WhatsApp is probably the most popular messaging app, with monthly active users of 2 billion. And there is no other app as widely used as WhatsApp in 2022. Taken from teenagers to older people now for everyone, WhatsApp is an integral part of everyone’s daily life. And for such a vast number of monthly users, WhatsApp is also converting into a lucrative marketing channel for businesses of all sizes and industry verticals.
Since every business wants to connect with as many people at once as possible, WhatsApp marketing is gradually becoming popular. And considering the popularity of WhatsApp for different businesses, WhatsApp also has been adding a new feature named WhatsApp business, which is explicitly made for professional use. WhatsApp businesses account type is meant for small businesses that want to keep their personal and professional messaging separate. It is free to use app that can be leveraged for engaging with customers.
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You can set up a business profile, add details about your business, set up quick replies and away messages, label conversations, and do many things apart from just texting on WhatsApp. You can also set your catalog and promote your products to your audience through WhatsApp Business.
Businesses that have already started using WhatsApp Business claimed it is way easier to stay in touch with their potential and existing customers since more than half of WhatsApp users check their WhatsApp accounts daily. You can ensure that your audience will read your offers and text messages as WhatsApp has a 98% open rate.
The last reason why WhatsApp is gaining so much popularity amongst brands is that customers love this communication channel. Alongside 53% of people said they would prefer buying from a company they can reach by chat and trust brands with chat apps more.
However, if you have not implemented WhatsApp Business in your marketing strategy yet, you need to know how to leverage this excellent marketing channel.
How To Start A WhatsApp Business Account?
But before you start using WhatsApp Business for marketing purposes, the first step is to create a business account. And here is how you can go about it:
- Download the WhatsApp Business app on your mobile. WhatsApp Business is available on both iOS and Android.
- Use your dedicated professional phone number to use on your business profile and verify the phone number.
- Add your business logo, name, and category, and set up your business profile.
- You can also tap on the menu button to fill in all the details about your business you want your customers to see.
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WhatsApp Business platform also allows intelligent automation for sales marketing and customer support. You can also connect your Facebook business page with your WhatsApp Business account. Once you are done creating your WhatsApp Business account, we recommend getting a Facebook business verification done too. That way, you can use your WhatsApp Business account best and leverage uninterrupted services while promoting your business.
Why Should You Use WhatsApp For Your Business?
It Helps You Build A Profound Relationship With Your Customers
As mentioned earlier, more than 50% of people feel more connected to a brand that is available on messaging apps. And this one thing makes WhatsApp a bulletproof marketing strategy for any brand that wants to build long-lasting and profound relationships with its customers. If you maintain a strong relationship with your customers, you can cut other expenditures such as customer retention. And successful customer retention is always a better strategy than new customer acquisition.
Additionally, WhatsApp Business gives you a set of opportunities to personalize your account and demonstrate your business the way you want. For instance, you can create personalized welcome messages for people who text you, send special offers, birthday congratulations, and so on. And such humanized approach helps you in keeping your customers more engaged with your brand, and more than 70% of consumers said that they engage with a brand that sends personalized messages.
WhatsApp Has A High Conversion Rate
When you are at the initial stage of your business, you must look for a channel with a higher conversion rate to achieve a good ROI. WhatsApp Business is a free-to-use tool, and the most vital plus point of WhatsApp is that you can access all your target audience on a personal front, even those who might get disgruntled with emails and phone calls.
WhatsApp comes in handy to nurture prospective clients toward the purchase. Businesses that use WhatsApp Business to reach their customers said that 40% of their target audience answered their WhatsApp messages.
Better yet, personalized messaging drives conversions. Namely, when you message a contact after the initial round of conversation over any other channel, it increases the conversion rate by 112%. However, you need to know the right strategies and some more tricks to boost your conversion through WhatsApp marketing. And in this article, we will talk about that too.
