WhatsApp Marketing Agency 101: 5 Ways To Use WhatsApp To Engage Customers

Move over Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Linkedin. Whatsapp, the mobile app created only 5 years ago, already has 1.2bn active users is now the most widely used social network in many markets, officially overtaking Facebook Messenger. As a private chat messenger WhatsApp allows users to share unlimited text, video, audio messages for free. The cost – free and the best part – the promise of an advertising free experience.

For marketers, Whatsapp has been a tough opportunity to crack. No ads, no media to buy and users not liking intrusive spam like messages means you need to work harder to generate consumer engagement. The most critical thing about Whatsapp is that you CANNOT push messages to consumers you do not know. You need to get invited by consumers to become their contact. With 70% engagement daily, every marketer needs to learn the 5 proven Whatsapp marketing strategies that can help you grow your user base and sales.

1. Create an Engaging Brand Persona for Whatsapp

Whatsapp is a personal and intimate messaging platform where people talk to family members, connect with friends and sometimes flirt as well. Any brand that seeks to get invited into my Whatsapp phone list needs to feel like a friend. So the first step is to create an engaging brand persona or character that represents your brand with its Whatsapp number. People don’t like to chat with impersonal company names.

This can be a real person for instance the brand Rare Pink has a Whatsapp number managed by it’s customer service managers who are available at all times to engage with customers. Often busy business people find it easy to engage with this person on Whatsapp, exchanging pictures of products they are interested in, asking questions and even agreeing payment and delivery terms. The brand has been selling a significant proportion of it’s online sales via whatsapp after it started sharing it’s number with customers.

The persona can also be a fictional character designed to create interest and engagement. Absolut Vodka wanted to engage young consumers with the brand for it’s limited edition Absolut Unique in Argentina. So they decided to throw an exclusive launch party but to get in you had to contact the “fictional “ doorman Sven, a guy notoriously hard to please. The Whatsapp number was released in all the Absolut media and advertising and users started sending messages, songs and even indecent proposals to Sven in order to get in. Once the persona is created, he can be used again and again for different events to bring consumers in. Watch the entire case study here.

Tip – Ensure your whatsapp number and persona is crystal clear in all media where your brand is present – TV, Print, Email, Web, Social, Search.

2. Offer Great Value to build a phone database

Whatsapp will remain ad free and hence in order to build a base of users, you need to offer them something of value in exchange for their phone number. This can be a promotion, a freebie, a free service or valuable information.

A great example of this is Delhi Police. Realising the ease and popularity of Whatsapp, they decided to create  anti corruption whatsapp number and placed it on all their traditional print and outdoor messaging. All users had to do was to send in images or videos of policemen not doing their duty or taking bribes. On the launch day 23000 whatsapp messages came in, taking the police by surprise and lead to the booking of 6 policemen on charges. As a bonus the police got a database of thousands of citizens’ phones for free. 

Another example comes from Unilever’s Mayonnaise brand Hellman’s which wanted to grow the usage of it’s products in new dishes in Brazil. So it offered consumers a Whatsapp line called WhatsCook  where they could ask professional chefs questions, get recipes, share videos of cooking, all the time building a database of mobile numbers.

Tip – Design an attractive promotion to get users to share their number with you. Once you add them on whatsapp, send them the promo / offer which they can then redeem and begin their relationship with you.

3. Offer Always On Relevant Content for Free

What do you do once you have started building a phone list ? Whatsapp has a 70% engagement rate, higher than facebook. That means you need to offer users, great content on relevant topics to ensure that they are engaged with you.

A great example of this is Dr Amrik Singh, Agriculture scientist in India, who has created a WhatsApp group called Young Progressive Farmers to educate farmers on modern methods of farming for rice which use less water and get higher yield like the information below on weeding. This method allows at very low cost, a way to reach all the farmers via a whatsapp group. Note that the limit of a group is 50 members and you can create upto 5 groups for a personal number so as the numbers grow, one has to think of how to resource for managing a large database of whatsapp users.

Radio Interconomia, a business radio and tv channel, created a whatsapp number to offer users free business news, interesting interviews and stock analysis by top analysts on the channel. The cost of the channel – just 1$ for brilliant mass scale 2 way engagement.

4. Deliver Speedy Customer Service

Whatsapp has a 70% opening rate, which means you are almost guaranteed exposure of your message if you customer is on whatsapp with you.

Leveraging this, Banco Santander Bank has created Open Bank, a whatsapp customer service number where you can chat with the bank, post queries, solve issues. In a test pilot done with 17000 customers, 99% of consumers found the service very useful and 98% said they would continue to use it.

Reliance Brands, which handles luxury brands like Diesel, Kenneth Cole and Zegna in India, offered customers the choice of remaining engaged with the brand via Whatsapp. Consumers lapped it up, finding out about promotions, new launches and getting brand information like pictures and video. In some cases the conversion rate of consumers who were on the brands’ whatsapp list was as high as 80%.

Tip – Ensure you are adequately resourced to handle customer queries. The worst thing you can do is to get a Whatsapp but not respond for hours. Ensure a dedicated person(s) depending on the traffic and ensure his/her performance is measured.

