WhatsApp For Business – A Guide For Marketers
WhatsApp Messenger or just WhatsApp is a popular service owned by Facebook. It is an American freeware, Voice Over IP, and cross-platform messaging service. It permits users to send text and voice messages. Users can make voice and video calls, share images, user locations, documents, and other media types. WhatsApp client applications execute on mobile devices, but it can also be accessible from desktop computers. For this, the user’s mobile device should be connected to the internet. To use WhatsApp, users must own a cellular mobile number to register for the service. During the year 2018, WhatsApp produced and released a standalone business app that targets small business owners. This is called WhatsApp Business. This allows many companies to connect with their customers who make use of the standard WhatsApp client. As more and more digital technology is being used for all businesses, WhatsApp for business also finds its way for business people to get a wider reach for their brand. Let us see how to use WhatsApp. WhatsApp has its versions released for Android, Windows phone, iPhone, and Nokia S40. WhatsApp also has a desktop version and web app for Windows PCs or Mac but using this requires that you install WhatsApp on your mobile. Follow the steps on how to use WhatsApp. � Download WhatsApp from the play store
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Install it in your mobile device Confirm your country Enter your telephone number Set up your profile. For this, you can either take it from your Facebook information using a single click or just manually include an image and a profile name.
WhatsApp makes use of the phone numbers that you have in your phone’s contact list. Any person who has your phone number in their contact list will repeatedly see your listing as well. Having seen the popularity of WhatsApp and its usage, using WhatsApp for business is becoming popular these days. Many small businesses prefer to use ORM Services India for WhatsApp for business to reach the maximum audience. The main reason to use WhatsApp for business because it is being used by many people who are already using it. There are about 60 billion messages that are being sent across the WhatsApp platform per day. Also, WhatsApp users and similar kinds of services are ready to engage with businesses. As per the survey conducted by Nielsen’s Facebook Messaging, almost 67 percent of the mobile messaging app users prefer to make use of chat more often for business communication over the next few years. And, almost 53 percent of the WhatsApp users are ready to shop to a business using this platform where they can message directly. When there are young customers, they are more likely to make use of these comfortable services using WhatsApp for business for their daily communication. Most of the smartphone users are young who would make use of WhatsApp. Many business owners make use of WhatsApp marketing for business that would give them a wider reach and help to develop a huge customer base. Also, WhatsApp as a messaging app has an unbelievable engagement rate. Almost 98 percent of the WhatsApp messages are read in three seconds of getting it.
Source: Newsd WhatsApp is already being used as a platform to share content through many private channels. Also, a majority of online sharing these days takes place through private channels like messaging apps. So, using WhatsApp marketing for business is an ideal way forward to increase your business reach. So, to make your WhatsApp marketing a success for your business, here are a few strategies and tips for how to use WhatsApp marketing. As WhatsApp is not in selling ad space or contains any features for business-specific, you need to be advanced in your marketing approach. WhatsApp is unique with its reachability and features as compared to the other messenger apps, it is ideal that you develop WhatsApp strategy along with your usual marketing strategy. But there are a few restrictions that you need to address while you create your WhatsApp marketing strategy. WhatsApp does not have a business account, so if your brand is to create an account it would face similar limitations like the other users. As you are aware the WhatsApp account is linked to a single mobile phone number. You can get tied directly to a single mobile number and you can message to a maximum of 256 WhatsApp users at one shot. Hence, WhatsApp for business is not ideal for large-scale or one-to-many marketing. So, you have a higher chance of success when you make use of its limitations to the maximum. Since WhatsApp is tied to your mobile number and as we are on the phone always, it is more personal to us that we use laptops or desktops. Mobile phones are not shared, and we usually carry them wherever we go. So, any marketing campaigns that you
handle should respect and reflect on your personal front as well. There is where customers would interact with their friends, so the trust and its creativity are the main holds for it. Few best examples to use WhatsApp effectively are from the regions that have the highest penetration.
Strategies For WhatsApp Marketing The following steps show the strategies for WhatsApp marketing and that is ideal for using WhatsApp for business.
