Newer Ways to Reach Business: WhatsApp Has Leveled Up

You know WhatsApp, right? The playboy, philanthropist, match-maker, news-manufacturing app that also lets you send text, audio and video messages to your friends? The app that snuck into the private space of more than 3 billion people worldwide? Yes, yes that WhatsApp.

Now WhatsApp has a semi-formal younger brother called WhatsApp for Business (WAB). You must have seen him lurking in your suggestion feed on google-play-store or Apple app-store. Now, Mr WAB is someone who can help you set up and manage your online shop for free and with minimal hassle. How? Let’s learn together.

Why Use WhatsApp for Business?

While there is a plethora of reasons to use WhatsApp for business, here are the hottest ones we could isolate:

A sheer number of active users

About 3 billion people worldwide use WhatsApp actively. That’s about 38% of the total world population. In India, about 400 million active users boot up WhatsApp every day.  A bigger ocean means more likely to find your favorite beach.

Demographic

From children to young adults. From the children’s parents to their grandpa-s and grandma-s, every ape with the latest evolutionary update is on WhatsApp. In India 62% of the 16 to 64 years old who use the internet, also use WhatsApp.  With this large and diverse demography using WhatsApp business will make it easier to reach your target audience. bulk WhatsApp sender tools that allows you to send bulk messages with attached images, documents, and PDF to potential clients.

Opening Rate

The algal bloom of email marketing has made the marketing pond so choked that these days at most only 30% of the marketing email recipients open the email. Even on Facebook the organic interaction with marketing posts is less than 30%. For a new player in the game, that is even lower.

On WhatsApp, the story is much more fairytale-like. 98% of the sent WhatsApp messages are read and interacted with. So, all the attractive messages you created burning your passion and a whole lot of midnight oil will not be ignored till the end of times.

Exciting Features

WhatsApp for Business comes with a care package to give you an edge in the shark-infested waters of marketing.

• Business Profiles

You can create an attractive business profile to woo in potential customers with important info like the type of products you sell, your website address if currently any sell going on and other methods to contact you

• Quick Replies

WhatsApp Business comes with a quick reply feature.  You can save and quickly send important messages and answers to frequently asked queries.

• Catalogues

You can make a catalogue of your products with pictures and prices. So that your potential customers can easily access them from your profile.

• Automated Messages

Piloting your life can be hard and make you very busy. But your customers are busy too. To never let them feel unattended you can set up automated messages. So that your potential customers receive a warm greeting, your product catalogue and/or your busy status.

• Labels

WAB lets you arrange your contact and chats with helpful labels like active orders, completed orders, awaiting payment, due refund etc.

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How To Spark Interest in Potential Customers?

Now WhatsApp is THE hub of informal chats between friends and families.  If people don’t save your business number, regular interactions will be hard and you may get reported for spam or worse: being blocked.

To make people feel interested and comfortable, give your brand account a persona. Like, ‘Shreya of Customer Support Team’. Even if multiple people are handling the account, this touch of personality will make your account more approachable and more likely to be saved as a contact.

Another way to start a conversation with a potential client is to add a What’s-help widget to the website. That can quickly allow the person to send you a WhatsApp message.  Try out the Free Download to see all the functionalities.

Rolling The Wagon

After getting the contacts you have to start selling and retain your core consumer base.  This can be done by offering a lead magnet (something that attracts a potential customer to be a new customer), like a new customer X% off coupon or gift with the first order, and other temporary offers and sales. Also use lead magnets for promotional campaigns on Facebook, Instagram or other social media.

Here is a robust and war proven psychological trick for you. If you can induce fear of missing out on your existing and potential customers, they are more likely to buy. For example, limited time-limited edition T-shirts. People are more likely to buy that than even better looking 24/365 available T-shirts.

Using the automated messages feature you can send coupons and offers to your contacts directly. You can also create fear of missing out by posting a promotional offer in the WhatsApp business account’s story and announcing that the offer will last only until the end of the 24 hours window during which WhatsApp stories remain visible. You can help the people replying to your story by helping them redeem the offer on one-on-one chat.

The Engagement Factor

WhatsApp Groups

Keep your current customer engaged by creating and adding them to a WhatsApp group.  Thus, offering them a ‘behind the scenes access to your company/shop.

Make sure your group name reflects the purpose of the group, like ‘Prime members Gang’ or ‘X product pre-order updates’ or maybe ‘suggestion box’ etc. Set up a set of guidelines for each group so that people don’t post unrelated content there. Add your brand logo as the group icon.

Broadcast List

Broadcast in WhatsApp business is a similar feature of sending Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) mails to multiple contacts.

Add up to 256 contacts on the list and send all of them your message simultaneously. They will receive those messages like normal WhatsApp chat and their reply will come as a one-on-one chat. Check out the list of the top WhatsApp Marketing Software & choose which one is best for you..

What Else?

The usefulness of WhatsApp business does not end with sending special offers, selling and pitching new products and connecting to your consumers. It also helps you

1. Take a market survey and gauge demand by interacting directly with the clientele
2. Using one on one chat and automated replies to frequently asked queries, WhatsApp business provides an excellent platform to provide ideal customer support.
3. Get your products to feedback directly from the customer.
4. You can get your satisfied customers to leave a good review of your product on your website. A more positive review and interactions mean social media and search engine algorithms will push your website to the top of related search results.
5. You can send your contacts a reminder of an upcoming sale or offer or limited-edition products directly.
6. Show off your creative prowess and share a down to earth natural glimpse of the scene happenings surrounding your brand by showing the manufacturing process of your product, may make a video of an office party or a little office meeting.

Some Great Examples to Consider

As the last stoppage of this journey, we will visit some examples of successful uses of WhatsApp for Business.

 KLM

The very first airline to have a verified WhatsApp business account Is KLM. They noticed WhatsApp’s high interaction rates.

So they started providing ticket booking, cancellation, flight status etc services using WhatsApp business. This made their ticketing process hassle-free and resulted in more public interest in buying a KLM ticket than other airlines.

The Quint

A better and much closer to home example is The Quint. It is an online news organization in India. They noticed most college-going and young adult demographics use WhatsApp more than any other online communication. So, they started delivering news directly to customer’s WhatsApp.

They gathered contacts by posting a registration form on their website. Not just random news, they also provided news of any category of the customer’s choice, when requested through WhatsApp. This brought the Quint to the forefront of the Indian Online News Organization.

TLDR

Due to the rise of one-on-one messaging app marketing through Email, Twitter and Facebooks are becoming a thing of the past.

Use WhatsApp for Business and its handy features to grow and promote your product/services through informal one on one interactions with your potential customers.

That’s a wrap for today. Phew, long read, eh? Well, we hope it was worth your time. Till then, stay tuned to our website for more such amazing blogs and informational content.