What comes to our minds when we think of WhatsApp Marketing? Sending lots of messages to lots of people in one shot. Right. But there is a lot more to WhatsApp marketing, let us find out.
Even without any additional software, WhatsApp is a great tool for marketing, and improving relationships. But generally, it is misused or sometimes even abused.
The new Search feature in WhatsApp (May 2020)
WhatsApp has added some cool features in the search options. Watch this small video to find out.
WhatsApp Marketing Software
You have three options of software to use WhatsApp for Marketing purpose. However Whatsapp even without any software is a great marketing platform.
- [FREE] Sending Bulk WhatsApp from Google Spreadsheet. This is a very popular tool across the world.
- Just upload the contacts to a Google Spreadsheet. (does not work in Excel)
- Type your template message.
- Send it from your phone (one by one).
- Click here to watch the video on how it works
- Click here to download the tool.
- [PAID] TikTik Mobile App for WhatsApp, SMS & Email marketing. This is an android app.
- Create campaigns, templates for SMS, Email, and WhatsApp.
- Categorize your contacts and add them to campaign
- Click to watch the video
- Click here to request access to the tool.
- [Automated Bulk WhatsApp Tools] Enjay does not make these kinds of tools.
WhatsApp Marketing in India
More than 1.5 billion people use WhatsApp. That is 150 crore people. Moreover, it is used by them multiple times in a day. That makes WhatsApp Marketing the hottest topic for discussion.
Obviously, there are many ways to use WhatsApp for Marketing and Business purpose. Few of them are compliant with Whatsapp user policies and some people also use some mechanisms which are not recommended by WhatsApp.
In this article, we discuss legitimate ways to use WhatsApp account for increasing sales and managing the business. If you are looking for bulk WhatsApp or Automated WhatsApp Marketing, then this is not the right place.
What is WhatsApp Marketing
When we use the power of WhatsApp for promoting our products and solutions to our prospects and potential clients, it is called WhatsApp Marketing. This can be the simplest answer to this question. However, marketing with WhatsApp is quite different from other conventional platforms.
Since it is a chat platform or a conversational platform that makes all the difference. So conventional ideas of Bulk email or Bulk SMS will not apply to WhatsApp Marketing. We have to think out of the box to use WhatsApp for promoting our businesses.
Benefits of WhatsApp business
1. Reach of WhatsApp
- The biggest reason for the success of the use of WhatsApp for business is because of the obvious reach and popularity of the WhatsApp platform. People check their WhatsApp status more than a few times a day.
2. Better Alternative to Email and SMS
- Research says that more than 50% of the emails and more than 12% of SMS messages are spam. Email marketing is proving to be non-effective, when not done with perfection and planning.
3. Instant communication
- Chat or messaging is fast growing as a communication platform, almost killing email and SMS.
Whatsapp Group and Broadcast.
1. WhatsApp Groups
- WhatsApp Groups is one of the best features, which can be used for Business as well as Social Purpose.
- Groups can be used to have Discussions and Ideas Sharing.
- Then there is also the option of Admin Only Groups. This is a kind of broadcast group, where only a few people (admins) can post. Others can view but cannot reply or post.
2. WhatsApp Broadcast
- Broadcast lists features allow you to send WhatsApp message (text, image, video, document, link, location) to a maximum of 256 people at once. They receive that message as individual messages and not in a group.
- Of course, if you need to send messages to more than 256 people, then you can make multiple groups.
- The biggest limitation of WhatsApp broadcast is that only people who have saved your phone number in their mobile address book will receive your message.
WhatsApp Marketing Strategy
Here are some of the best practices for using WhatsApp as a marketing tool.
1. Making it personal
- Send messages to people whom you know, and they know you. Sending messages to known people makes the entire exercise very useful.
- Don’t even think of buying a database and then sending messages to them, it does not work and your number may get blocked or banned.
2. Tone of messages
- Send messages which your audience might want to read and also share with their friends.
- Just bragging about your offers and products doesn’t work.
- Don’t make announcements, better send messages which are personal in nature and use.
3. Templates for Messaging
- Instead of just sending pricing or offers, if we talk more about the use cases and problems faced by people is observed to be very effective.
- TikTik App allows you to create proper Message Templates for WhatsApp.
4. Time Gap between messages
- There is no point in sending messages daily or at a very short interval. Please understand that the messages have to be non-intrusive.
- Sending occasional but consistent messages is found to be more effective. The best interval is 10 to 30 days.
5. Use known number
- Don’t get a new number for sending WhatsApp messages. It’s a bad idea.
- Firstly, the chances of new numbers getting banned are much more.
- Also, when people receive messages from unknown people, they are less likely to read those messages.
6. Target select audience only
- Don’t send all messages to all people.
- Select the audience by labeling, tagging or grouping them, so that everybody receives relevant messages.
- This way, you can have select messages (templates) for selected people. This makes it very effective.
7. Encourage response
- Create a message which will encourage response and reply.
- More importantly, when people respond, make sure you have proper answers.
- Reply and engage with them.
8. Use other channels
- Once people respond to WhatsApp messages, use other channels of communications like Email and Calls to engage with your audience.
- This makes sure that the return on Efforts is positive.
9. Manage unsubscribe requests
- If anyone objects the messages, be polite and unsubscribe them.
- The best way is to pick and call them so that you know what is the reason why they did not like your messages.
- One trick to unsubscribe people is to block them so that you don’t send them any message even accidentally.
- TikTik App allows you to manage unsubscribers in a very systematic way.
10. Share your contact file
- If people have saved your contacts, then chances of they seeing and responding to your messages are more.
- Also, links are not visible (clickable) when the contact is not saved. (Or chat is not replied to).
- Share your contact file and request the recipient to save the contact. You can create your own contact file in your address book and use that
11. WhatsApp Business and not Personal WhatsApp
- Use WhatsApp Business App and not personal WhatsApp.
- WhatsApp Business App is available for free from app stores for both iOS and Android.
- Take some time to configure WhatsApp Business App fully.
- Features like Quick Replies and Catalogue are very very useful.
Misconceptions about WhatsApp marketing
Whenever we speak of Marketing using the WhatsApp platform, people always talk about bulk and Automated WhatsApp messages, but as discussed above, it does not work.
Can we send Bulk Messages from WhatsApp?
Almost everyone who thinks of WhatsApp for business is asking this question. Of course yes, there are many companies out there who claim that they have capabilities (and tools) for sending Bulk and Automated WhatsApp Messages.
But Sending Automated Bulk WhatsApp messages is not advisable for the following reasons:
- That is against the terms of usage of WhatsApp.
- Your number may be banned.
- Marketing messages need to be personalized and targeted. If we send bulk and automated messages, this purpose is not served.
WhatsApp Automation, to do or not to do
We once again request you not to use any kind of bulk Automation tool. This does not work. The reasons are already stated above.
Free Marketing software for WhatsApp
In today’s world of free products, it is said that if the product is free, then you are a product. So if you are planning to use the free tool, then make sure you read the privacy policy and that the tool is provided by some trusted source.
However, we had designed one google spreadsheet to (manually) send WhatsApp messages to our clients and partners. We have made freely available to the general public.