WhatsApp Betters The Sales
Businesses using WhatsApp Business said it worked like a magic wand for their sales. Simply just by adding your WhatsApp phone number to your website may boost your sales leads by 27%. And if it does not seem like an opportunity to reach more potential customers, we don’t know what will. Additionally, when you add your WhatsApp number to your website, you instill confidence in your customers. According to studies, more than 60% of buyers say that they feel more optimistic about purchasing from a company that is active on WhatsApp.
Better yet, many companies that consider WhatsApp a stand-alone sales channel for their businesses have succeeded. It is because the tendency of people to buy through messaging apps is growing gradually. And 60% of consumers said they think they will make more purchases through such messaging apps in the future.
WhatsApp Lowers The Cost Of Your Marketing
WhatsApp is probably the most affordable marketing channel that exists. And therefore, if you are a new entrepreneur or have a small business using WhatsApp Business for your marketing is appropriate. All you need to get the ball rolling is to install WhatsApp Business on your phone, set up your profile, and you are good to go.
Meanwhile, the chances of reaching a vast audience in a short time are sky high with WhatsApp. On average, a user checks their WhatsApp account over 23 times daily.
Studies say WhatsApp marketing drives more conversion and improves sales, allowing a brand to build quality relationships with its consumers. And do you want to guess how much it costs? It’s almost nothing in terms of marketing expenditures.
How To Create A Successful WhatsApp Marketing Strategy?
We had already talked about this a few moments before. Having a WhatsApp Business profile is not enough, and you need to know the best use of it. Therefore a well-made WhatsApp marketing strategy is all you need. With the right strategy, you can plan your steps and alter your paths if necessary to bring the best outcome out of this channel.
Here are a few tips to remember while crafting your WhatsApp marketing strategy to get the best results possible.
Define Your Marketing Goals
To start your WhatsApp marketing strategy, you first need to determine your WhatsApp marketing objectives. Remember, the more time you allocate to determining your objectives, the more focused your attention will be on meaningful activities. You will also be able to draw a line on unnecessary things.
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If you have an existing marketing funnel, start with finding the weak points and revising your existing marketing funnel. If you want to combine WhatsApp marketing with other marketing strategies, think of the business goals you can pursue with WhatsApp marketing. You also need to pinpoint the KPIs that will help you measure whether or not you are meeting your business goals.
For example, suppose your existing marketing strategy has issues retaining customers, and you want to tackle that problem by sending promotional messages through WhatsApp. In that case, your KPIs must be engagement, customer retention rates, and clicks.
Identify Your Target Audience
There are more than 2 billion monthly active users on WhatsApp. And indeed, all of 2 billion audiences are not your target audience. Therefore, it is necessary to define and identify your correct target audience. Knowing your target audience right will help you define success by putting necessary marketing efforts. You can also determine different target audiences for different products and try several approaches to reach different audiences.
But whatever approach you choose, always avoid guess works and speculation; explore your audience instead. If you are at the initial stage of defining your target audience, ask yourself these questions:
- Why would people buy your product?
- What value does your audience expect from your product?
- What outcomes does your audience want to achieve using your product?
You can also interview 10 to 15 people who were previously interested in buying your Products or have made a purchase lately and ask those questions. You can also conduct surveys on social media platforms and add data from CRM and Google Analytics. Facebook and Google Ads are some tools that help you spot the demographic and geographic characteristics of your typical audience.
Build A Contact List
You did not download the WhatsApp Business app to use it as a customer support channel. And if you want to boost your sales and support your marketing, you need to have your own contact list. The best way to get a new contact list is through subscription forms. Be it your website or the social media platforms; you can convert anything into a lead magnet by placing offers such as a free eBook or discounts.
You can also offer your target audience multi-channel forms to let them choose where they want to receive your updates-via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, email, and so on. This move will let you know which customers want to contact them through WhatsApp, and that way, you can achieve higher engagement and boost conversion.
When you segment your audience based on their preferred communication channel, you can send them relevant campaigns and deliver personalized experiences.
