How to promote your business on WhatsApp
With a 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide, this kind of penetration just can’t be ignored. While WhatsApp hasn’t given businesses too many obvious ways to use their powerful platform for sales and marketing, there are however ways you can go about promoting your business on the platform.
How to promote your business on WhatsApp
Reasons to use WhatsApp for promoting your business
These are reasons why you should seriously consider WhatsApp as a social media tool for promoting your business.
- It’s free
- It lets you send images, ebooks, texts, brochures and catalogs
- It is a great survey tool. You can easily use this to get feedback from your customers
- You can use it for group discussions and meetings
- As a messaging app, it lets you send alerts about news events and sales
- Your messages won’t be lost; offline message alerts ensures users know when a message is waiting or is being received.
- Many of your customers are probably already using it. More than 60 billion messages are sent through WhatsApp every day.
- It has incredible engagement rates: 98% of WhatsApp messages are opened and read, with 90% of them getting opened within three seconds of being received.
How to use WhatsApp for your business
WhatsApp has versions for iPhone, Android, Windows phone, and the Nokia S40. There’s also a web app and desktop versions for Mac or Windows PCs, but you need to first have it installed on your mobile phone since each WhatsApp account is tied directly to a single phone number.
WhatsApp has so many features that enhance business promotion, including but not limited to the following. However, since WhatsApp does not sell ad space or have a lot of business-specific features (aside from the business app ) you have to be innovative in your marketing approach.
- Create broadcast lists
Create broadcast lists related to specific topics, then send out one-way messages designed specifically to increase engagement. Your message should links and invitations to your website, YouTube, or Facebook page etc; so as to get the kind of engagement you need for your business. This is probably one of the best ways to get a wide reach for your business. When you send a message through a broadcast list, it will go to everyone on your list who has your number saved in their phone. Broadcast lists are limited to 256 people.
- Use group chats
Group chats provides you with the ease of messaging to and interacting with 256 people at once. You get to share messages, videos, and photos. This is especially useful when you need to conduct market studies for an intending business or product launch.
How to promote your business on WhatsApp
How to leverage group chats for your business
- For real-time customer service: Due to the fact WhatsApp features rich media, you can use text, audio, or videos to provide a personal customer service experience.
- For customer support: Whether you are a fashion designer, an electrician, carpenter, product dealer, or repair stuff. You can create video presentations for your customers. Make them easy to understand and simple with the aim to providing guidance for your customers. This will make your business a reliable resource your customers can always count on.
- For getting feedback: According to data, the open rate for WhatsApp messages is 70 percent. You can use group chats as a medium to create questions for your group that will fetch you answers for your business survey. You can then seek to improve your products and/or services for your customers from the feedback obtained from the answers received.
- Personal touch: As your WhatsApp group continues to grow, you can then start to personalize your interactions with customers. This way, your customers can message you directly if they need a particular product, they have a question or need support.
- For creating and targeting groups: By creating and targeting groups in your WhatsApp that are interested in specific topics, you can easily increase your customer base. Knowing that eventually your group members could start sharing your unique content with other people outside the group. And will lead to more people consuming the content, joining the group, and eventually becoming customers.
- It builds user loyalty: WhatsApp, unlike any other social media platforms has more capacity to build customer loyalty. This is further reinforced by group chats.
- Optimize WhatsApp status
WhatsApp status just like Instagram and Snapchat story, allows it’s users share quick photos or videos which can be seen by WhatsApp contacts in your phone that have your number saved in theirs. These photos or vi
deos typically disappear after a twenty four hour period. You can use this to put up great content in the form of photos and videos which can promote your business.
How to promote your business on WhatsApp
How to use WhatsApp status to promote your business
You can fully optimize WhatsApp status in promoting your business using the following approaches:
- To share promotional codes and flash sales: Using the WhatsApp status feature you can create some special promotional codes which your customers can share to redeem at your business. Now, based on the interaction levels you can expand the promotion with WhatsApp status exclusive sales or flash sales.
- For special access: Anytime you have special and upcoming events in your company, you can use WhatsApp status update to let your customers know about it. The instant interaction capability of WhatsApp status also makes it possible to provide special access to events you are holding or intending to. Your WhatsApp status can also be used to send live feeds.
- Create demos for your products: Whether you are a product manufacturer or simply just involved in selling them, you can demo them on status and let your customers know when you have a new product or arrival. And so whether or not a customer needs this particular product , they’ll at least know that it is available
- Giveaways: You can plan for monthly, weekly or even daily giveaways and freebies to bring in more customers for your business, and more traffic and unique visits for your website.
The major key to using WhatsApp effectively to promote your business is to ensure that you do not abuse the relationship you build with your audience. Don’t make every interaction about making sales. Measure your interactions such that each message you send has value.
Did this help?
(B.Agric, MBA)
08105636015, 08076359735
Serial Entrepreneur - International Business Planning Consultant - Speaker - Trainer - Author - Blogger - Network Marketing professional.
- 2018 SME Business Trainer and Coaching Advisor at GIZ for SME Loop.
- 2018 YALI RLC Online Cohort 9
- 2017 Fellow, Inspire Africa Train-the-Trainer Entrepreneurship programme sponsored by US Consulate Lagos and the Dickey Center, U.S.A.
- 2016 Fellow, Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme
- 2015 Top 50 Innovative Entrepreneurs, BET5 by Diamond Bank and EDC, PAU.
He is an alumnus of Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of the Lagos Business School (LBS), Pan-Atlantic University (PAU). Through his training, mentoring, speaking and coaching programmes, he has empowered many young people over the years to start and grow their own business, build wealth, create multiple streams of income and achieve financial independence.
- He is a Certified Trainer in Design Thinking by the U.S Consulate, Lagos and the inspire Africa Entrepreneurship Institute.
- Katumu Adasi: How to survive in Nigeria without a job - February 11, 2021
- Top 5 business and services with the highest demands in Nigeria - January 4, 2021
- How to Become a Millionaire doing Rice Farming in Nigeria - January 4, 2021