5. Consumer Research

Whatsapp has so far not been used extensively for research but offers an easy to use, inexpensive and quick platform to run some quick research. You can ask consumers about flavours they like, ask them to choose between options the brand is proposing to launch among other things. Also whatsapp is highly relevant for conducting some quick discussion internally within your company.

For instance Delhi Police with their database of  numbers can now start asking people questions about the specific areas in Delhi which they find unsafe or a college campus can conduct a quick snap poll on what new courses need to be introduced. Teachers in many colleges already share notes and quizzes on whatsapp and answer FAQs. The cost again – minimal. The time – minutes, instead of months. Whatsapp is unbeatable once you know how to leverage it well.

Just keep in mind, that spamming unknown people on Whatsapp is unacceptable, unethical and not effective. Instead use the framework of a persona, a great value exchange, content and customer service to generate leads and sales using WhatsApp.

What makes WhatsApp a lucrative platform for businesses?

• Widely used platform: In the last few years, WhatsApp has replaced SMS as the primary channel for messaging. Within a decade of developing this messaging platform, WhatsApp has managed to garner over 1.5 billion users across 180 countries. India is supposed to be its largest market with 200 million users (way more than the US that has 23 million users). As of May 2018, a total of 65 billion WhatsApp messages have been sent by the users daily.

• Easy to break through the noise: Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and other channels where the algorithm changes frequently, WhatsApp is as of now unaffected by it. It is a non-intrusive platform where a business cannot send messages to the customers unless they are granted explicit permission. This would make it easier for you to break the clutter and send one-to-one messages to the user.

• Easy to track reminders and payment confirmation to users: Companies like BookMyShow and MakeMyTrip have been using WhatsApp for business to send confirmation messages about the bookings done through their website. Considering that there is very less scope for spam messages to be posted on WhatsApp, it is easier for the users to track the reminders and confirmation updates sent by you. It also enables you to maintain transparency in your interaction with the customers.

• Better customer support: In the age of customer-centricity, quick resolution to customer queries is not an option. It’s a necessity. In times of need, a user may prefer to directly have a one-to-one chat with the customer support to resolve their problems instead of waiting on the call for the customer support team to connect with you or wait till the team responds to your query. WhatsApp allows your customer to have a one-to-one chat with the customer support and get their issues resolved immediately.

How can B2B Businesses Use WhatsApp for Marketing?

Unlike their B2C counterparts, B2B businesses are infamous for their lack of customer proximity and non-personalized approach to marketing. There are very few B2B companies that do one-to-one marketing with customers. WhatsApp can change the way B2B marketing is done currently. Here are a few recommendations from us on you can try to leverage the strengths of WhatsApp for marketing.

• Product demos: Considering that your customers might be too busy to schedule an appointment with you for a product demo in office or on Skype, you can offer on-the-go demo using WhatsApp’s multimedia facilities or via video call. This will save your prospect’s time and accelerate the decision-making process.

• Content distribution: Let’s face it, once your customer purchases your product, it is unlikely that they will return to your website to read your content. It is also unlikely that they will notice your emails or social media postings amidst the clutter in their inbox and news feed. WhatsApp enables you to directly share your content such as blogs and industry news with your customers leading to easy consumption of content. Sometimes, sending direct content can also rekindle the interest of the customer to engage with you more.

• Send easy invites to webinars, events, and conferences: As with content distribution techniques, there are high chances that your customer might miss the invite that you send them for webinars, events, and conferences. You can send invites directly on WhatsApp to ensure that your customer does not miss the important updates from your company.

• Easy cross-promotions: Launched a new product or a service that you think will be useful to your existing customer? Instead of sending emails or calling them at an odd time, you can use WhatsApp to inform them about it. You can schedule a call or a product demo or even send introductory videos and document to give them a preview of how it works. This will help in reducing any potential gap in communication.

The challenges in using WhatsApp Ads

• Ad Fatigue: Your customer might see the same promotional ad that you put up on their Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram feed. This could lead to ad fatigue. Considering that WhatsApp is more personalized than other social media platforms, it’s important to make your WhatsApp promotions more interactive and one-to-one to prompt the users to engage with your business.

• Non-compliance to GDPR: As WhatsApp cannot adequately protect corporate data, companies such as Deutsche Bank had banned the use of WhatsApp for business communication. However, theoretically, it is compliant as it is a product of Facebook, and Facebook is certified under the US-EU privacy shield. Considering that it is a grey area, we would recommend you to take advice from your legal team before planning a WhatsApp marketing campaign.

• Risk of being marked as spam: Although WhatsApp is a great way to have one-to-one communication with your customers, it is crucial to be as non-intrusive as possible. Frequent and irrelevant messaging or ads could result in blocking your contact number, and that would prevent you from contacting your customer in the future. The best tactic is to restrict your marketing to one relevant message or ad per day unless there is an important update that you want your customer to know immediately.

What’s next?

To leverage WhatsApp for B2B you should engage a professional WhatsApp advertising agency like Zappable – get in contact with us now to use WhatsApp to drive more leads, prospects and conversions.