What is WhatsApp Marketing?

How does WhatsApp Marketing work?

Through the WhatsApp Business messenger service, companies can update large groups of people simultaneously with special offers, exclusive discounts, and new product announcements.

What are the benefits of WhatsApp Marketing?

While more traditional marketing channels such as email continue to be relevant, there's a strong argument to be made that WhatsApp has the upper hand when it comes to its potential as a tool for brands' communication and marketing operations.

A short explanation for why this is the case is a simple matter of convenience: usually at hand and rarely more than an arm's length away, mobile phones have become a constant part of our daily lives. Indeed, 80% of people visiting eCommerce business websites do so from their smartphones; making channels such as WhatsApp an increasingly attractive marketing channel as we approach the mid-point of this decade.

On top of this, WhatsApp has an open rate of 98% and a click-through rate of 45-60%, making it a highly effective tool for brands looking for new and innovative ways to boost customer engagement.

WhatsApp marketing use case examples

Newsletters and Announcements

WhatsApp newsletters are messages that are sent to a specific audience of customers with information that's relevant to them. For example, you can send people special offers, exclusive discounts, and new product announcements.

A WhatsApp Newsletter works largely in the same way as a promotional email, with one key difference being that users choosing to respond to the message will be taken to an individual chat with your business on the app; thereby enabling one-to-one communication between themselves and the brands that they're interested in.

Deals and Offers

You can use WhatsApp to send messages to customers in which you let them know about special deals and offers that you believe will be of interest to them. Business owners can personalize these offers based on special events like holidays and birthdays, as well as annual promotions like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

On top of this, companies can integrate pictures and video messages specific to the sales period, allowing for a more original and eye-catching marketing style that helps create a sense of excitement about your brand; putting you directly in the conversation with the customer at key moments throughout the year.

Abandoned Cart Reminders

Recent research from Baymard Institute shows that eCommerce stores lose $18 billion in sales revenue annually purely as a result of abandoned carts. Issues ranging from an overly complex checkout page to technical errors with the payment system drive users to make the decision to put the brakes on a purchase. In fact, more than 80% of shoppers surveyed in 2020 abandoned their cart as a result of site issues such as form fill errors, transaction failures, or a time-consuming checkout process.

The good news is that experts also estimate that conversions can be increased by 35.62 percent when companies choose to implement the right checkout optimization strategies. With its system of automated, timely, yet friendly reminders, your WhatsApp Business Platform provides customers who have abandoned their carts with a necessary push in the right direction; allowing you to rescue those sales that all too often slip away at the very last moment.

What is the difference between WhatsApp marketing messages and WhatsApp customer service messages?

In a nutshell, WhatsApp marketing messages are conversations initiated by the business, while WhatsApp customer service messages could be defined simply as conversations started by the customer. Both kinds of interactions must be finished within a 24-hour window known as a Conversation Session.

For marketing messages, brands are obliged to create a "message template" which then needs to be approved by WhatsApp before it can be sent out to consumers; while for the latter no such template is required.

Marketing messages are also more expensive, with WhatsApp setting a specific fee for conversations depending on the country. With this in mind, it's important to remember that when a customer service 24-hour window closes, any message you then send to the customer will be "business initiated" and will therefore signal the start of a new conversation. Should the company choose to continue sending messages to the customer outside of the window, they will be required to have a new message template approved and will therefore have to pay the marketing message rate of the country they’re in.

How to Get Opt-Ins for WhatsApp Business

When it comes to customer care messages, businesses always require an opt-in from their customers before Message Templates can be sent out to them. When going about this process, it's important to remember that it is essential to:

• State clearly that the person choosing to opt-in will receive messages from your business through WhatsApp

• Clearly state the name of the business that a person is opting in to receive messages from

• Be prepared to comply with applicable law in all cases when required to do so

Assuming that all of these requirements are met, you can now proceed to go about obtaining an active opt-in via multiple channels that you already use to communicate with your customers. We've put together a handy list of ways that businesses can collect these opt-ins in order to kick-start your WhatsApp Business communication channel.

How to Start with WhatsApp Marketing

Whether you’re looking to breathe new life into your brand’s communication and marketing operations, drive customer engagement or boost your conversion rates; we here at CM.com make it easy for brands to get started with using WhatsApp Marketing to transform and enhance the way you reach people with your products and services.

Looking to get going as soon as possible? You can talk to one of our experts to request a demo and find out everything you need to know about pricing, implementation, or anything else you might need.