The first few names that come to mind when we think of Social Media Marketing and the best channels to engage with our ideal customers are Facebook(2.6 billion monthly active users), Instagram(1 billion monthly active users), and Twitter(300 million monthly active users).
Despite the impressive numbers of users on these platforms, some organizations continue to overlook the power of a text-based platform with more monthly active users than Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn combined. WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messaging app globally, with over 2 billion monthly active users.
In 2009, two former Yahoo employees, Brian Acton and Jan Koum invented WhatsApp as a smartphone messaging application. Working its way to the top slowly, WhatsApp was valued at $1.5 billion in February 2013. Apart from the VCs, there were more interested organizations in the acquisition of WhatsApp at this stage. Facebook recognized the new messaging app as a potential threat to its service, so it paid $19 billion in February 2014 to acquire WhatsApp. It remains Facebook’s largest acquisition to date and one of the most significant tech acquisitions in history.
The reason we don’t utilize the full potential of Whatsapp as a marketing platform is that the majority of marketers believe that growing an audience on WhatsApp is challenging. However, suppose an organization already has a list of target audiences with email addresses, phone numbers, or other information on their customer data platforms. In that case, all they have to do is find out if customers use WhatsApp and invite them.
One of the concerns for marketers is that they do not want to be invasive by delivering marketing messages to clients over WhatsApp. Smart, well-timed, and relevant messaging, on the other hand, can help us reach them without being rejected.
7 Reasons to Consider Whatsapp Marketing
1. Most Commonly Used Mobile Messaging Platform
WhatsApp is one of the few Android and iOS apps that has been downloaded over five billion times. With over 2 billion active monthly users, it is the most popular messaging app in over 100 countries. According to a tweet from Will Cathcart (Head of WhatsApp) in December 2020, WhatsApp transmits over 100 billion messages every day.
2. Best Permission-based Marketing
Contrary to the belief that Whatsapp marketing can be intrusive and invasive, the platform provides the best practice for permission-based marketing. There is data available of interested buyers in the marketplace, or we can ask potential customers to offer their numbers. In both cases, the customers have the power to accept or reject the offer.
3. People Prefer Chats Over Calls
Smartphone users in the US send and receive five times more messages than they make and receive phone calls. In countries like South Korea, India, Singapore, and the United States, customers prefer SMS over voice calls for customer service. According to a survey by Jobpal, 76% of Millennials prefer text messages over phone calls because it gives them more control, and convenience marketers can incorporate this in their marketing strategy.
4. Engagement Rate is better than Facebook
WhatsApp has an open rate of 99% with an engagement rate of 70% (the ratio of daily active users to monthly active users), whereas Facebook has an engagement rate of 61%. So the probability of opening and reading the marketing message is more significant than any other medium.
5. It Comes With a Set of Diverse Feature
Whatsapp groups- It allows its users to create a group with a maximum capacity of 256 people to share a message at one click.
Whatsapp Broadcast has the similar advantage of sending one message to all recipients in one click but without putting them in one Whatsapp group.
Whatsapp Status- Primarily, status is used for sharing images and short videos with a time limit of 30 seconds. These images and videos can contain value-based content or simple announcements of deals.
Whatsapp has also included voice calls and video calls as their set of new features in recent times.
6. Business APIs for SMBs and LEs
SMBs may use WhatsApp’s free business applications to create company profiles, exchange website links with contact information, and automate welcome and away messages. For a price, they can also connect third-party chatbots with these commercial apps.
Whatsapp also has business APIs for large firms that send automated updates, notifications, and tracking information to their customers. These APIs provide marketers with unprecedented access to a highly engaged user base.
7. Personalized Messaging at its Best
Personalized interaction can breed trust and faith in the hearts of valuable customers. Whatsapp marketing strategies allow marketers one-to-one engagement with customers. This type of engagement will enable marketers to discuss deals and offers based on the preferences and likes of the customers.
5 Steps for Creating an ROI-driven Whatsapp Marketing Strategy:
Step 1 – Building a Target Audience and Acquiring Leads
Knowing whom you’re trying to reach is the foundation of all your marketing efforts, and it determines how successful they are. Create an ideal customer persona, and then test various lead generation strategies to acquire qualified leads/ Whatsapp numbers. Setting up a funnel model, in which every traffic that comes to your website or social media pages is converted into leads, is one of the most popular strategies to acquire information.
Steps 2 – Setting-up Whatsapp Business
WhatsApp has introduced a standalone application, WhatsApp Business, to respond to the demands of all SMBs and LEs. This business tool has some great features:
(1) Business profile option that includes address, company description, email address, and website.
(2) Catalog – an online catalog of products.
(3) Labels to manage your customer discussions. For example, users can categorize interactions based on their state in the sales funnel.
(4) Quick, automatic responses to keep in touch with clients and respond quickly.
(5) Statistics to keep track of communications sent, delivered, received, and read.
Step 3 – Creating Brand Image
Every detail we include on our digital platforms builds our brand image, which has a massive impact on how our ideal customers look at our products and business. We can use this same theory to create a brand persona to build our Whatsapp profile to appeal to the eyes of the ideal customer.
Step 4 – Building Customer List
Having the correct data doesn’t do any good until we correctly place the data to utilize it. In Whatsapp marketing, marketers must know which customers are to be put in a Whatsapp group and which numbers to be used in the broadcast list. This bifurcation allows them to nurture the leads and drive more revenue through marketing strategies.
Step5 – Designing and Delivering
Developing and designing the best content for marketing and providing a user-friendly experience is the key to creating a long-lasting valuable customer list. Designing content in graphics, videos, or even text-based info is crucial; in this, consider planning out a good content marketing strategy.
As we all know, customer service is the main road to acquiring regular customers. Whatsapp marketing can help us perform the best customer service. WhatsApp allows businesses to respond to customer inquiries quickly and provide real-time support.
To summarise, WhatsApp marketing is a brilliant way to strengthen your brand and cultivate long-term customer relationships. Go beyond the commonly utilized marketing channels and master Whatsapp Marketing to obtain your desired ROI.
Developing a WhatsApp marketing strategy entails establishing objectives, researching your target audience, delivering excellent content, and maintaining positive customer relationships. Some brands have nailed these strategies to drive significant ROI.
Kindly check our other helpful articles and blogs on our website related to Martech, HR-Tech, Fintech, Energy, and Emergetech.
Rajvansh Adagale is a well versed content writer with over more than 2 years of experience in most forms of writing. He is experimental in his writing style and research for content. Also a huge believer of Seth Godin's idea of "write as you speak". Rajvansh believes in establishing a conversation with the minds of the reader to build a connection.
