How Whatsapp Can Improve Marketing
WhatsApp, one of the largest and growing social networking app, is just a simple messaging platform with over 1.5 billion users and 450 million daily active users. Since its inception in 2009, WhatsApp has grown to focus more on expanding the user experience by supporting it with over sixty languages. It has also added video or voice call options, content sharing options and the ability to access WhatsApp from the web. WhatsApp can also be added from other social networking platforms like Facebook and Instagram as well as websites with widgets that gives visitors the opportunity to share their content via WhatsApp.
All of these interesting features on WhatsApp has made it gain popularity all over the world – in over 180 countries to be specific. The popularity of the app caught the attention of small and large business owners who saw an opportunity to keep in touch with their customers and make communication easier for prospective customers too. It was not surprising to see that WhatsApp began to release new features that allowed brands to communicate and connect better with their customers who were also active on WhatsApp.
For brands, WhatsApp is more than just a simple online communication tool. It has now grown to be an effective and efficient tool for marketing their products and services. The obvious question that many businesses may ask is ‘How can a simple messaging platform like WhatsApp be used to achieve business marketing goals? If you would like to use WhatsApp to achieve your marketing goals, it would be very useful to get in touch with a digital marketing agency to help you to reach your targets. Here is a list of weven ways that WhatsApp can be used to achieve business marketing goals.
1. Builds a strong relationship with customers to earn their trust
Any serious marketer is always on the lookout for virtual spaces that bring together people with the same or similar interests. The reason for this is that in such a gathering, a brand is likely to find its target audience. Once found, they would want to take advantage of it and connect with their audience and establish their brand presence in that space. If the marketing goal of the business is to build stronger relationships with their target audience, WhatsApp is one of the cheapest and fastest ways brands can create and nurture a healthy relationship with their customers with the hope of gaining their trust.
As we know, trust plays a crucial role when people are making buying decisions. Businesses can initiate chats one-on-one or broadcast messages to customers using WhatsApp. Businesses can group their customers together and send messages (texts, videos, images or links that they will find useful).
2. Offers market research capabilities
Market research is an integral aspect of any business that wants to be successful. Brands can use WhatsApp to improve their marketing goals by first carrying out simple research before launching any marketing campaign. This can be done by sending messages to customers about a new product you are working on and seek their opinion on either the pricing, size, quality, quantity, color preference, packaging and so on. When customers feel like they are a part of the branding process, it increases the likelihood of them buying into the brand and purchasing the product. With this, brands can creatively initiate a subtle awareness about the product or service by making their customers anticipate the release of the product that they have already started having an interest in.
Brands can use WhatsApp to carry out simple surveys that can be used to improve a new or existing product or service. While interacting with their customers, brands can encourage feedback and discover areas that they can improve on or intensify. The conversational tone of WhatsApp helps with this. Collecting feedback is crucial when developing an overall marketing strategy.
3. Can be used to offer excellent customer service
Brands can boost their marketing goals by offering excellent customer service and support to all their customers through WhatsApp. Impressive customer support is a major marketing boost. It is for this reason that most big brands invest heavily in acquiring software and workforce that will improve their customer service. WhatsApp offers both brands and customers the flexibility to access each other at any time of the day. Brands can switch to WhatsApp for Business to take advantage of the interesting features that WhatsApp has for small businesses. These features include automated messages for interacting with customers when away and instant replies for improving the speed of response to frequently asked questions and much more.
4. Can be used to keep customers updated with status features
The status feature on WhatsApp is also another way to keep customers updated about the brand. Even though status only lasts for 24 hours, it can still be used to engage customers creatively. This can be done by sharing updates, asking interactive questions, doing giveaways or flash sales which would make them look forward to the brand’s status update.
Businesses can also keep customers updated by sharing links to the brand’s website for a specific product going on sale, or links to the brand’s social media channels to connect them with other activities going on with the brand outside of WhatsApp.
5. Can be used to gather user-generated content
Businesses can use WhatsApp to gather content created by those who use their products or services and share this content on their status as well. Brands can request that customers send pictures of them using their product for a chance to win something and these pictures can be used for marketing within WhatsApp or on other social media platforms.
6. Can be used to expand to international communities
For businesses wishing to expand their brands to international communities on a small scale, WhatsApp is a good platform to start. WhatsApp is actively used in over 180 countries. Brands can interact with anyone in these countries to distribute their products or services across borders without having to bother about international charges that might apply when making calls or sending messages.
7. Can be used to build a marketing list
The statistics on WhatsApp is real-time. You can instantly know who has received your message and read it. Brands can easily identify those who interact well with content they share and build a marketing list. They can keep sharing relevant marketing content to encourage more sales. This list can also be grouped based on the sales cycle of each customer.