WhatsApp Marketing: A New Channel for Your Digital Marketing Strategy
WhatsApp is one of the most used messaging applications in Italy and worldwide.
Four out of ten Italians consider WhatsApp their favorite app on their smartphone and it is used by 90.8% of the population that has access to the internet.
Over time, the WhatsApp channel has been used by users not only to chat with friends and family, but also to exchange information with companies and businesses.
Some data collected by Meta confirms how the use of this channel has been appreciated by consumers:
- 80% of adults agree that messaging is a quick and easy way to communicate with a business
- 175 million people send messages to a business account every day
- 75% of adults stated: “I want to be able to communicate with businesses in the same way I communicate with friends and family via messages”
- 100 million messages per day are sent by companies using the WhatsApp Business platform
- 85% of consumers agree that interacting with a company via messaging apps can create relationships with the company
The use of the channel has become so frequent that it has been used by companies as a communication and marketing channel. Many businesses use WhatsApp to send promotional messages, special offers, useful content, and more to their customers.
In this article, we will see the advantages of using WhatsApp in your communication strategy and how to do it best.
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The advantages of using the WhatsApp channel
Using WhatsApp in the marketing and communication strategy allows companies to obtain several advantages, such as:
- High open rates: WhatsApp is the communication channel that achieves message open and read rates close to 100%, numbers much higher than traditional emails or SMS.
- Speed and immediacy: with WhatsApp Marketing, messages are sent directly to customers’ phones, without going through intermediaries. This means that the messages will reach the recipients instantly.
- Personalization: WhatsApp allows companies to create personalized conversations with their customers. This means that companies can speak directly to their customers and understand their needs.
- Interactivity: WhatsApp allows companies to interact with their customers in real time. This means that companies can answer their customers’ questions and create a closer relationship with them.
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How to Use WhatsApp for Marketing Purposes
Now that we have seen the advantages of WhatsApp Marketing, let’s look at some concrete examples of how companies can use the WhatsApp channel in their marketing strategy.
- Sending special offers: Companies can send special offers to their customers via WhatsApp. This creates a sense of exclusivity for customers and encourages them to purchase products or services.
- Abandoned cart recovery: for e-commerce, it is possible to use the abandoned cart recovery feature on WhatsApp. In this way, the user who has just abandoned the product in the cart can be contacted on WhatsApp to complete the order.
- Order update: It is possible to schedule sending a WhatsApp message to update the recipient on the status of the order
- Automated assistance and support: Through specialized platforms, it is possible to create a series of automated responses that offer prompt answers to customers based on their needs.
- Sending service notifications: companies can use WhatsApp to inform their customers about the services offered, such as opening hours and extraordinary closures. This is particularly useful for companies operating in the service sector.
- Sending useful content: companies can use WhatsApp to send their customers useful content, such as guides, tutorials and videos. This helps to provide added value to their customers and to create a relationship of trust with them.
- Use of surveys: companies can use WhatsApp to create quick and simple surveys to understand what their customers like and dislike. This is important to understand how to improve their products or services.
- Reminder: it is possible to remind on WhatsApp of an appointment, an installment or an important date.
How to integrate WhatsApp Marketing into your company’s marketing strategy
To use WhatsApp as a marketing channel, it is necessary to follow a few steps.
- Obtain customer consent: before sending messages to their customers, companies must obtain their consent. This means that customers must agree to receive messages from companies.
- Creating a contact list: companies must create a contact list of customers who have given their consent to receive promotional messages via WhatsApp.
- Create effective and highly personalized messages: messages sent via WhatsApp should be short, clear and effective. They should also be personalized and tailored to the specific needs of customers.
- Monitor and analyze results: companies need to monitor and analyze the results of their WhatsApp Marketing campaigns to understand what works and what doesn’t. This allows them to improve their marketing strategy and achieve better results over time.
- Use platforms that integrate the official WhatsApp APIs and that allow the use of the channel in a professional and effective way
Conclusions
Using WhatsApp as a marketing channel is certainly an effective and efficient choice for companies. Today, WhatsApp is the most performing and effective communication channel as it ensures much higher reading and interaction rates compared to all other communication channels used (e-mail, SMS).
Through WhatsApp, companies can send special offers, service information, useful content and more to their customers.
Furthermore, WhatsApp Marketing offers many advantages, such as speed and immediacy, personalization, and interactivity. These advantages make WhatsApp Marketing a very effective marketing channel for companies of all sizes.
Through the use of conversational platforms that use the official WhatsApp APIs, it is possible to automate certain functionalities such as: reminder messages, birthday greetings, abandoned cart recovery, sending informational or professional messages, and much more.
Spoki, for example, is the Italian conversational platform that uses the official WhatsApp APIs and makes it possible to integrate the channel into the company strategy. Through Spoki it is possible to integrate WhatsApp with company tools, CRM and CMS and thus create integrated and omnichannel communication.
Do you want to integrate WhatsApp Marketing into your business?
Start with a free account on Spoki and start your first campaigns with 5 € of included credit.
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