1. Analyze The Requirement Of WhatsApp For Your Business To understand the requirement of WhatsApp marketing, you need to understand what the WhatsApp marketing campaign is all about. You need to know as to how it works and what its main features are. In simple words, WhatsApp is a free mobile app that makes use of your phone’s internet connection and permits you to chat, video, and audio calls with other WhatsApp users. Charges would not be used for this. Also, you can share images, files as per your requirements. The main reason to use WhatsApp for business is to make use of the top WhatsApp marketing campaign strategy in their marketing campaigns that shows its interactive nature, power, great convenience, effective applicability, and personal touch. Like other social media networks,
Source: Business Insider
WhatsApp has become global and is considered a top-ranked messaging API. This is the most preferred messaging app these days and has great acceptance from users. For this reason, business owners can make use of WhatsApp marketing for business to increase their brand awareness. The main reason to use WhatsApp for business is that the customers, that each business has, would previously be using it which they can mark and convert them through WhatsApp marketing. To target young and prospective customers, you need to make use of WhatsApp for business. Moreover, using WhatsApp marketing would also ensure that you have a great engagement rate as more than 95% of mobile users open their messages immediately and read it.
2. Ways To Use WhatsApp Marketing To execute the WhatsApp marketing campaign, you can search for the various versions of WhatsApp for Android Phones, iPhones, and Windows Phone. WhatsApp is also available for Web App and Desktop versions, but you need to install it on your mobile before linking it to the web. Once you download and install WhatsApp, you need to register it with your country and phone number. Either you can get your Facebook information or manually set your profile by giving your image and your profile name. This way, your WhatsApp account is activated. For WhatsApp marketing, WhatsApp goes through your contact lists and lists you with the updated WhatsApp directory that you are already aware of. Anyone who has your contact saved in their phone will be aware that you have come on WhatsApp. To make use of WhatsApp marketing, the following can be done: ● One-To-One Chat – Like the other chat applications, you can chat directly with another user who is available in your contact list using WhatsApp. You can also voice or video call to them. Using WhatsApp, you can also record snippets or audio instead of text to another user. ● Broadcast Lists – When you create a broadcast list, you can send a message to your created broadcast list. The message would go to anyone on the list who has your number saved on their phone. They would be able to see your message as the normal one like the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) feature of the email. When they reply, it would be like a normal reply only. Basically, it would be like a one to one message that is displayed on your chat screen. This way their reply would not be sent to any other user in the broadcast list. The broadcast list in WhatsApp is limited to about 256 contacts.
Sourc e: iSKYsoft Toolbox � Groups – WhatsApp groups allow you to message a group of people. The group chat allows you to message to about 256 people at a single shop. You can share text, videos, and images. Each person in the group can chat and exchange information. For executing WhatsApp for business, you need to be aware of the right way to connect. The way to connect to your targets on WhatsApp is that they should save your number. When you keep messaging customers, they might end up blocking you. WhatsApp marketing is like Email marketing where you would take permission to connect over email from the users to execute it successfully.
3. Get Ideas From Successful WhatsApp Marketing Many businesses have already initiated their business communication through WhatsApp. There are many successful businesses that make use of WhatsApp for marketing, communication, and various business deals. Have a list of those and find out as to what is the method, they use for WhatsApp marketing. Have an analysis of those and try to incorporate those that you feel would fit into your business.
Source: Viacon
4. Know The Best Marketing Strategy For WhatsApp As WhatsApp does not provide or sell ad space or anything related to business features, you need to make your WhatsApp approach more innovative. You should include the personal touch for your marketing on the WhatsApp platform so that your customers would interact with their friends and would ensure reliability with the audiences. Few best WhatsApp marketing strategies are: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Create an attractive brand identity Provide one-on-one help to motivate new users for product Provide great value to create a phone database Provide excellent service to customers Encourage user opt-in Provide simple instructions Provide relevant content to the respective customers Deliver timely customer service
5. Make Use Of WhatsApp Marketing Tools WhatsApp marketing tool enables you to reach more customers. Few of the tools are
the following: ● ● ● ● ●
WhatsApp Bulk Sender Bulk WhatsApp Sender WAPanel BulkWhatsAppMarketing.com WhatsAppChannels.com
Source: SoftwareSuggest
Conclusion Even though WhatsApp is not as rich in features like Facebook for marketing, it is, indeed, moving in that direction. Marketers are creating various campaigns on WhatsApp to its advantage. Explore various methods for using WhatsApp for your business and to ensure that it is executed successfully.
Source: Technians