TABLE OF CONTENTS

Top 3 Reasons to Use WhatsApp as a Marketing Tool

How to Get Started Using WhatsApp Marketing?

WhatsApp Marketing Ecommerce Best Practices

Wrapping Up

WhatsApp Marketing Landscape:

E-commerce is growing fast — specially mobile commerce or m-commerce. And while email marketing has long been one of the top options marketers use to convey messages, WhatsApp marketing is quickly gaining prominence.

WhatsApp is a cheap and effective. It is an alternative to over-billed & spam-filled SMS messaging and low-open-rate email, mainly for eCommerce marketing. WhatsApp business marketing completely outplayed other channels for message marketing.

Why? Because it can penetrate through noise better than almost any other marketing channel.

Businesses are aware that email has virtually replaced postal mail as the preferred method of communication and a significant portion of emails is now never opened. In contrast, 80% of messages received via WhatsApp are read within five minutes. 

Imagine your company’s marketing messages were seen almost instantly, and customers had a personal connection, mainly without the notifications of various marketing and spam messages in their inboxes. That’s what WhatsApp marketing can help you do.

We’ve partnered up with marketing experts to share best practices, top ideas, strategies, and more to help you get started with WhatsApp marketing to increase eCommerce sales.

What Is WhatsApp Business Marketing?

But first, for those unfamiliar, let’s break it down: What exactly is WhatsApp Business marketing?

WhatsApp business marketing is an avatar of conversational marketing, which includes promoting retail brands like fashion, food, clothing, healthcare, and electronics through the WhatsApp business API.

This efficient WhatsApp business channel enables e-commerce brands to reach their targeted audience directly in their WhatsApp inbox, build a strong relationship with customers, and increase their sales and brand awareness. You can boost lead conversion rates drastically and offer round-the-clock customer service with Hello24.ai chatbots.

WhatsApp business marketing refers to the act of sending marketing materials and notifying complete eCommerce store alerts via WhatsApp message. If you send a motorized text message to your customer list saying, “YOGO shirt only today in store! Come get your savings,” that’s WhatsApp business marketing.

Primarily, WhatsApp business marketing is a tool you use to communicate offers and other information to existing and new customers who have connections with your product.

Top 3 Reasons to Use WhatsApp as a Marketing Tool

One of today’s biggest marketing challenges is getting your product or service in front of your target audience. Our inboxes are fully filled with information, and there are so many adverts on our social media accounts that we scarcely even see them anymore. WhatsApp has an edge in this situation.

1. WhatsApp marketing is designed for mobile commerce.

WhatsApp Business APIs are transforming the eCommerce sector by utilizing cutting-edge m-commerce and marketing capabilities to empower everyone from small retailers to big retailers. It assists them in setting up online stores and handling order placement, shipping, marketing, sales, and customer support, among other things.

“Wow facts: A recent study found that an average user opens the WhatsApp app 23–25 times daily )”

This makes it critical for businesses to invest in mobile-friendly marketing. Luckily, WhatsApp messages make that easy since they’re designed to be read on mobile screens.

“WhatsApp is a great tool for sending hyper-time-sensitive messages like flash deals, abandoned cart messages, product catalogs, order alerts, and limited offers. Most people have their mobile phones within reach for most of their waking hours, and it’s tough to resist opening WhatsApp when we wake up every day. With WhatsApp, you can connect your brand message personally.”

WhatsApp business APIs can help you reach a highly engaged audience — and that can translate to more repeat purchases and higher customer lifetime value.

2. Connect with shoppers using their preferred messaging method.

WhatsApp marketing also helps you connect with shoppers in the way they want to message. People like to be in the know, and they want to feel like they matter to brands. Around 73% of customers find live chat the most acceptable form of communication with a company.

When your business uses WhatsApp campaigns to keep consumers informed about offers, events, and other news that matters to them where they feel cared for and part of the process. WhatsApp live chat support increases repeat purchases. 

If a company offers live chat support, 51% of customers think they’ll make more purchases from them. Want more specific numbers? The majority of customers (63%), who spend between $250 and $500 online are likely to make purchases from and stick with companies that offer live chat services. If you haven’t already, you might want to think carefully about developing a WhatsApp chatbot for your company if your target customers fall into this spending area.

“Recent data and privacy changes have made it more challenging to contact consumers through email and paid advertising. Those are very expensive too. According to a new study, Apple introduced its App Tracking Transparency to help users choose whether they wanted to be tracked or not by apps and advertisers. Apart from the big players, small businesses are also suffering from these changes.”

The tailored, engaging 1:1 messaging between customers and your brand is what WhatsApp API offers.

3. Enrich your process with valuable insights.

The foundation of marketing strategies is ongoing innovation, analyzing the campaign performance, and customization. To ensure continual improvement and effective marketing results, your business must collect customer behavior data. 

WhatsApp Business APIs allow you to collect customer information and your WhatsApp marketing campaign insights via your WhatsApp business account. This easy way enables you to provide better customer service and cultivate stronger bonds with your customers. 

By integrating WhatsApp campaign analytics solutions with your WhatsApp marketing operations, you may gather customer data and use it to tailor your marketing plans. You can retarget customers with the use of this insightful data, and you can even cross-sell or upsell your products to prospective clients.

