WhatsApp has truly become an undeniable force of communication, with billions of users from all over the world.
For normal users, WhatsApp is just a communication app, but for businesses, this platform is an opportunity to connect with more potential customers on a personal level. However, simply having a WhatsApp account isn’t enough; you need a strategic move to stand out ahead of every competitor.
This guide will equip you with the knowledge and best practices to build a powerful brand presence on WhatsApp, transforming it from a simple messaging platform into a dynamic marketing tool.
Understand the Power of WhatsApp for Businesses
When you comprehend the power of WhatsApp, you can unlock the maximum capabilities of this platform. You can simply connect with billions of potential customers in just seconds, fostering loyalty and driving sales.
Here are some of the benefits that businesses can gain from WhatsApp:
1. Unparalleled Reach and Engagement
WhatsApp has an unrivalled user base from all over the world. It is undoubtedly a great platform for reaching out to more potential customers, and businesses can easily advertise their brand cost-effectively.
This vast reach eventually connects businesses with diverse audiences, unlocking new markets and growth opportunities. With a staggering 98% open rate, there's a pretty good chance of customers opening your message.
In addition, users are highly engaged with the platform. For example, 2.8 billion users are active every month, providing businesses with an opportunity to gain the attention of their potential customers and increase meaningful interaction
2. Personalized and Conversational Approach
Most individuals prefer one-to-one communication with businesses rather than a one-way broadcast of promotional emails. Leads might ignore the broadcast emails as they can’t express their feelings.
However, the one-to-one conversation preference perfectly aligns with WhatsApp, as businesses can easily communicate with leads in private, intimate communication. Then, you can create a more personalized and conversational approach to customer engagement.
With this conversational marketing strategy on WhatsApp, businesses can build rapport with customers, and address their concerns and pain points more deeply, which leads to increased brand loyalty and sales.
3. Seamless Integration with CRM & Other Channels
It’s hard for businesses to manage customer databases only with WhatsApp. However, with WhatsApp's integration capabilities, you can connect with various CRM tools and handle data effectively.
In addition, businesses can connect their marketing efforts across various channels. By integrating your WhatsApp marketing with your overall digital strategy, you can foster a unified and seamless brand experience for your customers. This alignment not only extends your brand's visibility but also boosts customer interaction and increases conversion rates.
Integrating WhatsApp enables users to handle numerous messages within a unified workspace, empowering them to offer customers timely self-service options and information. Even more, you can also get one virtual phone number for Whatsapp business and use it on multiple devices to solve multiple customer issues.
Crafting a Personalized WhatsApp Marketing Strategy
Just having a broadcast channel in WhatsApp is not sufficient, as businesses need to craft a personalized marketing strategy to reach out to more customers.
Here are some of the key strategies that you need to consider:
1. Understand Your Target Audience
If you are willing to make your WhatsApp marketing work, you need to get to know your audience well. Therefore, you have to gather information like who they are, what they like, what they struggle with, and how they like to talk.
Consider stuff like:
- How old they are, where they live, and other basic info
- What they're into, what they do in their free time
- What problems do they deal with
- How do they like to chat, and what tone do they prefer
Once you understand your audience, you can create messages and content that really speak to them. It's all about making that personal connection.
2. Leverage WhatsApp Business API
If you're looking to engage customers at scale on WhatsApp, then WhatsApp Business API is a must have!!
WhatsApp Business API, launched by WhatsApp in 2018, allows businesses like yours to connect with customers at scale across the globe! Using a WhatsApp API based Engagement Platform like AiSensy can help you send broadcast messages to unlimited users in one go, automate notifications, run Click-to-WhatsApp ads, showcase product catalogues and even collect payments within WhatsApp.
Businesses like PhysicsWallah, Vivo, The Indian Express, Skullcandy and many more are already using WhatsApp API to engage with their customers on WhatsApp. It's time you did too!
Book a demo now to understand how this works.
3. Adopt a Conversational Marketing Approach
In the above image, the business is showcasing it's multiple products to the user and is trying to engage them with the Clickable Quick Reply button 'Show more'.
An effective WhatsApp marketing campaign requires organizations to adopt a conversational tone instead of just sending out promotions without any exchange from the audiences. The marketing strategy should try to grab and keep the recipients in the conversation.
Companies should also build relationships with their audience by providing something of value. When you adopt a conversational marketing approach, you can transform your WhatsApp marketing strategy from a one-way broadcast channel into a dynamic platform for building relationships and fostering brand loyalty.
5. Focus on Providing Value
Don’t settle for just getting more sales and offering discounts. Rather, create real value for your customers through WhatsApp chats. It could range from the restriction of news according to their likes, sharing with them financial knowledge, or personalized tips based on their interest.
This helps assist the clients to realize that you are a brand that can be trusted any time to solve their problems, you develop a great relationship, which will make them committed to your product/service. And people are more likely to recommend your product to other people.
6. Encourage Two-Way Dialogue
Get more customers interested in your brand by asking them for feedback, questions, and concerns. Then, reply quickly, showing that you understand what they want and need.
