WhatsApp Business to Mobile Marketing

There are more than 5 Benefits of WhatsApp Business to Mobile Marketing efforts but we will consider the 5 most important as WhatsApp is already globally used among mobile chat communication applications and it has a lot of business tools for mobile marketing.

Before listing some of its benefits to mobile marketing, here are basic information needed on WhatsApp either as a business or personal tool:

Understanding WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a free mobile app that uses your phone’s internet connection to let you chat with other WhatsApp users, without SMS text message charges. The app also lets you share files and images, and supports free voice and video calls.

When you think of social media, sites like Facebook and Twitter probably come to mind immediately. But messenger apps have actually caught up to social networks in terms of users, and increasingly messenger apps are being used for marketing on various marketing strategies and are proven to improve business growth in terms of customer acquisition, retention, sales conversion, etc

WhatsApp Business App

WhatsApp Business is free to download an app that was built with the small business owner in mind. Create a catalog to showcase your products and services. Connect with your customers easily by using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages.

WhatsApp can also help medium and large businesses provide customer support and deliver important notifications to customers.

How to use WhatsApp

WhatsApp has versions for iPhone, Android, Windows phone, and the Nokia S40. There’s also a web app and desktop versions for Mac or Windows PCs, but you need to have it installed on your mobile phone first, since each WhatsApp account is tied directly to a single phone number.

Once you download and install the app, you need to confirm your country and enter your telephone number. To set up your profile, you can either import your Facebook information with a single click, or manually add an image and add a profile name (which you can change later).

WhatsApp uses the phone numbers from your phone’s contact list to show you an up-to-date directory of WhatsApp users who you already know. Anyone who has your phone number in their phone’s address book will automatically see your listing, too, unless you change your privacy settings.

There are three basic ways to share messages, photos, and videos using WhatsApp.

One-to-one chat

Like other chat programs, you can chat directly with another user who is in your phone’s contact list. You can also call or video call them, or even record snippets of audio to text to them.

Broadcast lists

When you send a message to a broadcast list, it will go to anyone in the list who has your number saved in their phones’ address book. They’ll see the message as a normal message, similar to the BCC (blind carbon copy) function in the email. If they reply, it will appear as a normal, one-to-one message in your chats screen, and their reply won’t be sent to anyone else in that broadcast list. Broadcast lists are limited to 256 contacts.

Groups

Group chats let you message with up to 256 people at once, sharing messages, photos, and videos. Everyone in the group chat can chime in and also see everyone else’s responses. This is also one of the Benefits of WhatsApp Business To Mobile Marketing especially to startup and local entrepreneurs.

Why should you use WhatsApp for business?

1. Active Users Are On Whatsapp

The best reason to use WhatsApp for business is that many of your customers are probably already using it. More than 60 billion messages are sent through WhatsApp every single day.

Surprisingly, users of WhatsApp and similar services are willing to engage with businesses. According to Nielsen’s Facebook Messaging Survey, 67 percent of mobile messaging app users said they expect to use chat more for communicating with businesses over the next two years. What’s more, 53 percent of respondents say they’re more likely to shop with a business they can message directly.

If your customers and prospects are young, they’re more likely to be comfortable using messaging apps for their day-to-day communication. A study by Pew Research Center shows that 42 percent of smartphone owners between 18 and 29 years old use messaging apps like WhatsApp, compared with only 19 percent of smartphone owners who are 50 or older.

Plus, messaging apps like WhatsApp have incredible engagement rates: 98 percent of mobile messages are opened and read, with 90 percent of them getting opened within three seconds of being received.

WhatsApp may already be a key way for your audience to share content via dark social—a term to describe when people share content through private channels such as email or chat apps like WhatsApp, as opposed to more public networks like Facebook.

In fact, a huge majority of sharing online—84 percent—now takes place on private channels like messaging apps, so even if you’re not using WhatsApp to market your business, your prospects are likely using it to extend your content’s reach already hence, benefits of WhatsApp Business To Mobile Marketing cannot be overemphasized

2. Set up whatsapp business product catalogs

Catalogs on WhatsApp refer to the same thing too. That is, you can showcase your products on WhatsApp now. Each business owner gets a digital store of their own on WhatsApp Business. Inside the store, you can create multiple catalogs. Each catalog has its price, description, images, product name, and number. You can even add a website to each catalog.

For that, follow these steps:

• Step 1: Launch the WhatsApp Business app.
  The application is available on both Android and IOS store, activate your phone number and get started

• Step 2: Tap on the three-dot icon at the top-right corner and select Settings from the menu in the case of Android. …
• Step 3: Click on Business settings followed by Catalog.
• Step 4: You will be taken to the Catalog manager.

