Of course it is common knowledge and a common strategy for businesses to use social media websites like Facebook and Twitter for marketing and advertising. However, messenger apps are quickly catching up on the social-media-for-marketing trend. Many people use messenger apps like WhatsApp more than social media apps like Facebook nowadays. WhatsApp has over more than 1.5 billion users around the world. At this day and age, many people around the world opt for using WhatsApp rather than SMS. Many businesses do not want to pass up on the great opportunity of using WhatsApp for marketing their businesses. However, how should they market when they can only use WhatsApp with a registered single number? How can they target the whole WhatsApp community when WhatsApp only allows a person to contact their contacts? How can they market properly when the message does not reach the whole community?

 

What is WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is, as already mentioned, a messenger app. It is completely free and all you have to do is download it, register your number on it and use it. Its features include sending your current location or any location, sending contact numbers, sending images and videos and video calling. No charges apply. Although Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014, WhatsApp does not have the marketing friendly features like Facebook. With WhatsApp you can either talk to a person one-on-one or create a group chat.

 

Why Should You Use WhatsApp For Marketing

The WhatsApp community is humongous. Billions and billions of people use it. Researches have been carried out which have proven that customers are more likely to buy from a business if they can contact them directly. Young buyers, especially, feel more comfortable buying from a business through messaging apps. They can easily get the information and details of a particular product which they need from a live person and not a computerized robot. It is much easier to get in touch. At least 90-98% of the texts which are sent via WhatsApp are always read and replied back.

 

 Marketing With WhatsApp

As already mentioned before, WhatsApp is not marketing friendly. There are no features that help you market your business so you have to get creative.

• Customer communication. You get more replies when using WhatsApp to do follow ups and asking a customer about their review on a particular product. The response is quick, unlike phone calls which many people don’t pick. After all, no one wants to answer an unknown number. However with WhatsApp, you can get informal with your customer by doing follow ups and sending them new offers and discounts.
• Customer support. Many customers find it easy and convenient to contact the business on WhatsApp by texting rather than calling them. Any reports or complaints or praises they have, you can get them through WhatsApp. People often tend to be shy and do not offer praises or complain about products properly through calls. However with WhatsApp, everything is made easy. You can improve on your service with more customer feedback.

If you want to market via WhatsApp, check out WhatsApp Marketing and WhatsApp Group Links for more information.