Here Is an Ultimate Guide to Using WhatsApp Marketing for Your Business

When you think of social media, what are those few networking sites that come to your mind? Is it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn?

However, what if we would tell you there is another text-based platform that has more users than Instagram and LinkedIn combined!

We are talking about WhatsApp -- the text-based platform whose popularity has recently surged due to its rich media sharing options has elevated to become more than just a messaging app. Let us take a quick look at the statistics to complete the picture:

• 1.5 billion users in 180 countries make WhatsApp the most popular messaging app in the world – 0.2 billion more than stablemate Facebook Messenger.

• India is the biggest WhatsApp market in the world, with 200 million users.

• 450 million users of WhatsApp Status, eclipsing Snapchat Stories.

• 65 billion WhatsApp messages sent per day, or 29 million per minute.

• 55 million WhatsApp video calls made per day, lasting 340 million minutes in total.

Created in 2009 by two Yahoo employees Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and then acquired by Facebook in 2014 at a cost of $ 19 billion -- WhatsApp is a total success in terms of use and diffusion, as statistics show. In fact, users are increasingly recognizing its validity as a trusted news source, while Facebook continues to acknowledge it as a lucrative marketing tool. 

WhatsApp for Business – A New Way to Reach Your Audience

Although popular for personal use, WhatsApp has recently changed the game with the launch of WhatsApp Business – allowing marketers to connect to a generation of instant messengers. If you want to remind your customers about promotions, offer accessible customer service options, increase visibility, or build positive customer relationships, WhatsApp Business is the perfect tool for your business.

There are numerous reasons why we recommend implementing WhatsApp as part of your marketing tools. For starters, this is a free application, whose use is so widespread that probably contains among its users your target audience.

However, there is more: Because of its features, WhatsApp gives you the possibility to communicate with your customers directly and in real-time. This is a huge advantage when it comes to getting to know your audience’s opinions (e.g. through surveys) and providing personalized attention.

Along with this, it is a powerful tool to spread your proposals, promotions, and news. Its wide support for multimedia content allows you to send catalogs, brochures, videos, audios, links, and all kinds of information related to your business, which comes directly into the hands of your client.

WhatsApp enables you to create groups of up to 256 members, which is an ideal opportunity to carry out direct consultations and focus group studies. They are also a perfect tool for organizing events with your customers and with your company employees (internal marketing).

Finally, qualities such as immediacy and precision in terms of reach make this app the perfect way to send reminders and promote your special offers.

Tips for Using WhatsApp Marketing for Your Business

You can use WhatsApp for Business efforts in a couple of different ways. Mainly, the app is used for communication and sharing, and that is the basis of using WhatsApp to your advantage. However, there are some other ways to use WhatsApp as an asset to your company. Let us dive into a few of them:

1- Perform Real-Time Customer Service

Whether through chat, voice calls, or video calls, WhatsApp offers you the opportunity to assist your customers and resolve their doubts in real-time. Through this strategy, you not only manage to improve the quality of your service but also allow you to be loyal to your audience through direct and personalized treatment.

2- Take the power of Groups

As we said above, WhatsApp enables you to create groups of up to 256 members. Through this function, you can generate a “collective chat”, in which all the members can interact. Therefore, an ideal space is opened to survey specific audiences and obtain first-hand information for your market studies. Consequently, they are ideal to know the public’s opinion about the launch of new products.

WhatsApp groups are also extremely useful for organizing sales events and sharing information with clients with specific profiles (e.g. with specific needs or interests).

3. Enrich your texts and take advantage of multimedia

To attract and keep the attention of your audience, you must use all the resources WhatsApp puts into your hands. Therefore, when writing text messages, we recommend using italics and bold as a way to highlight the information. It is also very useful to enrich your messages with videos, GIFs, photographs, and links. Finally, do not forget to add emojis to increase the expressiveness of your shipments.

4. Take Advantage of Cross-Platform

Marketing is all about reaching people and communication. WhatsApp is a cross-platform messaging service, so it can reach to even the people who are not there on any social media platform. WhatsApp traffic analytics are available on many third-party resources. WhatsApp Analytics gives you insights into the networks that are popular in your target audience. Therefore, WhatsApp marketing gives you the priority to adjust your social media strategy for your ideal target audience.

5. Use Broadcast Lists

Anyone who has your number saved can see the message that you sent to a broadcast list. If your users reply then, it will appear as one-to-one interaction, not to anyone else in the broadcast list. Creating specific lists and then blasting them as one-way communication is useful in increasing engagement, such as including links or invitations in messages.

6. Maintain the quality of your messages 

Since your customers have entrusted you with their telephone numbers, you must provide quality and respect in your communications. Therefore, ensure that your messages are brief, clear, and relevant. This will also preserve the interest of your audience in your business.

7. Select an Appropriate Profile Picture

To make WhatsApp Marketing successful for your business, we recommend you to place a representative profile picture of your business. In this regard, an attractive and cordial representative logo or photos of the representative in charge are good choices.

8. Use the ‘Send Exact Location’ Feature

When sharing addresses (e.g. where a certain branch of your business is located, or where an event will take place) we advise you to implement the “Send exact location” function, whereby your client receives an interactive map with the marked address and with all the facilities of Google Maps.

9. Take Advantage of WhatsApp Status

To promote your offers without being invasive (that is, without people receiving a notification), you can use the WhatsApp Status. This is a tab to upload posts that last 24 hours and then they disappear. The app notifies users that there is a new status by placing a circle next to the name of that tab.

Wrapping Up!

Thus, we can say that WhatsApp is the ideal tool to reach your audience, build a connection, promote your brand and/or product and service, and communicate with your audience in real-time. On top of that, it is cost-effective, and you can get started quickly. So what are you waiting for?

Try it today and start engaging with your customers and leads in a completely new way with the help of our communications agency Turiya Communications LLP! Contact us or visit our website www.turiyacommunications.com to know more about our WhatsApp Marketing services!