A friend who is an entrepreneur told me about his problems with customers on his online store. He had unopened emails and ignored advertisements. He also mentioned missed phone calls. That’s when I thought of WhatsApp and that he could transfer his entire Marketing strategy to it.
WhatsApp is very popular, with nearly 2 billion users. It is perfect for increasing your sales, especially in Europe. You can send messages to almost all your customers and have an open rate of over 90%.
This comprehensive guide will teach you how to use WhatsApp to communicate better. You will see how to improve your digital marketing with our app CoCo and, of course, all the possibilities and alternatives.
WhatsApp allows you to easily send texts, photos, videos, and interactive links. Instant communication is more accessible and effective than ever with WhatsApp.
Let’s discover how WhatsApp can be a key ally for your marketing strategy. It can really boost your sales
What is WhatsApp Marketing?
WhatsApp Marketing uses the famous and well-known messaging application to promote your products. Thanks to this marketing tool, online (or even physical) businesses talk directly with their customers. This makes communication more personal and immediate.
Because yes, on WhatsApp, you expect to always talk to friends, family… It is an almost intimate channel where you will also be able to talk with your favorite brands!
WhatsApp allows you to launch targeted campaigns. It offers a more intimate relationship with customers by sending various types of content. Messages sent via WhatsApp have an open rate of over 95%, much higher than email newsletters, and are less expensive than SMS.
WhatsApp Business offers suitable tools for those who want a simple and basic communication channel. They can create a virtual catalog of 500 items. Larger companies, on the other hand, can use WhatsApp Business API to send messages to a large number of contacts.
Except that using WhatsApp API is complex. Fortunately, we have simplified everything with our application CoCo!
Moreover, WhatsApp is also effective for recovering customers who have abandoned their cart. Automated messages can encourage up to 60% of them to buy. This increases the conversion rate. The Baymard Institute shows that e-commerce stores lose $18 billion annually due to abandoned carts, so you do too! Instant messaging campaigns can greatly reduce this figure.
Why use WhatsApp for marketing?
WhatsApp is a great way to reach a lot of people with direct and personalized communications. Your customers have you in their pocket.
Rather than having an email inbox constantly spammed with advertisements, they will only put brands in WhatsApp where they can receive personalized and quality advice, so their favorite brands!
Direct and personalized communication
Using WhatsApp is like talking directly to your customers. You can interact with them as you would with your friends and family. This proximity increases engagement, as 75% of adults prefer this method.
But your WhatsApp account cannot do that. You will need to connect a chatbot AI application like CoCo to allow artificial intelligence to answer all your customers’ questions precisely and quickly.
Increased engagement
The results of WhatsApp for marketing are impressive. A campaign by the brand Absolut Vodka in Argentina received over 1000 messages and 600 new contacts. This shows that WhatsApp can really boost engagement.
50% of WhatsApp Business users have seen an improvement in satisfaction and sales. These figures prove the effectiveness of WhatsApp for communicating directly with customers. des ventes. Ces chiffres prouvent l’efficacité de WhatsApp pour communiquer directement avec les clients.
Global reach
WhatsApp is very popular worldwide. In India, for example, it has over 400 million active users. In France, it has over 30 million. This offers international reach for all businesses, small or large.
Don’t worry if your customers are in Europe, you will have a lot, a lot of people to target!
By using well-thought-out campaigns, such as QR codes on Facebook and Instagram, sharing your link for your group, or installing a WhatsApp chat bubble on your site, you will fill your contact base and thus reach new customers in an engaging way.
High open rates
WhatsApp messages have an open rate of 98%, much higher than traditional emails. 80% of messages are read within the first 5 minutes. This shows that your messages are seen and seen quickly.
Moreover, these messages come straight to the top of the application with a little red notification. What could be more intriguing when a brand comes to talk to you? And of course, all this is GDPR compliant because you can click on a STOP button or send a STOP message to unsubscribe, allowing you to keep a number with an excellent rating and reputation (this will help with your deliverability).
This increases your chances of conversion and engagement.