This back-and-forth communication builds stronger ties with clients and can give insights for making decisions on products, new marketing ideas, or other general business issues. Moreover, this two-way dialogue increases trust and loyalty and drives sales success for your brand.
An awesome example is the Click-to-WhatsApp ad campaign done by Maggi where they run a contest to engage with customers on WhatsApp! The customer feels hooked & participates, helping the brand achieve it's engagement go
7. Personalize Your Interactions
Use WhatsApp’s personal touch to give your clients’ communication a customized, less formal feel. Treating your clients as though they are special can show them that they are appreciated—simply by changing your mode of interaction on WhatsApp.
You can also segment your customers based on interest or past behavior. This eventually allows you to tailor messages that truly resonate with specific customer groups and avoid irrelevant content. Besides that, send messages wishing them on their birthday, anniversaries, personalized video sales letters or loyalty program milestones.
8. Automate and Optimize Your Efforts
It is essential to approach personalized and conversational WhatsApp marketing with automation and optimization techniques to ensure scalability and efficiency. You can automate greeting messages, schedule recurring updates, and leverage WhatsApp chatbots for basic interactions.
By automating and optimizing your WhatsApp marketing efforts, you can save valuable time, and tailor communication at scale. Remember, automation is a tool to empower you, not replace human interaction. Use it strategically to create a seamless and engaging WhatsApp marketing experience for your customers.
Always monitor how well WhatsApp marketing is working for you by tracking message open rate, customer feedback on response time (response time), and message read time (message open rate), among other things.
Integrate WhatsApp with Other Channels
For you to achieve the best results from your WhatsApp marketing, you need to gel it well with your overall digital marketing strategy. This may include:
1. Cross-Promotion and Content Sharing
Leverage other marketing communication tools, such as your website, social media accounts, to raise awareness of your brand presence on WhatsApp. Then, promote relevant content on the platform, which will likely attract more traffic and increase your engagement and retention rate.
Check out how to add WhatsApp widget to your website
2. Automated Customer Support
Integrating your customer support systems with WhatsApp will allow for a uniform and polished experience between the channel and all your customers. These functions, for example, include the creation of tickets, the relaying of management reports, and real-time updates on the status of the matter at hand.
Psst...here's some useful info: You can have as many Live chat agents active on WhatsApp with AiSensy. This means you can bring your entire customer support team on WhatsApp. Check out how
3. Conversational Commerce
It would not be a bad idea to have an in-app purchases option or even let your customers shop directly from WhatsApp and thus deliver what they enjoy at every step of shopping: the smooth experience. This might be very beneficial for a company whose e-commerce makes a big percentage of the total sales.
We've covered everything about collecting payments on WhatsApp in a separate blog. Read the WhatsApp Payments blog
Successful WhatsApp Marketing Case Studies
Let’s examine some practical examples of businesses that have used the platform to build their brand presence and improve their results to better understand how WhatsApp marketing is strong.
Case Study 1: Netflix - Stay In Touch Campaign
Goals: This campaign aimed to keep current Netflix users who canceled their subscriptions in touch and serve to incentivize customers to re-subscribe to their streaming platform.
Campaign: The campaign was created to allow users to stay in touch via Whatsapp, where the company sends reminders and updates.
How they do it: The WhatsApp users who became campaign members received timely movie/ series recommendations or what to watch next.
In this case, the users who clicked "I'm In" would get new suggestions, announcements, and notifications on what to watch.
Results: Netflix was able to retain its existing customers and pulled its dormant customers to re-subscribe to their platform.
Case Study II: Lenskart - Valentine's Day Sale, Buy 1 One Get 1 Free
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Goal: The aim was to increase awareness and sales.
Campaign: Lenskart, an eye-wear brand, used Whatsapp to promote its products and services. This company particularly ran this offer for its valentines day sale in February.
How they did it: Lenskart promoted their offer of "Buy 1 Get 1 Free”, which was offered to be valid from 6th to 16th February.
Results: The brand saw the open rate of text messages on WhatsApp was comparatively high compared to conventional ads, and the overall cost was low.
Case Study 3: Skullcandy
Skullcandy is one of the most popular Global Headphone & audio products brands. It has been recognized as one of the coolest headphone brands since 2008!
Challenge faced: Customers adding products to the cart did not complete the purchase.
Campaign: Send Abandoned Cart Recovery Notifications.
What they did: They used AiSensy to automate reminders to those users who added products to their cart but did not complete the payment. The reminders were sent 15 minutes after the user added the product to their cart.
Results: Skullcandy was able to recover 25% Abandoned Carts, 10x more than they were able to recover via email reminders.
Conclusion: Unlocking the Power of WhatsApp for Your Brand
WhatsApp has become really popular for businesses to connect with their customers. Billions of people use WhatsApp, allowing companies to talk directly with people to build strong relationships. But just having a broadcast channel or sending messages to customers isn’t sufficient.
Businesses need to follow certain strategies to truly increase customer brand value. First and foremost, they must understand their potential customers and adopt a conversational marketing approach.
You can also connect your current tools to share information and manage customer data smoothly and easily.
