WhatsApp is a flexible, multi-device chat and multimedia tool. But did you know your company can benefit from WhatsApp for marketing teams? Your brand recognition and success can skyrocket with the help of a WhatsApp strategy.
To make this possible, however, it’s key to understand the most useful WhatsApp features. It’s also crucial to see what the platform is currently lacking. That way, you add extra software to your mix.
WhatsApp is, at its core, a personal messaging app. It has almost 3 billion users worldwide, making it the most popular form of daily communication. This is due to the multi-device support: WhatsApp works on iOS and Android phones, desktops, and browsers.
It also includes individual chats, group chats, and transmission lists for text messaging, audio and video calls, and voice notes. Unlike SMS, it supports multiple file types, from shared documents to high-quality videos. Meaning: it can be explored indefinitely.
With time, WhatsApp has also turned itself into an interesting option for business users. Users who create a Business WhatsApp account can benefit from the ease of use. Plus a few extra resources that optimize your communication strategy.
5 reasons why WhatsApp enhances marketing communication
When you’re developing and monitoring the success of your marketing campaigns, you need to test multiple possibilities. You need to prepare for variable scenarios available. And, of course, keep the potential customer’s attention.
Besides, a successful campaign needs to account for multiple entry points, user journeys, and any customer segmentation. The specifics depend on which products and services you offer. An account onWhatsApp for the marketing team means they users can find and interact with customers. All while staying organized and adapting to each challenge. Here’s how:
1) Interactive messages
source: WhatsApp
One of the ways you can enhance your connection with potential new customers is through WhatsApp’s interactive messages. These can be automated according to the customer’s reply., so you can create a personalized conversation based on their interest. This is a great option, for example, when sharing new launches and updates to your services.
2) Broadcast lists
Broadcast lists are a mix between a personal message and a group chat. They are beneficial for marketing managers because they allow messages in bulk to a specific list of clients. For example: based on demographics and previous purchases.
However, instead of all recipients receiving them in the same space, each contact receives it as an individual message. If they reply, a new conversation starts between you. That way, you can keep the chat going for potentially interested customers.
3) Chat labels
source: WhatsApp
Labels are a great addition to WhatsApp Business for organizing your current conversations. The marketing team can create custom tags, based on their workflow stages and assign them to each conversation.
When they open the app and look at the home screen, it’s easier to locate each chat. That helps you manage ongoing tasks, and assign specific queries to other team members.
4) Ad integration
source: WhatsApp
An added benefit of using WhatsApp to enhance your marketing campaign is that you can mix it with other platforms. One being social media. You can create ads that include a direct link to your WhatsApp contact. That way, when a customer first notices your product or service, they can easily be redirected to chat.
5) Organic entry points
But ads aren’t the only way to let your company’s WhatsApp contact be known. You can create other, more organized entry points. First, include links in your social media pages. But you can also add links and QR codes to your website, business cards, physical stores, etc.
That way, you are providing your customers with an easy way to reach out whenever needed. Considering WhatsApp’s popularity, this is essential to show your commitment to good communication and client satisfaction.
How Whatsapp helps Marketing Teams across all funnel stages
Considering WhatsApp’s user-friendliness and popularity, it makes sense that it has integrated into every part of daily conversations. People use it to chat with their friends and family, keep up with coworkers and, of course, brands.
Nowadays, people chat with their favorite brands on WhatsApp for sales teams. There, they check out digital storefronts and fill up their carts. The purchase is done via a secure payment system. They can also ask questions directly to customer support representatives via WhatsApp, which helps enhance customer service metrics.
That means marketing efforts are another part of the equation for companies. They can set up a specific WhatsApp for the marketing team and use it to develop campaigns. Also to direct customers to the right promotions and set up frequent buyer reward programs and loyalty offers.
