What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of different social media marketing channels to connect and engage with your ideal customers?
May be Facebook which has more than 2 billion active users. And you market there.
Or Instagram has more than 1 billion active users. And you showcase your photography and artistic skills there.
What about Twitter that has more than 65 million active users? You probably market there too.
But are you on WhatsApp, the SMS-based platform which has more users than all the social media combined?
With more than 1.5 billion users across the globe, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world.
Do you want to grow your business with WhatsApp? How to use WhatsApp effectively for marketing?
In this article, we will discuss WhatsApp, its features, and why you need to leverage WhatsApp for your marketing needs.
What’s WhatsApp and how to use it?
WhatsApp is a free mobile application that uses your mobile’s internet connection to allow you to chat with other WhatsApp users.
WhatsApp was founded by two ex-yahoo employees in the year of 2009. As a marketer, WhatsApp provides you many ways to communicate with your customers like
– Images
– Your location
– Videos
– Documents
– GIF’s
– Voice messages
You can even do voice and video calls with WhatsApp.
Since Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014, it’s been operating as a separate entity. It was the largest acquisition in the history of Silicon Valley.
There’s also a WhatsApp web app and desktop versions for Windows PCs and Mac. But first, you need to install it on your phone, because each WhatsApp account is directly linked to a single mobile number.
After you have downloaded and installed the app, you need to select your country and enter your mobile number.
Why use WhatsApp for Marketing?
If you need to communicate effectively to your audience and leads using WhatsApp, they should have your phone number saved.
Let’s take an example. When it comes to email marketing, you would procure some external database and send a cold email to them.
But people will consider it as spam and just hit the “UNSUBSCRIBE” button. That’s not the best way to start a relationship.
But WhatsApp is more personal, so what might happen when you start sending unsolicited messages using WhatsApp?
The next immediate step would most likely be “BLOCKED”.
This is not something you want to risk as a person but also as a marketer. WhatsApp takes the consent from Email Marketing to the next level-your audience and potential leads need to save your contact number to their list.
This level of intimacy with your customers is something not to take for granted. If you don’t respect their privacy, then your business will be gone for a toss.
Want to stay ahead of the curve or need to serve an international audience, then WhatsApp is your go-to platform for your marketing needs.
The need for the WhatsApp Business app
WhatsApp business app can do wonders for your business. It is available for both Android and iOS.
WhatsApp released the WhatsApp business application at the beginning of 2018.
People around the globe use WhatsApp to connect with businesses. WhatsApp Business was created keeping in mind small and medium business owners.
Since most of your customers are already using WhatsApp, it will be the perfect reason to use WhatsApp for business.
Customers and prospects who are young are most likely to use WhatsApp for their day-to-day communications.
You can interact with your customers effectively by using tools to automate sort, automate, and promptly respond to messages.
Advantages of using WhatsApp Business
– You can create a business profile mentioning your address, business description, website, and email address.
– You can make use of quick replies to save and re-use the message that needs to be sent frequently.
– You can configure automated messages just like a chatbot. If your business has a global presence, it will be impossible to stay online in WhatsApp all the time to address your customer queries. Automated messages help solve this problem.
– WhatsApp web – You can send and receive messages through WhatsApp business on your desktop.
– You can see insights into required metrics such as how many of your messages were successfully sent, delivered, and read.
– Labels-allows you to organize your contacts or chats with labels so that you can find them again easily.
Tips and Strategies for WhatsApp Marketing
WhatsApp neither sell ad space nor have any business-specific features. So you need to be creative in your marketing approach.
It is necessary to come up with your WhatsApp strategy even though it is different in its reach and features than other messenger apps.
There are certain limitations you need to address when developing your WhatsApp marketing strategy. First of all, there is no such thing as a business account, so if your brand is creating an account it faces the same limitations as any other user.
Since each WhatsApp account is linked to a single mobile number and you can send messages only up to 256 WhatsApp users at once – it’s not a good choice for large-scale, one to many marketing. So your success rate is higher when you take advantage of its limitations.
But you have to keep in mind that WhatsApp marketing is more personal and your marketing activities must reflect and respect your customers’ privacy and trust.
Reaching your target audience on WhatsApp
Once you have set up your business account on WhatsApp, now it’s time to think about reaching your potential customers.
As you know WhatsApp is widely being used for connecting with each other and to discuss general things.
You have to come up with an idea about how your business can fit into this personalized platform.
Perhaps, you want to adapt and customize your brand persona to an extent or create a virtual avatar that will act on behalf of your business.
But at the end of the day, you have to make an appealing brand for your customers to engage with as you are trying to connect in a space used exclusively for informal chats.
Let’s assume that you use WhatsApp for handling customer support. You can create a separate number to address only this function.
Then you can allocate a resource to manage it. Let’s say” Jack from customer support”.
By doing this, you make the communication more personal and it still gives a feeling of a real person that your customers are talking to.
Speaking to “Jack from customer support”, lowers the barrier for conversations and gives a sense of comfort to people who think there is a real person and not a bot on the other side of the chat, exchanging pictures of products they are interested in, seeking clarifications, etc.
I can sense your feeling of an urge to download and use WhatsApp Business immediately to boost your business.
So what you are waiting for? Install Whatsapp Business and take your business to the next level.
Credits: https://blog.hootsuite.com/whatsapp-marketing/
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