How to start with WhatsApp Business and do better
Okay, you want to use WA for your biz. But know that there are two ways to use it. Either you open a WhatsApp Business channel where you won’t be able to do personalized communication and be limited to 1000 contacts in your group… Or you use the WhatsApp Business API which will allow you to have ultra-personalized marketing and individual conversations, automated by AI.
And it’s done super easily with an application (especially if you’re on Shopify).
Download and install the application
Start by downloading and installing the WA application. You can find it for free on the Play Store and the App Store.
Make sure to choose a professional phone number for your business. This helps keep your personal and professional messages separate.
Setting up the professional profile
After installation, set up your profile. Add details like opening hours and address.
This makes your business information easy to find for your customers. With 1.3 billion daily users, it’s an opportunity to boost your visibility.à trouver pour vos clients. Avec 1,3 milliard d’utilisateurs quotidiens, c’est une chance à saisir pour booster votre visibilité.
Using key WhatsApp Business features
Use the business features of WhatsApp to better interact with your customers. Here are some essential tools:
- Automatic messages: Welcome your customers with welcome messages and respond instantly even outside opening hours.
- Message labels: Organize your conversations to track important interactions with your customers.
- Messaging statistics: Analyze your performance and adjust your strategy to better meet your customers’ needs. And that’s it, you can only do that by responding manually.
You can also send a general message that will be visible to only a few customers, but no cart recovery, nothing… Unless you use our alternative that follows.
Use a real WhatsApp application for your personalized marketing
You can’t do much with this WhatsApp Business channel, can you? We will show you that with an application you will be able to do REAL marketing, with cart recovery, targeted messages, advice… In short, if you have a serious business, this is the thing to do because you know: personalization and quality rhyme with sales growth !
1. Automation of abandoned cart recovery on WhatsApp
Advanced automation thanks to AI CoCo uses artificial intelligence to interact with your customers autonomously and intelligently and configures in a few minutes. Unlike classic WhatsApp Business, which requires manual or semi-automated responses, CoCo can:
- Understand your customers’ needs.
- Recommend relevant products.
- Respond instantly, even outside working hours.
This allows you to manage more customers without extra effort and even when you sleep at night (sleep is important!).
2. Integration with Shopify
CoCo is designed to connect directly to your Shopify store. This means that:
- CoCo can view your inventory in real-time.
- It can send links to specific products, track orders, and even manage abandoned carts. And honestly, cart recovery is ultra-performing!
- With classic WhatsApp Business, you would have to manage all this manually, which takes time and increases the risk of error.
In short, these are simple scenarios/automations to activate. You are then free to customize the templates of the messages that are sent. But really, just install the application in a few minutes and it’s ready!
3. Recovery of abandoned carts (checkout recovery)
CoCo excels in recovering abandoned carts by automatically sending reminders to customers, which classic WhatsApp Business does not do natively. You will increase your sales effortlessly. Of course, CoCo speaks several languages and will send a template in the language you want.
4. Targeted marketing
CoCo can send personalized messages that we call icebreakers, in short, these are your newsletter campaigns that can talk about:
- Specific promotions.
- New products.
- Loyalty offers.
Classic WhatsApp Business does not offer these automated features… In addition to that, if someone sends a message following the sending of your newsletter, it will automatically respond and close your customer.
Each newsletter can have buttons, CTAs, links…
5. Tracking and statistics
CoCo provides detailed statistics on interactions, conversions, and message performance. This data is essential for optimizing your strategies. With classic WhatsApp Business, you only have access to basic metrics.
We are talking about CTR, open rate, and of course, a very precise tracking of generated sales (cart recovery, newsletter, conversation…).
6. Premium customer experience
Thanks to CoCo, your customers benefit from a smooth and professional experience:
- Fast and relevant assistance.
- Personalized suggestions.
- A feeling of human interaction without constant effort.
- Moreover, you can customize everything, if you want the AI to use informal language, formal language, behave in a certain way or transmit URLs…
With classic WhatsApp Business, your responses may be less reactive and less adapted.
In summary
If you are looking to:
- Increase your sales.
- Save time.
- Improve the customer experience.