Here’s how WhatsApp can benefit each stage of a marketing effort:
Awareness
In the awareness stage, the primary objective is attracting potential leads and letting them meet the brand. With WhatsApp, marketing teams can reach a broad audience through personal and direct communication. Marketing agents can send out campaign messages to segmented lists based on their previous research, leading the right audience to the tailored content. This method is great for product launches, seasonal sales and rebrand strategizing.
Another key element of WhatsApp is that it allows multimedia messaging, unlike traditional SMS. Which means your marketing team can include photos, videos, graphics, and other resources in their campaigns, along with the company’s branding. This helps define your image, which benefits awareness as a whole. For example, when sending photos of your new product, you can add your brand’s logo to a custom graphic, which will highlight it amongst other messages in your client’s inbox.
Consideration
The next step is the consideration stage. That’s when the lead can turn into customers, but before they do, they will evaluate the brand’s products or services against competitors. This is a key part of the process, given that most customers are looking for details, but they need to come fast enough, as to help with a quicker decision.
With WhatsApp for marketing teams, you can help this stage move smoothly. For example, say your customer has been looking into buying from your website,e but they are unsure of shipping options. Through WhatsApp Business, the marketing team can use quick replies to FAQs, share detailed product information based on click history and offer personalized recommendations based on user interactions.
source: WhatsApp
Conversion
The conversion stage is crucial, as potential customers finalize their decision on whether to continue with your company. That’s when organizations need to be even more aware of their marketing tactics, especially through messaging on WhatsApp. Features such as quick replies and automated messages allow businesses to offer instant support, addressing any last-minute concerns or questions.
Personalized follow-ups can also be automated to remind users about their previous interests, which cuts down on drop-off rates and can reignite dormant deals. This is a step in which the marketing team works directly with Sales to ensure the customer is fully aware of the benefits your company offers and why it’s the ideal option.
One key part of this stage is that the marketing team should redirect the conversation to the right space to convert the client. For ecommerce, for instance, the marketing efforts should include a link to the product page or any promotional spaces.
If your product and service are more flexible and customized to each client, such as B2B marketing, it’s crucial to send the customer to the sales agents. That’s when WhatsApp comes in handy as a communication tool: you can simply share the contact information with the sales team member and they’ll follow up with the customer.
Loyalty
Even after the client is acquired, keeping up is part of your marketing efforts. That’s because a loyal customer can be hugely beneficial to your growth. Not only they’re already involved with your products and services, they can likely look into your company for other needs in the future.
WhatsApp can help marketing teams with a consistent, personalized loyalty marketing strategy. For example, using previous interactions as a starting point to offer discounts, keeping customers aware of new launches and relevant updates and reminding them of any available loyalty rewards.
source: WhatsApp
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Creating a Business WhatsApp for the Marketing Team
Your Marketing team needs an official space to connect with clients. Luckily, WhatsApp itself offers a business solution designed specifically for small and medium-sized companies to create a digital profile. WhatsApp Business is a free app just as user-friendly as the WhatsApp personal account.
For the marketing team members, this means reaching out is way easier – you can send promotional messages, solve questions via WhatsApp for customer service, and foster a better overall trust in your products, all throughout the buyer’s journey.
But WhatsApp communication can help the customer as well. Besides receiving personalized offers directly in their WhatsApp inbox, they can also check any profiles for authenticity and ask questions about product options and sales. Connecting with companies from the app they already use can make the process much faster than other methods, such as email or phone calls.
To set up a professional WhatsApp profile, here’s what your marketing team needs to do:
- Download the WhatsApp Business app on your mobile device;
- Open it and agree to the terms of use;
- Add your phone number (it has to be different from your personal WhatsApp account);
- It’ll send a message with the confirmation code to fill in the app;
- You can now create a business profile, with a custom avatar, description, and other contact information;
- That’s it! Now, when you chat with customers, they’ll see the company’s branding, name, and official profile.
Setting up a shared inbox through your WhatsApp for Marketing teams
Given that WhatsApp Business isn’t cutting it with all the resources your marketing team needs, it’s probably better to invest in a platform that allows you to do multiple tasks at once. You can benefit from a flexible tool, like DragApp, that works as a CRM for marketing, a campaign monitor, a project management tool, and a way to monitor any incoming messages.