You can click on the Business Tool to access the business settings of WhatsApp Business; such as the profile, catalogs and other features as available in WhatsApp

Or also click on the Settings tab

Set Up the Business Profile Information which should include;

3. Message reply automation

Away Message replies anyone when you’re away, you only have to click the tab, activate the functionality and insert what you want to automate as response to anyone who chats you up.

This is highly useful most especially when you are busy with some services, your marketing assistant will reply your audience with your content on your behalf.

Greeting Message to welcome new chat up, customers and introduce your business or refer them to your product catalog.

Quick Replies are recorded sentences, questions, or answers that may be frequently required when relating to customers during chat conversation. Instead of typing such replies every time you can easily put together quick reply list and by simply click on the ( / ) symbol the replies are populated for you to pick as you deemed fit.

4. easy integrations

For medium and large businesses, the WhatsApp Business API powers your communication with customers all over the world, so you can connect with them on WhatsApp in a simple, secure, and reliable way.

Want to go to the market with WhatsApp Business API? Partner with one of our global business solution providers who are messaging experts in enterprise business to customer communications. Search the Facebook Partner directory. You can follow the step by step guide to integrate Whatsapp to your Facebook Page, click here or visit Facebook Developer’s Guide

5. high conversion rate

Gather your contacts

There are ways for you to gather contacts. You can hold a seminar or exhibition and make sure the participants fill in a form with WhatsApp contacts. Your seminar/exhibition may not bring in sales, but you can follow-up those WhatsApp numbers and convert them to sales later.

You can also gather contacts with other social media such as Facebook and Instagram. Run a simple promo on social media that requires your customers to fill in their WhatsApp contact with some countries already having WhatsApp payment Integration

Ask customers to save your contacts

The purpose is making sure your customers can receive your broadcast message. Make sure the participants filling in the form and remind them to immediately save your contacts on their mobile phones.

Send broadcast regularly

Remember, do not annoy your customers by spamming messages after messages. Set the delivery time properly so the recipient will not block your contact because you send them too often.

Keep messages short, but interesting enough. Customize the message content with your customer demographics. For high school and university students, use unique pictures, GIFs, or stickers but still relevant.

WhatsApp marketing strategies and tips

Improved customer service

WhatsApp is the best platform to increase conversion rates. According to a survey conducted by Nielsen, more than 67 percent of respondents prefer to communicate via chat with businesses. Also, 53 percent of respondents prefer shopping with stores that respond to their chat.

This data proofs that chatting helps you increase sales and provide better customer service. Not only that, WhatsApp’s features such as chat, voice chat, and video calls are useful to provide better assists for your customers. You also can provide better and faster services to your customers by using WhatsApp Web on your PC or laptop.

Leverage WhatsApp features

WhatsApp has a myriad of features that can be used to maximize your sales. For example, you can post announcements about your business on your status. You can post a status update about ongoing promotions, or tell your customers to take a screenshot of a QR code that you post on it and get a discount when shopping at your store.

Another useful WhatsApp feature is location sharing. If your customers asking where your business is located, you can share your business location via WhatsApp. Then your customers only have to open the message and Google Maps will direct them to your location.

Make interesting messages

The main advantage of WhatsApp marketing is its personal and authentic nature. But to grab your customers’ attention, you have to be super creative when composing the message. Luckily, WhatsApp has the features you need.

There are various formatting options that you can utilize. For instance, you can bold or italicize to emphasize your words. To bold, put your words between asterisks (example: * bold *). As for italic, put them between underscore (example: _italic_).

You can also send videos, GIFs, and pictures along with your message, to make it more appealing to customers. But avoid spamming entirely. Send your message in paragraphs so it’s easier on the eyes. Keep it brief and interesting.

Since WhatsApp doesn’t sell ad space or have any business-specific features (yet) you have to be innovative in your marketing approach.

While WhatsApp is different in its reach and features than other messenger apps, it’s important to develop your WhatsApp strategy alongside your general messaging app marketing strategy.

There are a few 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 tied directly to a single mobile phone number—and you can only message with up to 256 WhatsApp users at once—it isn’t a good choice for large-scale, one-to-many marketing. So your chances of success are higher when you use its limitations to your advantage.

Remember that, like other mobile messaging services, part of the power of WhatsApp is that it’s tied to our phones, which tend to seem more personal to us than our computers—they’re not shared and we carry them everywhere. So any marketing campaigns you tackle should reflect (and respect) the personal aspect. This is where consumers interact with their friends, so trust and creativity is key.

Not surprisingly, some of the best examples of effective WhatsApp campaigns hail from regions with the highest penetration, including South America. Here are some case studies of brands that have made an impact on using WhatsApp for marketing.