WhatsApp has more users than Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest combined, totalling 5 million businesses and over 100 billion messages exchanged daily. This makes WhatsApp one of the most effective marketing channels, and yet only 7% of marketers and very few eCommerce brands use WhatsApp for marketing.
WhatsApp vs. email vs. SMS. Which one is better? It depends on your goals, KPIs, and plan of action. However, email is long-form and considered a professional means of communication, and SMS isn’t widely used in the UK and Europe because of high direct message charges. So, WhatsApp hits a home run in every segment—it’s fast, affordable, and global.
So, in this article, we’ll talk about the WhatsApp API, and how you can integrate WhatsApp into your marketing mix.
Why use WhatsApp for marketing?
WhatsApp is the biggest contact aggregator and messaging platform in the world.
Ask yourself—how many times do you open the app every day? Chances are, it's several times, especially since the pandemic when WhatsApp became a staple to stay connected to friends and family even in the same city as yourself.
“WhatsApp is Email back in the 2000s. Open rates are through the roof, like 90% or more. As a consumer I look down at brands that are not sending me transactional messages on WhatsApp.” Jaison Thomas, Co-Founder BluSteak
Here are some other critical reasons why you should use WhatsApp for marketing in 2022:
- Popularity and higher accessibility: WhatsApp is the number one global messaging app, and almost 50% users open the app every day. It’s more accessible than email or SMS, with better connectivity, faster communication, and a global usage trend.
- WhatsApp offers a higher ROI than email: Mobile messaging channels like SMS and WhatsApp have an open rate of 98% as compared to the 21% open rate of emails. This offers an excellent opportunity to get high returns on direct response marketing and even ad targeting given WhatsApp and Facebook share data with each other—making it an obvious win in front of email.
- Stronger customer relationships: WhatsApp marketing is an excellent way to spotlight your brand and get in touch with your customers following a one-to-one approach rather than one-to-many. Thus, it allows you to strengthen customer relationships and achieve a higher retention rate.
- Frictionless and faster customer cycles: With WhatsApp, you can personalize your campaigns to the highest degree and get the user to act now rather than later. Besides, businesses say customers answer 40% of their WhatsApp messages. This gives you a massive opportunity to address bottlenecks in the sales process and nudge the customer towards the purchase.
All these pointers solidify the vital role WhatsApp can play in getting brands closer to their customers, business goals, sales, and revenue KPIs. But how exactly can you integrate this messaging channel into your marketing strategy? Let’s explore.
How to integrate WhatsApp into your marketing
We know that email isn’t going away anytime soon and helps educate customers about your product with long-form content like newsletters. However, WhatsApp is better for short-form communications when you want your customers to read and act on something in a timely manner.
Here are some ideas to integrate WhatsApp into your marketing strategy:
1) Instant shopping
In 2021, Facebook launched WhatsApp shop, turning it into a complete eCommerce platform where customers can view the brand’s catalog and instantly order products.
Imagine launching a new product series or giving customers the option to explore similar products as their recent purchase and bring in repeat business. Better than having them click a link on SMS or log in to see their email, you can send them a WhatsApp message with the embedded catalog to purchase then and there.
"The great thing about WhatsApp is that it lets you send offers to all your customers over and above the transactional or triggered messages. You can also build mini-stores where you can select products and add them to carts. The result of such a wide variety of actions can often be phenomenal. For example, I have been able to increase the rate of returning customers by 40% for a D2C haircare brand from this single channel." Suryanarayan Pal, Marketing Expert, Mailmodo
2) Cart abandonment reminders
Cart abandonment is a huge challenge in eCommerce. In fact, it runs as high as 69% across industries.
The solution? Send a cart abandonment reminder to your customers on WhatsApp with the items they left in the cart and a persuasive CTA to push them towards the purchase.
This will be much more impactful than sending email reminders or retargeting them through ads—both of which require the customer to log in on the platform and actively use it. Then too, there’s no guarantee that they’ll click on it. But through WhatsApp, you reach them in a place where they’re present at least once a day, don’t have to log in, are bound to see your message, and likely even act on it.
Tata Cliq, an Indian eCommerce brand owned by the Tata Group, uses WhatsApp to send cart abandonment recovery reminders with a special discount to incentivize customers to complete the purchase.
3) Sale announcements
Many customers aren’t even notified when the sale comes and goes because over 60% of users opt-out of push notifications, and over 59% of new subscribers never open brand emails. This requires a more solid and personal way to get sales announcements to your customers, so they know when you’re slashing your prices.
So, if you’ve got a huge sale coming up and want to gather potential customers on the waitlist, maybe even incentivize them to turn on their app reminders to get notified when the sale goes live—what better way to do it than on WhatsApp where you can instantly reach them and get results?
Croma, an electronics brand, regularly sends interesting sale announcement WhatsApp messages with a branded image, persuasive copy, an exciting offer, and the option to stop receiving such messages to respect the customers’ choices.
4) Transactional messages
Paperless transactions and COVID-19 have paved the way for more digital transaction methods. Customers no longer want physical bills for their purchases which waste paper, easily get lost if you wish to return or exchange the products or simply want to keep track of your expenses.
A much more efficient way to do this is by sending transactional messages on WhatsApp so the customer can track their purchase history on the app, and rest assured they'll get order updates and the bill there only. What’s more, it can help boost your customer retention rate and make way for higher satisfaction powered by a seamless checkout process.
Here’s how Nykaa, a beauty eCommerce company, uses WhatsApp to send transactional messages and order updates to give order updates to customers.
5) Real-time customer support
Providing stellar customer support is the pillar of eCommerce retention. However, it’s challenging to setup a physical or virtual call center or even a customer support team to personalize your customers’ experiences.
But, with WhatsApp, you can instantly help your customers—offer support, answer their questions, give them options to seek support like chat, receive a callback, or get guided to the right resources. The customers get an instant response to their queries, and you enjoy their continued business—it’s a win-win.
JioFiber, an internet broadband company that uses Whatsapp as a support channel to understand the customer’s concern through automated chatbot messages followed by a chat with the customer care executive.
Using the WhatsApp API
Although WhatsApp is a messaging platform, its business counterpart has an API version that doesn’t have an end-user interface but requires integrating your business within the software to scale your marketing efforts and comply with privacy terms.
Even though WhatsApp comes with its own set of challenges with the type of messages, it has advantages too. You can easily send text, videos, or gifs via WhatsApp, which you’ll be charged heavily for via SMS. Additionally, you can also spotlight your brand name and logo on top of WhatsApp conversations—something you can’t do with SMS.
Although WhatsApp is a messaging platform, its business counterpart has an API version that doesn’t have an end-user interface but requires integrating your business within the software to scale your marketing efforts and comply with privacy terms.
Even though WhatsApp comes with its own set of challenges with the type of messages, it has advantages too. You can easily send text, videos, or gifs via WhatsApp, which you’ll be charged heavily for via SMS. Additionally, you can also spotlight your brand name and logo on top of WhatsApp conversations—something you can’t do with SMS.
WhatsApp marketing for eCommerce
While email is excellent for delivering value and nurturing subscribers through long-form content, and SMS plays a significant role in getting instant action on time-sensitive campaigns—WhatsApp can take a bow. It stands to be the number one platform in terms of users, global coverage and usage, eCommerce-friendly features, marketing integrations, and ROI.
Use this article to build a WhatsApp marketing strategy for your eCommerce business and drive conversions through personalized and stronger customer interactions that translate into higher revenue numbers.
Blueprint is the SMS & WhatsApp platform powering CX and retention for eCommerce brands.
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