Marketing your business nowadays means that you need to have some kind of social media marketing strategy in place. However, when we talk about social media marketing, we are not just referring to the more traditional platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. While of course, these are huge platforms that you should be utilizing if you want to make the most out of your marketing, more businesses are now starting to see the advantages of marketing via messaging apps.
WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, and it currently has nearly 1.5 billion monthly users worldwide. Therefore, the bosses at WhatsApp have realized just how much marketing potential their app has to offer, which has led to the development of WhatsApp Business. However, if you haven’t attempted this kind of marketing before, then you may not know where to start. So, here is the ultimate guide to WhatsApp marketing and some tips that will help you along the way.
First, Set Out Your Goals
In many ways, WhatsApp marketing starts off exactly the same way that any other marketing strategy does, and therefore you need to put your goals and KPIs in place. This means setting out your marketing objectives and thinking about what exactly it is that you want to achieve. Of course, every business will have different goals they want, from increasing lead intake to engagement and boosting sales/revenue. Either way, by having goals in place, you have a clearer idea of what you are working towards, and it will prevent you from wasting your time doing things that do not help you reach those goals.
Define Your Target Audience
Before you can really get started with your WhatsApp marketing campaign, you need to consider who your target audience is as this will fuel all of your efforts. If you find it difficult to define your target audience, then we suggest that you start by creating a customer profile. Creating a buyer persona allows you to better understand your customers and will make it easier to generate marketing content that appeals to them. Your customer profile should include information such as age, location, gender, and job/income.
Download the WhatsApp Business App
To make the most of their marketing potential, WhatsApp have created their own WhatsApp Business apps which companies and businesses can use as a stand-alone application. We recommend that you get this downloaded as soon as possible so you can familiarize yourself with it. It is home to additional features such as a business profile, a virtual catalog, quick and automated replies, as well business statistics that track the messages that have been sent, received and read.
Build a Contact List
When it comes to utilizing WhatsApp for your business, you can use it as part of a marketing strategy as well as a form of customer support. Either way, you are going to need to build up a contact list so that you have people to communicate with. Most businesses build a contact list through the use of subscription forms which allow you to ask customers for their contact details and give them the opportunity to opt into your communication via WhatsApp. You may even offer a lead magnet to encourage customers to fill out subscription forms, such as offering them a discount code post-completion.
Think About Customer Service
One of the main reasons why so many businesses are now using WhatsApp to communicate with their customers is because they are so popular with customers of all age groups. Customer expectations have changed dramatically in recent years, and people now expect to get the answers and support they need at the click of a button (quite literally). Therefore, offering customer service via WhatsApp makes it easier for you to provide them with a quick and efficient service.
In fact, a staggering 59% of people believe that they get quicker responses from businesses when using messaging platforms. Therefore, by making the most of WhatsApp as part of your marketing, you can improve customer support and boost the relationship you have with your customers.
Create a Brand Persona
People like to chat with other people, so no matter what kind of brand persona you may have had in the past, you need to ensure that for the purpose of WhatsApp marketing that you offer a personalized form of communication. This means that you need to create a brand persona. All the big brands have a brand persona, as this makes them more memorable and attributes a personality to the business.
For example, Apple is known for being innovative and creative, whereas Nike is known for being active and passionate. These are the kind of thoughts that spring to mind when you think about these big brands and can make them feel more like a person and less like a conglomerate. This persona will also help to aid the tone of voice of your marketing, including the content on your WhatsApp.
Customers are much more likely to buy from you again if they felt like they were able to identify with them in some way. A great way to be more personable through your brand persona is to always sign off communication with an individual’s name rather than the company name.
Design Your Communication
WhatsApp marketing is a whole new world of communication with both your customers and other professionals in your industry. Therefore, we recommend that you take the time to carefully design your own communication in order to improve open rates. Compared to other platforms, WhatsApp has great open rates, but in order to maximize this, you need to ensure that your content is fun and interesting. Every time that you design and develop your communication, think about what would entice a customer to open that message. If you aren’t sure what the answer is, then something is missing. Remember that WhatsApp marketing isn’t only about sending promotional messages; it is also an opportunity to entertain and educate your customers so that you stick in their minds, and they return to you in the future.
WhatsApp marketing is looking to become even more popular going forward and it provides businesses with the perfect opportunity to improve customer relations and market their services straight to their customer’s phones.