WhatsApp marketing from A to Z

We have had to adapt to new technologies, new ways of shopping, transporting and interacting with companies.

Today, if someone calls us on the phone offering a product, we are likely to ignore it or hang up within the first few seconds of the pitch.

However, if you do the same as us, you will have a backlog of offers and news in your inbox for days, if not months. The reality is, we often only open verification emails when we sign up for a page. And now that we all use messaging apps like WhatsApp, this channel has positioned itself as the favorite channel for people to communicate with companies.

1. Introduction

We know that our promises alone are not enough. So, let’s put the potential of this tool in numbers:

And the fact is that WhatsApp is the most used communication channel worldwide with more than 2 billion users globally. Chances are that you already use it on a personal level, as do all your potential customers.

2. Why include WhatsApp marketing in your business

You want an easy way to communicate with the company, quick responses, connection and personalization to start with. That’s what your customers are looking for and WhatsApp is the way to provide it.

If we haven’t convinced you yet, here are 5 reasons to start using WhatsApp marketing for your company’s communication strategies.

2.1 Stand out from your competitors

This niche offers a great possibility: facilitating contact through WhatsApp will be a weighty factor for them to choose you over the competition.

Studies have shown that:

2.2 Your customers are on WhatsApp

We are not exaggerating when we say that no one wants a complicated process to connect with companies and find the product they are looking for.

What better than immediate communication and on our favorite channel?

A study conducted by META revealed that:

2.3 The future is conversational

As we mentioned, people want direct and immediate connections with companies. For this reason, messaging channels such as WhatsApp have positioned themselves as leaders in the conversational business.

What could be better than a direct and personal channel like WhatsApp with which you can immediately answer your customers’ questions and accompany them throughout their journey?

When users (especially younger ones) try communicating with companies with messages, there is no turning back.

According to the META study:

2.4 Direct connection at each stage

No matter where they are in their customer journey, you now have the tool to connect with them.

Recommending products, answering their questions, facilitating payment and providing support is easier than ever with WhatsApp.

According to the META study:

2.5 Based on permission marketing

Interruption marketing uses the “spray and pray” strategy. This way of getting customers creates messages that for most will be irrelevant and even annoying.

But with permission marketing, you need the customer’s permission to send them messages, so they will be more likely to read them and take action.

According to the META study:

3. Benefits of WhatsApp marketing

In the case of the WhatsApp Cloud API version, it can be a bit overwhelming at first. This version is not the typical app that you manage on your mobile but a cloud program that connects with other tools such as messaging managers (Zoho Cliq, Microsoft Teams).

3.1 WhatsApp is a dynamic and easy-to-use channel

Anyone can use WhatsApp (even the less digital generations use it).

WhatsApp is naturally conversational and a direct conversation with a customer on their favorite channel can make the difference between closing a sale or not, and between keeping a customer and building customer loyalty or never seeing them again.

3.3 Multimedia and interactive messages

In addition, with the Cloud API you have the possibility to send interactive messages using reply buttons.

This way you can guide a potential customer through the buying process, learn more about a problem or simply guide the conversation without your customer having to write a single word.

3.4 Out of this world opening and interaction rate

3.5 Direct interaction

ew generations are looking for authentic connections with companies and they do it through social media. They follow their favorite companies on Instagram and want to connect with them in a more human and emotional way.

WhatsApp is an excellent channel to complete this connection. Here’s an example:

In a META study on the trend and interaction of Generation Z with brands they found that:

For example, and here we are jumping ahead a bit to another chapter, you can create a chatbot that takes the quiz, gives a personalized recommendation based on the answers and provides a payment link. And all in an automated way.

Let’s look at the step-by-step of a WhatsApp marketing campaign:

1. Create a click-to-chat ad on Instagram
2. Activate a product recommendation chatbot that asks your customers questions (i.e. their next vacation). The last message will be a personalized recommendation.
3. Send a message with CTA to the payment platform or the option to speak to an agent.

4. Funcionalidades para WhatsApp marketing

WhatsApp Cloud API tools are useful for all types of departments, such as sales and customer service. However, let’s see how they can be great allies for the marketing team.

Message templates
These types of messages are the solution that will save you time and avoid repetitive tasks. You can customize them with variables and include multimedia elements and buttons.

Estos tipos de mensajes son la solución que te ahorrará tiempo y evitará tareas repetitivas.

Puedes personalizarlas con variables e incluir elementos multimedia y botones.

Talk to your customers directly to learn about their needs, accompany them through the buying process, close sales and provide support.

WhatsApp Cloud API integrates into the tool you use to manage your conversations, making it another channel that your agents can manage, without any limits.

WhatsApp offers internal analytics on the status of your number. In addition, you can integrate it with your CRM to synchronize data and your agents can have the information collected easily and effectively.

5. WhatsApp marketing use cases

5.1 Interactive campaigns

One way you can facilitate contact is with interactive campaigns. What differentiates them is that it is not just a cold ad directing to purchase, what is invited is interaction with the company.

An example could be an interactive campaign of a contest with a weekly challenge: if people overcome all the challenges they will win a prize in the form of a discount. Let’s see how you can do it:

1. Obtain your customer’s consent: opt-in is the first thing you need in order to start sending messages.
2. Create message templates: to send conversation starter messages, you need to use message templates. These messages can contain variables for customization, multimedia elements and buttons. One thing to keep in mind is that WhatsApp must approve them before using them (although this is usually a process that takes a few minutes).
3. Send push notifications for your interactive campaign: program the messages to send them to the segmentation with which you want to carry out the contest.
4. Set up a contest chatbot: a simple chatbot with a quiz-like format can take care of this part of the campaign. In our gallery you will find a template in which you only have to edit the information and upload a .csv with your questions.
5. Send the promotional code: the template also allows you to automate a last message to send the promotion you have customized.