Drag is a shared inbox app that works directly with Gmail and WhatsApp to build a better business platform directly on the app you’re already using. That way, instead of having to flip between tabs and programs, you can transform your regular WhatsApp inbox into a fully functional WhatsApp for teams, that allows better, more flexible collaboration and project completion.
Once again, setting up is a straightforward process:
- The first step is signing up for free;
- Download the Gmail extension;
- Log into your account and open the Drag menu next to the search bar at the top;
- Select WhatsApp as the kind of workspace you’re building;
- Log into your WhatsApp for the marketing team (the account you’ve previously created on WhatsApp Business!);
- Accept and confirm the connection;
- Your WhatsApp shared inbox will now show your incoming messages as tasks, with additional tabs for notes, an activity log, and a live chat. Here’s a quick look:
Benefits of using a shared inbox on your WhatsApp for marketing teams
Besides turning your chat list into a powerful task manager with individual cards, a WhatsApp shared inbox can streamline your whole marketing workflow.
So instead of having to use multiple tabs and services, you can access all the same marketing resources as a Gmail shared inbox, but for WhatsApp conversations, directly on Drag:
A/B testing campaigns with data analytics
A/B testing is essential for any campaign, whether it’s at the awareness stage or any further into brand recognition and conversion. You need to monitor and track results, such as replies, customer interactions, and loyalty to check which efforts have been successful – and which haven’t. That way, you can adapt your strategy accordingly.
However, to have this adaptability, your marketing team needs reliable data. DragApp offers an analytics system in which you can track your WhatsApp for the marketing team’s campaigns with custom filters. If you give each testing option a custom tag, you can check tag reports and find out which one yielded better results.
Detect collisions to avoid spam
Another useful tool is Drag’s collision detection. Often, when a marketing team collaborates on campaign efforts through WhatsApp, it can be hard to check which user is responsible for what message and customer.
With this tool, you’ll get notified about other team members dealing with the same task as you. That way, you can move on to another demand and get through daily tasks faster and more efficiently.
Automated replies to build connections
The main way Drag can help your WhatsApp marketing team’s success is through automation. More specifically, the automatic responder feature. With this tool, you can define custom conditional rules for your auto replies, based on each kind of interaction.
So, if a customer replies to your marketing team’s WhatsApp launch of a new product, they’ll receive a link to the sales page or a paragraph explaining more product details. Alternatively, you can set up a rule that messages your customer after a certain amount of days pass with no reply. Certain dates and seasons can also trigger messages with promo codes.
This tool can help your marketing team by making sure your customer is always aware of your brand, the options you offer, and any special conditions they can get.
WhatsApp for Marketing teams: best practices
While WhatsApp can be a great ally to any marketing campaign’s success, adaptability, and longevity, there are a few caution points. First of all, messages should be sent sparingly: customers love special codes and seasonal offers, but they dislike spam. Overdoing your WhatsApp chats can cause the opposite effect of turning the client away from your company.
Secondly, it’s important to keep up with customer service best practices, no matter the platform. WhatsApp is faster and more casual, but your messages should stay professional, concise, informative, and relevant to the subject. That way, they truly benefit your relationship with customers.
Should you implement WhatsApp for the marketing team?
Having a WhatsApp presence is essential to showing your customers you’re easily accessible, can answer questions, direct customers to the right place, and solve queries.
By including this messaging app in your communication stack, you are designating a space in which you can reach more customers faster, easily, and with a collaboration aspect that will benefit your marketing team. With extra resources, such as Drag’s WhatsApp shared inbox, you can go even further and develop your entire strategy in one platform.
WhatsApp is a beloved tool and, used well, can help your company grow.
Turn Gmail into your Team’s Workspace.
- 2.5x faster email responses.
- 20 hours less spent per month, per team member.
- 40% more deadlines achieved and happier teams.
