats (create and participate)- Voice/video calls – No green tick verification – No buttons | – Business Profile – Product Catalogue – Unlimited broadcast messages – Automated messages (including chatbots) – Session messages – Group chats (create but not participate) – Official Business Account (green tick) available – Various types of CTA buttons |
| Integrations | Not supported | Supports integrations with CRMs, chatbots, and other business tools |
Exploring Key Features of WhatsApp Business API
1. Crafting a Professional Profile: Ways to Develop an Enticing Business Profile
The development of an appropriate business profile on the WhatsApp Business API is desirable for customers to trust the company. Here’s how you can set it up:
- Download and Install WhatsApp Business: There is a version of the app for Android and iOS platforms, and customers can be reached easily by the business.
- Profile Information: The basic information that usually has to be filled in includes business name, logo, business address, business description, business contact information and website address. This assists customers in locating and developing confidence with your business venture easily.
- Business Hours: This location is particularly important to set up your response time as a way of letting customers know when it will be possible to respond to them. This feature covers and enhances the aspect of customers must meet expectations.
2. Automating Communication: A must-try in streamlining operations is the use of texts or Automated Messages. Automation in WhatsApp Business API can significantly enhance efficiency and customer experience:
- Greeting Messages: Welcome new customers to your brand and services through a welcome message that you can schedule to be sent automatically.
- Away Messages: Let customers know when the conversational agent is offline, and when, or if, they should expect a response back.
- Quick Replies: Save time and standardize answers to frequently asked questions by approaching them as a template for a response.
- Chatbots: Integrate the chatbots to manage normal orders and inquiries, recommend products lead the consumers through buying processes, and maintain customer service to 24 hours 7 days.
3. Showcasing Products: Catalog Management and Production
WhatsApp Business API allows you to create a product catalogue to showcase your offerings directly within the app:
- Setting Up Catalogs: Enter product or service items in your catalog along with their descriptions, price and pictures. This, no doubt, could help customers easily surf through and select products without having to leave the app.
- Sharing Catalogs: Suggest individual items or the entire collection during chat sessions, to facilitate purchasing procedure.
- Updates and Management: It’s necessary to update your catalogue frequently, or when there are new products or special offers, or when the availability changes, so the customers will always have the
Use Cases of WhatsApp Marketing
Retail and E-Commerce
- Send promotional messages for new products: The most important is that you can promote the new product to customers whom they are interested in, and you can provide complete information about a product for customers to read in the chat.
- Back-in-stock messages: You can even instantly deliver back-in-stock notifications for customers’ preferred products together with ‘call to action’ buttons for reserving or buying the products within WhatsApp.
- Abandoned cart messages: urge customers to finalize their purchases so they don’t let go of the items they have placed in the cart.
Banking and Finance
- Lead generation chatbot: provide also a self-serve chatbot to aid customers in the discovery process which they are already undertaking. The WhatsApp chatbot is programmed to be capable of answering questions concerning the accounts and the plans as well as providing videos and other learning materials that would assist in the actual conversion of the lead.
- Account registration: Engage customers in cross-selling opportunities to create an account which can be activated through a WhatsApp number.
- Time-sensitive promotions: Send customers campaigns with brief promotional messages about better interest rates or to collect loyalty points. On WhatsApp, the campaign you run has the highest visibility hence it will be noticed and physical action taken every time it is shared with the relevant group.
Start Your WhatsApp Marketing Today
From here, start WhatsApp’s marketing strategy begins with learning how it can be an effective tool for communication. WhatsApp Business Platform therefore opens up an exciting possibility of real engagement with your customers based on timely and personalized messages.
My advice? Begin by integrating your WhatsApp into your customer experience objectives whether communicative as in a response to queries, an update or even promotional offers. Increase the value creation at the chosen contact points in your customer journey and not only do you increase your audience’s interactivity but their trust in your brand as well.
Conclusion
Message-based marketing is an exceptional strategy for reaching your target audience, whether you use it to convert potential customers or to nurture existing relationships. The great thing about WhatsApp Marketing, in particular, is that it goes a step beyond just conversation, it gives you tools to track how your marketing efforts are performing and allows you to customize your marketing strategy based on real data.
Tracking marketing performance generates a large volume of data. To manipulate, analyze and make sense of this data, you need to be able to transfer this data to and from WhatsApp to other platforms that offer effective analytics tools. This is where EasyInsights comes in. EasyInsights is a no-code data marketing platform with a user-friendly interface that allows you to effortlessly collect, analyze, and activate data.
Use EasyInsights to make the most of your WhatsApp Marketing. Book a demo and enhance your ROAS today!