- Automate your customer service without losing personalization…
- And to be on WhatsApp (of course)
CoCo is an AI chatbot that will blow you away for your online store. Classic WhatsApp Business is useful for small businesses that manage everything manually, but CoCo takes you to the next level with tools specially designed for e-commerce. 🚀
Examples of successful marketing campaigns on WhatsApp
Campaigns on WhatsApp allow you to reach a lot of people. They also offer a tailored experience. Let’s look at some interesting examples, how about it?
The Absolut campaign
Absolut created a unique campaign for its limited edition, Absolut Unique. They used a “virtual bouncer” on WhatsApp. A winner got to go to an exclusive party by talking to this bouncer.
This idea attracted more than 600 participants. And created a huge buzz.
The Hellmann’s initiative
Hellmann’s asked people to send photos of their fridge. The brand’s chefs responded with custom-made recipes. This created a strong bond with customers, with a 99% satisfaction rate.
It is an inspiring example in the food industry.
Fruitful use case of a large brand
Pringles a engagé plus de 300,000 participants avec des concours. Adidas a aussi fait un grand buzz avec “Rent a Predator”.
Pringles engaged more than 300,000 participants with contests. Adidas also created a big buzz with “Rent a Predator”.
These examples show the effectiveness of WhatsApp. They prove that creativity and interaction are key to connecting with your audience. You can offer a truly interactive experience through WA with AI, you just need to give it the right instructions. And for that, our documentation and our team are available to help you!
7 applications and software for WhatsApp Marketing
Of course, we are not the only ones, but we are convinced we are the best. So here are some other WhatsApp applications and marketing software that allow you to do all this, it’s up to you to find your favorite. (However, a large part is only adapted to managing a WA Business channel and not all the personalization I told you about).
- Sendinblue: Offers a complete emailing and messaging service. It has flexible pricing based on the number of messages sent. Perfect for mass campaigns.
- WATI: Has advanced automation with a $49/month plan. Includes 1,000 free conversations per month. Facilitates the management of your professional communications.
- NovoChat: Available from $7/month. NovoChat offers varied plans and features for all businesses.
- Ameyo: An advanced customer experience software. Easy to integrate, but without public rates.
- Twilio: Known for its API services. Charges $0.01 per message. Ideal for businesses that want to integrate marketing tools without hidden costs.
- Whatso: Allows mass sending of WhatsApp messages. Offers advanced integration and personalization capabilities to target your audience.
- WebEngage: Provides detailed data and marketing solutions. Useful for tech companies that want to optimize their strategies. Feel free to compare, and we would be happy to have you join us to catapult your revenue!
Libre à vous de comparer, et nous serons heureux de vous retrouver à nos côtés pour catapuler votre CA !
Tips for optimizing your WhatsApp Marketing campaigns
As with emailing, there are good practices and bad practices regarding your WA marketing strategy. Don’t spam, deliver quality content, and everything will go smoothly. But also, follow the advice below.
Segment your contacts
Segmenting your contacts can change everything. By dividing your contacts by behavior, preferences, and interests, you can send more relevant messages. WhatsApp allows you to create multiple lists for better targeting.
Subsequently, our AI will propose an automatic segmentation that will allow you to easily find who is ready to buy, who is waiting for your products, your most loyal customers, etc…
Test and adjust your messages and templates
A/B tests are crucial for finding the best content. Test different calls to action or message formats. This way, you can improve your campaigns through continuous optimization. It’s like a web page or emailing, it needs to be tested!
Perform performance analyses
A detailed performance analysis is essential. Measure open rate, click rate, conversion rate, and ROI. This data will help you optimize your strategies. Everything is always in the analysis. Moreover, we allow you to read your conversations one by one to see what your customers need!
Conclusion
Using WhatsApp in your marketing strategy is a great idea. You will go where your competitors are not. When everyone is trying to be visible in your customers’ email inbox, you will have created a special bond on WA with yours.
Just to give you an example, a campaign by WestWood Leber saw an open rate of 94% and a 72% increase in engagement compared to emails.
I am sure that thanks to this guide on WA, you can improve your interactions with customers. You will see a real impact on your sales! And what comfort for you and your customers to have an AI that gives quality advice 24/7 and in all languages!