5.2 WhatsApp Letter

Let’s see how you can do it:

1. Obtain your customer’s consent: as we saw in the previous example, user opt-in is the most important thing for a good user experience and to comply with WhatsApp policies.
2. Create your personalized newsletter strategy: for it to work you must send relevant and interesting information to your target audience. In this case, you must also create message templates, so be sure to customize them and segment your audience correctly.
3. Send your messages: decide the right time and moment for most of your customers to read you. It is also a good idea to add an attractive call to action or multimedia elements that make your message more dynamic.
4. Analyze your results: part of an attractive WhatsApp marketing strategy is to analyze the results and act accordingly. Analyze the open and click rate to know what content works best and at what time you have obtained more success.

5.3 Event registration

If you have a B2B company, events are great for meeting new people and networking. And if you are a B2C company, events are the perfect opportunity to meet your customers (and potential customers) directly.

One of the biggest challenges when organizing an event is managing registrations, and sending reminders. If you do it by email, there is a high chance that they will not open the email, thus losing possible relevant information.

Let’s see how WhatsApp can help you manage your event:

1. Create an entry point: these are the doors through which your customers reach WhatsApp. You can create a click-to-chat ad announcing your event and when they interact with the ad, a WhatsApp conversation will open.
2. Activate a chatbot: you can use our event registration chatbot template and include the information about your event.
3. Send reminders: and if you want everyone to be present when the time comes, send a reminder to registrants using push notifications. You can even send them the access QR so that they have it in their WhatsApp conversation.

5.4 Abandoned cart recovery

1. As always, start with your customers’ opt-in consent.
2. Create a template message to send when there is an abandoned cart: you can include a discount or promotion to create FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
3. Create an automation with Zapier so that when an abandoned cart is detected, a template message is sent.

5.5 New products

• Manual notification

1. Create a template message to send a push notification announcing a new product in your catalog. You can create the template directly in WOZTELL and schedule it to be sent to a specific audience.

• Automation

1. Create a template message to announce a new product in your catalog.
2. Use an automation with Zapier so that every time you add a new product in your catalog on the e-commerce platform you use (e.g. Shopify), a message is sent automatically.

6. Good practices

6.1 Get opt-in

Businesses must obtain opt-in (consent) from their customers before sending messages to initiate conversations with their customers. You can obtain it both inside and outside WhatsApp.

• In the opt-in request you must:
• Clearly state that the person agrees to receive messages from your company on WhatsApp.
• Clearly state the name of the company.
• Comply with the laws in force.

Some tips for opt-in:

• Make clear what the periodicity of the messages will be.
• Include clear instructions on how they can opt-out of receiving messages.
• Communicate clearly what type of messages you are going to send.

6.2 Privacy

6.3 Personalize your messages

Make sure that the information you send is of interest to the people who will receive it. Remember that in WhatsApp users have the power and if you send irrelevant messages they can block and report you, which will affect the quality of your account.

If you have too many reports and blocks, WhatsApp can limit the number of messages you send per day and even block your account indefinitely.

6.4 Be timely

We’re not just talking about timing, but also about sending messages when the customer can get the most out of them.

A good strategy is to take advantage of the information you already have about your customers in your CRM. For example, to send a personalized discount on their birthday.

6.5 Create unconventional campaigns

The API is so dynamic that you can even integrate a trivia chatbot to increase interaction with your company, collect data and offer opportunities in an original way.

7. Success stories

Centaline Property

More than a few companies have used and succeeded with their WhatsApp marketing strategy. And, we have been fortunate to be able to help some of them get into and take off with their WhatsApp journey.

Centaline, a Hong Kong real estate agency, integrated WhatsApp Cloud API with its property recommendation system.

Since then and through a WhatsApp chatbot, customers can search for properties based on location, price, size and other aspects. The chatbot messages are interactive thanks to buttons and multimedia elements.

The user easily navigates through the different properties and Centaline easily knows what their needs are.

Read the full success story published by Meta here.

Anker 

This Indonesian technology company decided to test a week-long campaign using WhatsApp.

They set up a push notification campaign to send an offer on headphones, with multimedia elements. In this way, Anker was able to unleash their creativity to send different and effective promotional messages.

Read the full success story published by Meta here.

SegurLine 

The online insurance agency SegurLine needed a faster and more effective way to communicate with its customers to quote insurance.

SegurLine chose to create chatbots to facilitate and automate the process through WhatsApp.

Read the full story here.

8. WhatsApp marketing limitations

• WhatsApp wants to keep its channel free of spam, so companies are required to obtain consent from users.
• To ensure that the messages you send are of quality, WhatsApp has to approve the message templates before you can send them.
• Users have the power to block your messages and report you.
• Companies must follow WhatsApp’s commerce policy and the regulations in force in each territory.
• WhatsApp has a messaging policy that you must follow to ensure you maintain high quality communications.
• The use of WhatsApp Cloud API has a cost per conversation that varies depending on who initiates the conversation (user or company) and the country.

*Prices per conversation will change on June 1, 2023. You can check the changes here.

9. To sum up 

In summary, here are the main aspects of WhatsApp marketing:

• People are already on WhatsApp and use it every day so the open rate is as high as 98%.
• An out-of-this-world click-through rate that reaches 70%.
• 80% of WhatsApp messages are read in less than 5 minutes.
• Push notifications, chatbots and live chat to create unique experiences.