How to Get Started Using WhatsApp Marketing

So, you’re all set on why you should use WhatsApp marketing, but where should you start? Here’s a quick start guide to sending your first eCommerce WhatsApp marketing message.

1. Narrow and define your objectives.

Like with most marketing efforts, make sure you start with a goal in mind and determine exactly what you want to achieve with this new channel.

“The chances with WhatsApp are almost endless and can easily become overwhelming. Many merchants want to be ‘in the mobile channel,’ but haven’t determined the ‘why’ and ‘how.’ So, launch with one main goal, focusing on quick wins, then build on your capabilities and send WhatsApp campaigns at right time using a platform like Hello24.ai.”

For instance, lowering cart abandonment and customer support calls are two objectives you might start with. Then, you can modify your WhatsApp messages to inform customers when they have forgotten to check out or to give them order confirmation messages after they have made a purchase.

2. Find a great vendor to partner with.

Once you’ve narrowed down your focus, it’s time to find the right partner. Prioritize working with a vendor that makes set-up and launch easy but that can also scale with you over time as you grow your WhatsApp channel.

The WhatsApp business integrates with the top WhatsApp API vendor, including:

Hello24.ai: A best-in-class conversational commerce WhatsApp platform loved by more than 500+ brands.

• Hello24 is a customer experience-focused WhatsApp commerce and WhatsApp marketing automation solution that empowers merchants to turn their first-time shoppers and existing customers into lifetime customers.
• Helping online retailers drive more revenue through building great relationships with their customers.
• It turns WhatsApp into a top revenue channel in months and drives revenue through campaigns, timely notifications, and a WhatsApp shop.

“Some of the things to look for when evaluating a vendor include more integrations, robust list growth tools, best personalization and targeting within both automation and campaigns, and the ability to have real-time, two-way messaging with your customers.”

3. Create a buyer persona.

Trying to sell to your target audience without first understanding who they are is like trying to see in the dark without a flashlight.

People want to converse with other people rather than a faceless business. Thus, you must create your brand persona in order to engage in successful WhatsApp marketing. A brand persona is a collection of characteristics, outlooks, and values that your brand possesses.

The customer or consumer persona represents the main traits of a large section of the business’ audience. It is created using the data collected from web analytics and user research. It is a tool to understand existing and prospective customers better.

4. Create your contact list.

Once you’ve chosen your new WhatsApp marketing platform and a buyer persona, it’s time to build your list of prospects.

You can collect WhatsApp subscribers by integrating a WhatsApp widget on your website, by sending emails to your customers, by referral programs, or by adding a checkbox to your checkout flow on any major eCommerce platform. You can also have a phone number and a signup keyword that people can message to opt in.

Of course, you can connect directly with your Shopify or WooCommerce platforms and leave the rest to the WhatsApp API platform like Hello24.ai for the marketing magic.

5. Start your initial campaign.

Take your time at first to experiment with different strategies and determine what works best for your e-commerce business.

“Experiment and treat WhatsApp as an all-in-one marketing channel. We suggest creating brand awareness and letting your customers know your product’s benefits through customized and ready-to-use marketing templates. Once you gain confidence then track your marketing metrics and campaign performance via an intuitive WhatsApp campaign analytics dashboard.”

 6. Continue to test.

Don’t assume you hit it out of the park the first time. Or the second. Or the one-hundredth.

Reviewing the analytics and outcomes from your WhatsApp marketing campaigns will help you determine what is working well and what needs to be improved. To choose the optimal WhatsApp strategy for your eCommerce store, keep experimenting with various messages, hours and days, promotions, and workflows.

WhatsApp Marketing Ecommerce Best Practices

Now that you’ve got a WhatsApp marketing strategy in place, let’s review some important best practices to help ensure your efforts succeed.

1. Add value to your customers.

When you reach out, make sure you have something valuable to offer like:

• A unique or special offer — especially one that’s only going to your WhatsApp list.
• A time-sensitive deal, like a YOGO shirt for the rest of the day on items you need to clear out.
• Information that’s necessary for customers who might want to purchase products at a special event.
• Introductions to new products or services, especially if you’re giving your WhatsApp list first dibs.

2. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.

Be as concise as possible. People are reading these messages on little screens.

Try to avoid sending a thread of messages and stick to one call to action (CTA) button. Remember that many people still feel that these continuous promotional WhatsApp messages are annoying, so they won’t appreciate you using multiple messages to communicate one thing. Companies like Hello24 will help you to do this promptly.

3. Personalize your WhatsApp marketing campaigns.

You can achieve this by making appealing messages and lists with sections about the topics that most appeal to them. When possible, include people’s names in their messages with data automation.

Wrapping Up

Getting started with WhatsApp marketing is easy. Figure out what your message is and why, ask people if you can send them messages, and find a WhatsApp API messaging service.

Then, start sending messages out to your consumers. Keep them short and relevant, and don’t overstay your welcome by showing up on people’s cell phones every day.

The more you use WhatsApp messaging and analyze your outcomes to determine what to change going forward, the more effective this marketing tool will be. Reach out to us for your all-in-one marketing and WhatsApp commerce solution to taste a 20% average increase in sales, 90% customer conversations, and a 99% open rate for hello24 campaigns.Lan