Design Your Communication Mindfully
WhatsApp messages have higher open rates in comparison with other channels. However, your WhatsApp marketing will be dead in the water if your communication copy is poorly produced or includes irrelevant content.
To design an attractive communication, you must stay focused on your main topics and the messages you want to deliver. Never limit yourself to sending promotional messages only. Remember that you also need to educate and entertain your audience. Keep your communication as short and sweet as possible because people check WhatsApp on the go and don’t have much time to read long messages.
Reinforcement is also necessary for WhatsApp marketing. Therefore use multimedia files such as animation, pictures, and videos for reinforcement. Emojis are also appropriate in WhatsApp marketing, and if you want to play around with them, you can choose a few smiley faces rather than business-themed objects.
One more thing you must remember while sending WhatsApp messages is that you must not bombard your readers with so many messages every hour. That way, the chances will be high for you to get blocked since your audience will be annoyed. There it is better to adhere to a practice of sending 5 to 10 messages weekly.
Deliver Great Customer Service
Customers love their preferred brands using a messaging app like WhatsApp because they want to get instant support from their preferred brands. 59% believe that WhatsApp messages get faster replies than any other messaging channel. Moreover, 50% of people said they found better advice and care in WhatsApp communication.
WhatsApp also allows your brand to get direct queries and provide your customers with real-time support. Remember that almost 25% of your customers expect to get immediate help within an hour, and 18% anticipate an immediate response. And if you can keep that pace consistent using WhatsApp and provide customer support round the clock, nothing can stop your business from achieving your desired success.
A good side of using WhatsApp Business is that you can employ a chatbot and feed it with typical questions to answer. Such a feature will reduce customer support costs by 30% and increase customer satisfaction.
Stay A Step Ahead With WhatsApp Business API
We got much information about WhatsApp Business. And deciding to incorporate WhatsApp Business into your marketing strategy is probably the most convenient for engaging with your customers. But if you want to level up your customer engagement game, WhatsApp Business API can be a better choice.
WhatsApp Business API is an application program interface that allows your business to receive an answer to unlimited WhatsApp messages without effort. WhatsApp Business API was first created for medium and large-sized businesses with a tailored solution for scaling their customer engagement using WhatsApp. And ever since the launch, WhatsApp API has become a go-to solution for many business owners leaving all other platforms and, of course, for good reasons.
To get WhatsApp API’s approval, you must abide by specific business terms and conditions. Apart from the terms and conditions, there are two more factors you need to consider, the size of your business and your industry. If you want to incorporate chatbots, small and large businesses are currently being approved by WhatsApp quickly. For small businesses, WhatsApp chatbot creation is improbable to be approved.
Alongside, WhatsApp has a stringent commerce policy regarding industries that can use WhatsApp Business API. Industries that involve real cash, such as gambling or gaming or dealing with substances such as alcohol, tobacco, etc., are prohibited from using the API. All the other industries like travel, hospitality, real estate, education, etc., can benefit from WhatsApp API.
How To Apply For WhatsApp Business API?
To get a WhatsApp Business API, you need to follow three significant steps:
You can reach out to a WhatsApp business provider or sign up directly with WhatsApp. But if you are new to API, direct sign-up can be a little labor-intensive.
Move forward your journey with WhatsApp Business UPI by providing basic information about your business, such as your company name, website URL, industry, country of company headquarters, time to market, etc.
Now you can use your existing phone number and verify your WhatsApp profile by filling in information like the category of your business, business description, catalog of your products, etc.
Conclusion
In this era, everyone has heard of the WhatsApp Business. This channel is being used by businesses of all sizes to stay in touch with their potential customers and existing customers. If you want to connect with your customers one-on-one, WhatsApp Business is an ideal tool for your business. If you are also looking for ways to increase your customer engagement and streamline your business operations, incorporating WhatsApp Business can help. I hope this article helped you get enough information about WhatsApp Business.
