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Messenger communication is ‘the’ phenomenon and getting popular than ever. Facebook has 1.65 billion active users. Twitter has 310 million active users. LinkedIn boasts 100 million active users. Most probably you have your business marketed in most of them if not all.

Another platform with the most number of users would be WhatsApp. With 1.5 billion active users, spreading over 180 countries, it may be time for you to consider marketing on WhatsApp.

To add on to a marketer’s delight, according to 99firm the average user checks WhatsApp more than 23 times per day and 58% of users access WhatsApp several times a day.

Why Turn to WhatsApp for Business?

The attention that marketing on WhatsApp receives as on date might not be as much but there numerous reasons for you to be getting started with it as a marketer. Some of the obvious reasons include:

• It is free!
• Let’s you send images, e-books, your brochures and catalogs, videos, audios, links, location, documents
• It can serve as a survey tool for feedbacks directly from customers
• It can be used for group meetings
• Let’s you send alerts on new events, sales and offers
• Messages won’t get lost as offline message alerts ensure users know when a message is waiting
• Let’s you communicate with customers directly and in real-time

How to Start WhatsApp Marketing: A Step-wise Guide

Step #1

• Is the name you are going to use permanent? Think about the name you pick. You should be sure as you cannot change it soon as once you enter your name, you cannot change it.
• Your WhatsApp account is bound to a singular phone number. You need to make sure that the number you use to install the app stays around with your business.
• What should be your profile picture? This fact cannot be emphasized more—your display picture should be your brand’s image. Ideally your logo.
• Do people check-out your profile? In that case what should be the status? Though people rarely go through a status you should have something brand-related, perhaps your motto, as your status.
• What about the URL, where can you fit that? If you must include it then the status is your best choice. Though the link will be unclickable but you have 139 characters at your disposal.
• Lastly, remember that your status, after all, isn’t the best place to drive traffic instead you want your messages to do that

Step #2

• One way could be—share your number and let them add you. This method seems to work because you are not being intrusive by asking visitors for their phone number and at the same time you appear to be trusting your number to the masses and giving them with the choice to add you.
• The other way would be—getting their number and you adding them. Obviously, you cannot just go on and ask for the users’ number directly, making it harder than the first one. While the previous method places a lot of responsibility on the user, this method helps you eliminate an acquisition step. Apart from the standard ways of acquiring contact numbers (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.) there also exist another unique way to do so. Target users with a pop-up without having to have any coding expertise, as there are available multiple tools for you to use.

Step #3

• You know that you are limited to 256 people a group. Therefore you need to decide who will be in that group. Would you segment it by age? Gender? It’s up to you.
• What will the dynamics of each group be? As you keep adding people to a group you must also think about the demographics and psychographics of each group.
• Will you have to move people between different groups? When clubbing users under different dynamics you might have to move people from group-to-group or move them to a new group altogether. But consider how your audience might feel if they’re moved from group to group.

Step #4

Businesses, before deciding on a concept, need to ask the following questions:

• Who am I creating this WhatsApp content for and what do I want to achieve with it.
• How can I create value for customers—what content needs to be communicated using messaging apps, making it relevant for the target groups?
• What kind of content is particularly suited for WhatsApp? What information needs to be received immediately, what kind of content is vial and shareable?

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WhatsApp marketing strategies and tips

Since WhatsApp doesn’t sell ad space or have any business-specific features (yet) you have to be innovative in your marketing approach.

While WhatsApp is different in its reach and features than other messenger apps, it’s important to develop your WhatsApp strategy alongside your general messaging app marketing strategy.

There are a few limitations you need to address when developing your WhatsApp marketing strategy. First of all, there is no such thing as a business account, so if your brand is creating an account it faces the same limitations as any other user.

Since each WhatsApp account is tied directly to a single mobile phone number—and you can only message with up to 256 WhatsApp users at once—it isn’t a good choice for large-scale, one-to-many marketing. So your chances of success are higher when you use its limitations to your advantage.

Remember that, like other mobile messaging services, part of the power of WhatsApp is that it’s tied to our phones, which tend to seem more personal to us than our computers—they’re not shared and we carry them everywhere. So any marketing campaigns you tackle should reflect (and respect) the personal aspect. This is where consumers interact with their friends, so trust and creativity is key.

Not surprisingly, some of the best examples of effective WhatsApp campaigns hail from regions with the highest penetration, including South America. Here are some case studies of brands who have made an impact using WhatsApp for marketing.

Create a brand personal to chat with users and build buzz

When Absolut Vodka launched their Limited Edition Absolut Unique bottle collection in Argentina WhatsApp was a natural place to try and build buzz, since 84 percent of the country’s mobile phone users were on the app at the time.

For the launch they decided to host a very exclusive party. The catch? There were only two invitations available to the public. Anyone wanting to win these tickets had to use WhatsApp to contact an imaginary bouncer named Sven and convince him to let them go.

The campaign generated over 1,000 unique images, videos, and audio messages people created to convince Sven, and built buzz in the community.

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WhatsApp marketing tools

WhatsApp has launched a Business App they say was “built with the small business owner in mind.” The app is free to download, and currently only available for Android devices. It allows businesses to easily interact with customers by using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages.

For example, you can save and reuse messages you frequently send, and use these “quick replies” to answer common questions more effectively. You can also set an away message when you’re unable to immediately answer so your customers know when to expect a response. A greeting message can also be set up that welcomes customers to your business

Since WhatsApp doesn’t offer any business tools or an API yet, small-scale targeted campaigns like the examples above are the best strategy. To start engaging with people, you need to have them add your number to their phone’s contact list. WhatsApp does provide a way to add a click-to-chat link to your website, email signature, or social media pages that makes it easy for people to start a conversation with your brand.

Keep in mind that the expectation in messaging is for near-instant replies, so make sure you have the resources to manage the chats, or—like Agent Provocateur did—limit availability to specific windows of time.

There are third-party WhatsApp marketing tools and services offering to set up multiple WhatsApp accounts and groups for marketers, but using them can lead to you being blocked temporarily or banned entirely from the service. Plus, mass messaging in this type of environment can do a lot of damage to your brand.

While WhatsApp isn’t as feature-rich as Facebook Messenger for marketing, it is moving in that direction. Marketers who create campaigns that work with—not against—WhatsApp’s unique characteristics will have an advantage. The lack of advertising and corporate presence on WhatsApp means that early adopters can really stand out—if you do it right.

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