What is Whatsapp?
If you’re not one of the millions of Whatsapp users and haven’t encountered the app previously, you don’t know what you’re missing…

It’s a mobile instant messaging service which allows you to connect with your contacts and provides flexible ways of doing so, either through text, voice or images. It’s also a pretty cheap service – you only have to pay a yearly fee of 69p after your first year. So you can see why it’s such an appealing service for individuals and more increasingly, for brands and businesses.

Whatsapp

What are the benefits of Whatsapp?

  • It’s quick and easy to use
  • It costs very little
  • Can help you build closer customer relationships by using a personal approach
  • Allows you to engage with your established customer base directly
  • It can be used as another channel for marketing
  • Can support brand positioning
  • Can help you to promote events
  • It’s an easy platform to host a discussion
  • Almost one billion people are using it on mobile devices across the globe

How can Whatsapp help your brand?
Whatsapp is a service that will allow you to connect with people around the world directly, efficiently and cheaply. It’s also a great platform to create short, sharp messages that will be hard for your audience to miss thanks to push notifications.

To get started with this, you need a mobile and database of contacts (mobile numbers) to reach out to. It’s usually good to connect with your loyal customer base first as they will be the most likely to want updates from your brand and it will allow them to interact with you more easily.

Whatsapp doesn’t just have to be used for promotions; it’s also useful to get feedback or to ask questions. This allows you to get relevant data and information as well as personalising interactions – every customer wants to feel like they matter to your business.

As a relatively new platform Whatsapp has a very large following, making it a great place to try new ideas and target more customers directly.

The do’s of Whatsapp
Even though you’re on a typically informal platform and your messaging should still be relatively fun, it is important to maintain a professional tone through your messages. With this, we mean keep your approach customer-focused whilst remaining approachable to deal with any queries or complaints. It’s important to have the platform consistently managed so that responses are managed within a short time frame.

You can also use Whatsapp to support other marketing channels.  For example if you’ve previously advertised an offer on your Facebook or Twitter page, it’s good to follow up on Whatsapp to check that your customers haven’t missed it and/or get their feedback. It’ll also give a more personal approach and help your customers feel as though the offer is directed at them individually.

We all know that visual content has become increasingly popular and the people respond more to it. If you are promoting a service or product, try using visual content (including emojis) to increase engagement and response rates.

emoji list

For all this to be possible, it’s a useful idea to review how Whatsapp fits into your existing marketing strategy and put a plan of action in place.  Once you’re up and running don’t forget to add your Whatsapp contact details on your website and other social media platforms, making it easily accessible for your audience. Some may even be surprised that you’re available through the app, so it’s good to get the message out there.

The don’ts of Whatsapp
Even though it’s easy and quick to send messages, that doesn’t mean you should be sending out messages to your contacts 24/7. If you send messages too frequently, it’s likely that your customers will get annoyed with constantly being bombarded with messages. So make sure you stagger your messages and keep them relevant.

It’s also really important to remember that if customers take time to give you their feedback, don’t ignore them even if you feel the information isn’t useful. If you are going to use the service, it’s crucial to demonstrate to your professional approach to your customers.

With this in mind, it’s also bad practice to create groups of all the numbers you have in your contact list without people opting in. For some, information you send in these groups may be irrelevant and will cause your customers to lose interest in the service. Keep your messaging at the front of mind when you’re deciding who to target as you would with any other marketing service.