7 Ways WhatsApp Can Be Used For ECommerce Marketing Strategy

[This article was written by Jenny S.]

Whatsapp is a social media platform with some of the largest active users in the world and it is still growing each day. The application is easy to understand and use, and comes up with high standards of communication quality in the industry. Facebook owns the messaging platform now and comes up with innovations and updates regularly to keep the platform at the top of other competing messaging platforms. By using the latest technology in keeping their data private, WhatsApp has the trust of several leading companies on the planet.

Whatsapp includes several exciting features such as the end to end message encryption, locations sharing, last seen and read indication, and several others. These features continuously innovate and drive technology in the area of social media and online messaging platforms. A crucial aspect of Whatsapp is that you can not spam a customer who is not familiar with your business. The platform also boasts of a whopping 70 per cent engagement rate which may be the highest of any online marketing platform.

The most impressive feature is that users and businesses can make use of the platform for sending messages without the need for payment. As an e-commerce business, you will have limits to the physical interaction you have with customers. Whatsapp helps to effectively solve the need for businesses to instantly communicate using the online medium in real-time. This article will help you in understanding the 7 ways Whatsapp can be useful for your e-commerce marketing strategy.

7 Ways Whatsapp Can Be Used For E-Commerce Marketing Strategy

1. Organizing Communication

Businesses can leverage the Whatsapp platform for coordinating the communication with the clients of your e-commerce business. Effective communication is at the base of every marketing strategy, and Whatsapp allows you to communicate with a large number of prospective customers at the same time. Businesses can find the exact conversation you want rapidly as you can categorize every conversation by using labels in the same way you categorize emails.

You can organize your customers in a broadcast list for sending broadcast messages instantaneously. You can also group your potential customers and regular customers into separate categories for sending communication with different strategies. Since you send the messages through a broadcast group, your customers will not need to see the other recipients of the message thus maintaining privacy.

E-commerce businesses can easily keep track of individual conversations with their customers since it takes place in a single platform. Businesses can use distinct keywords for finding the same phrases in a conversation by using the search feature in Whatsapp. Since Whatsapp is the platform with the highest engagement rate, you can expect excellent response rates when you send messages.

You can easily engage your customers constantly by sending promotional codes and discount coupons at regular intervals. You will only need to use your creativity to send the brand messages in unique formats to your customers. Even if the representative of the company forgets the reason for the customer reaching out to them, they can easily search their conversation and find out exactly what they need.

2. Creating A Brand Persona

Whatsapp is a platform that allows one-on-one interactions instead of interacting with a large audience as in the case of other social media platforms. Individuals can talk with each other and connect with their friends and family using the platform. If you are an e-commerce brand reaching out to your customers through Whatsapp, you will need to connect as a friend instead of a business. You can use blog outreach services to build relationships and access a new audience and then redirect the traffic to your Whatsapp.

You can create an interactive brand persona or character with an informal name that represents your business and can communicate with your client in an informal tone. The customer service manager of your business can manage the Whatsapp profile of your brand behind the persona. E-commerce businesses will find it easy to agree on payment, delivery terms, and asking questions as they can easily engage in conversations with their customers on Whatsapp and exchanging pictures of your products.

Your e-commerce business can also create engagement and interest with their customers through designing a fictional character as the face of their brand. You can release the Whatsapp number of your brand to your customers by publicizing it through your advertising and media outlets. You can even bring in your customers for various events repeatedly using the same brand persona once you create it. Using intuitive videos and voice messages are some effective techniques to improve the interaction rate to your messages.

3. Lead Generation

Lead generation is crucial for any business and you can use the Whatsapp platform for adding to the leads for your e-commerce business. You can use the chatbots feature that is available in Whatsapp for entirely automating the process of lead generation. Customers can easily provide their details to you by just clicking on a click-to-chat link. You will automatically get the name and phone number of your client when they start to engage in a conversation with you.

You will need to give a persuasive call to action for the customer to engage in a conversation with you. You will be having the data of customers who want a certain product that is out of stock at the moment. You can automate sending a message or notification through Whatsapp to these customers when you get the product back in stock so that they can proceed with the purchase.

You can also engage in conversations and resolve queries through Whatsapp proactively to get website visitors and solve their queries through the use of Whatsapp chatbots. You can also start a click to Whatsapp strategy through launching an ads campaign and acquire new customers. Your prospective customers will automatically redirect to an invitation to join Whatsapp chat when they click on the ad on Facebook or Google and allow you to engage your customers in a better way.

4. Customer Service

Any e-commerce business requires good customer service to satisfy the requirements and queries of your customers. Customer service allows a company to get to know about the shortcomings in the service or product of your company. The Whatsapp platform is ideal for setting up a strong customer service feature for your brand and managing a clear rapport between your customers and the company.

Your customers can have real conversations with the customer care representatives in your brand instead of one-way communication such as in the case of e-mail. Conversations in real-time are vital for an e-commerce business as there is little opportunity to engage in physical conversations in the real world for your brand. Whatsapp allows you to have direct engagement with your customers through instant messaging that is both simple and easy to use.

You can also utilize features such as notifications for product delivery and confirmation messages for enhancing customer service. You can also personalize the treatment for your customer by using innovative features such as voice calls and video calls over the regular chat service.

5. Secure Communication

Security of the private details of the consumer and the company are essential to safeguard the personal interests of users while engaging in business communication. The majority of online retailers are afraid of degrading the quality of communication when using security features such as two-factor authentication. However, security is mandatory as cybercrime rates are on the rise across the world with the growth in the e-

Culprits can use the account details to perform fake transactions and takeover accounts of your customers. You can use the Whatsapp Business solution to ensure that all the conversations and sensitive information between your business and the customers are secure. Using these features allows your customers to become more trustworthy of your brand and can be a useful addition to your marketing strategy.

6. Consumer Research

Whatsapp has a host of features that allows you to perform extensive research on your customers rapidly and without needing to pay for conducting the research. You can directly perform a survey by asking your customers directly about their preferences. You can provide various choices to questions and they can answer according to their preferences. You will also get the results of your research within minutes of initiating it instead of waiting for months.

7. Automating Frequent Questions

Frequently asked questions are a set of repeating queries that many customers have in common. You can use Whatsapp for helping your customers to clear their doubts and reach the decision to purchase simpler. Whatsapp has a chatbots feature that allows the use of artificial intelligence to answer the frequent questions of the consumer.

Some of the most frequent questions include the payment options, size chart, refund policy, company information, and product range. This allows customers to get instant replies instead of waiting around for someone from the e-commerce brand to reach back with a reply. You can also reduce the need for employing additional staff for handling customer queries.

Conclusion

Any business can take advantage of the vast user base of Whatsapp to drive the marketing and sales of their products and services. With the advent of social media and the internet, the need for every business to take advantage of digital marketing over conventional marketing is continually on the rise. Regardless of the niche, Whatsapp can help you find the ideal customers for your business due to the billions of users in its audience.

The users of WhatsApp stretches to over 180 countries meaning that your business can reach the target audience irrespective of where your business operates. Besides, Whatsapp also supports the use of images and videos as well as video and voice calling features. These can aid in helping customers to understand your product and make the decision to purchase. The proper use of Whatsapp can be incredibly helpful for developing the marketing of your e-commerce business.

Author Bio:

Jenny is a passionate content writer. She specialises in the field of bloggers outreach services & digital marketing. She also enjoys painting and photography.