Communication has evolved over the past few decades, from landlines to mobile phones, and letters, telegrams to email and chat. Marketing being a form of communication has kept up with changing times and personalized advertising has become a key strategy. The latest advancement in that direction is WhatsApp for Business. Read on to uncover WhatsApp marketing best practices to take your business to the next level.
Marketing through messaging is not a new concept. It has been around for the last few decades. But the emergence of WhatsApp Business is responsible for the transformation that you see at present.
WhatsApp makes communication instant and personal, which makes it an effective marketing tool. WhatsApp not only enables direct communication with ads and promotions, you can also be available to your customers anytime with its auto chat feature.
How to use WhatsApp for marketing?
Given below are the top 7 WhatsApp marketing best practices on how to use WhatsApp for marketing after integrating it into your business.
Direct, one-on-one communication with customers
Efficient communication is believed to be the foundation of customer engagement. Unlike in the past, customers expect a quick or immediate response from businesses. About 83 out of 100 customers appreciate it when they get a quick response or solution from a company. The quicker businesses communicate with their customers, the more the chances of driving customer satisfaction. Over time, it will lead to positive customer reviews, which will help you grow your customer base.
Some ways you can use WhatsApp for direct communication, displaying the WhatsApp number on the “Contact Us” section of your website or adding a chat button. Sharing your WhatsApp business number on all your social media platforms.
Collecting customer feedback through WhatsApp
Customer feedback is an important aspect of marketing and business growth in general. It helps you understand what you are delivering versus what a customer is expecting. Traditional methods don’t resonate with today’s customer who has an attention span of just 7 seconds. WhatsApp has made collecting customer feedback simple and effective.
The conversational flow WhatsApp offers makes it easy for customers to share feedback and easier for businesses to collect the same.
Integrating WhatsApp with AI chatbot
Business is not a 9 to 10 brick and motar store anymore. Digital trasnformation has changed the landscape of shopping, leading to businesses running 24×7. For a business that runs 24×7, customer support needs to be available round the clock. Although this is humanly possible, it incurs large costs to the company, the solution is automation. WhatsApp’s chatbot makes it possible for businesses to be available to answer any queries 24×7. It is one of WhatsApp marketing best practices as merging the instant messaging feature with an AI chatbot not only helps you with customer support but in increasing customer satisfaction.
Using WhatsApp for proactive messaging
Proactive messaging is a major advantage of integrating WhatsApp with business activities. With the help of this feature, you can send messages to customers before your customers request them. This is one of the best ways of proactively offering a solution to customers before they feel the need for it. Popular examples of proactive messaging include sending flight status alerts, appointment reminders, tracking numbers, and sending shopping or order-related notifications.
Service and product display
Using WhatsApp for product display has emerged as a new trend for most businesses. It is one of the top WhatsApp marketing best practices as it presents a product or service to customers and also answers their queries related to them. Integrating an AI chatbot with a product or service display helps take customer queries and answer them. This feature increases the possibility of sales and conversion. To effectively use this feature, make sure you add a catalog of products and services that are relevant to your target audience.
Sharing details of real-time instant bookings
WhatsApp can be a great platform to enhance customer experience. Generally, customers need to check their emails to get information about their flight tickets or hotel bookings. You can make things a lot easier for them by sending real-time updates on WhatsApp through messaging.
Engagement at scale
WhatsApp is one of the best tools for mass messaging. Oftentimes, you may feel the need to reach out to several customers at once on short notice. The engagement-at-scale feature of WhatsApp comes in handy in such situations. You can use the “group targeting” feature to send your message across to a group of your target audience.
Final thoughts
Whether you are planning to integrate WhatsApp with your business or have already done it and are wondering how to use WhatsApp for marketing, consider implementing the above-mentioned practices. As a game-changer for your business, this strategy will propel your business venture to success in the long run by engaging both your existing and potential customers.