By Connectly Team
Conversational commerce is becoming the new cornerstone of customer engagement. It cultivates customer relationships and loyalty. Especially if these conversations occur on platforms where your customers already are. This minimizes additional steps, sign-up, and other hurdles that marketers know will preemptively doom their efforts.
SMS and "over the top" (OTT) messaging apps have steadily transformed interactions between customers and businesses from one-way to two-way. And the most effective OTT platform marketers can leverage is WhatsApp, given its simple yet effective messaging functionality.
But how can you use WhatsApp for marketing and reach potential customers every time you press send? Today, we're exploring WhatsApp marketing so you can put conversation back into commerce.
Created in 2009, WhatsApp is the most used messaging app in the world.
According to Business of Apps, only Facebook and YouTube have attracted larger social media user bases. While several factors can account for the app's success, WhatsApp's high engagement rate of 70% is chief among them.
Like other messaging apps, WhatsApp connects to the Internet, allowing people to send texts. But compared to SMS, one of the platform's biggest advantages is the ability to exchange rich media: videos, images and audio. And, unlike some messaging apps, WhatsApp also caters to businesses through WhatsApp Business.
Simply put, WhatsApp Business empowers brands' conversational commerce strategies by providing a dedicated platform and access to the most users of any messaging app.
Most digital marketers are intimately familiar with one-way campaigns. Whether cold emails, paid ads, or SEO, these strategies have been used extensively over the past few decades to engage with customers. But until social media, they all fell short of genuine two-way interaction. Consumers mostly remained campaign viewers, not participants.
But messaging apps and conversational commerce bring a level of personalization and depth of direct connection that few channels can match. Responses on WhatsApp are more than just a digital thumbs up.
This two-way messaging strategy can improve the business-to-customer (B2C) relationship by allowing customers to:
Regardless of your industry, WhatsApp Business can help your brand market to its full potential. The benefits of WhatsApp for marketing include market share, high engagement rates, user-friendliness, and encryption.
With 2 billion active users worldwide, WhatsApp dominates the messaging app market. Android and iOS users have downloaded WhatsApp over five billion times. It is extremely popular in Asia, Europe and South America, opening a land of opportunities for international businesses.
One aspect of WhatsApp's platform that's driving its market share is the cost. Unlike SMS, users don't need plans or pay messaging fees. This is because the platform supports communication over WiFi or smartphone data rather than cellular networks.
Engagement is the first step toward marketing success. Fortunately, conversational commerce—and WhatsApp Business in particular—boast some of the industry's best engagement numbers:
Given the prevalence of text-based messaging in contemporary society, many people feel comfortable using messaging platforms. WhatsApp increases the user experience even more by supporting two-way communication, rich media content, and easy navigation.
"For orders of customized cakes, WhatsApp allows a hassle-free process wherein the customer can convey their requirements better." Personalization isn't just possible; it's baked in.
B2C communication often involves transmitting personal information including consumer contact information, bank account information, and buying habits. WhatsApp uses encryption technology, meaning the information sent between a business and consumer is transcribed into a code that only people with a decryption key can access.
Although conversational commerce is emerging as one of the most important customer engagement channels, built-in features automate and streamline campaign execution to keep things simple:
WhatsApp Business supports various types of marketing campaigns, including promotions, product launches, personalized recommendations, sales, welcome sequences and user verification, abandoned cart sequences, scheduling and booking, feedback and surveys, informational campaigns, and platform integrations.
WhatsApp Business can be a particularly effective promotional marketing channel, reaching large audiences of both local and international consumers. Adidas created the "100% Unfair Predator" campaign on WhatsApp, inviting teams to request professional athletes to fill in for unreliable teammates on game day—showcasing their new line of cleats.
Absolut Vodka launched Absolut Unique using WhatsApp, encouraging consumers to message a company-run WhatsApp account and explain why they deserved to attend the launch party. The campaign generated enormous buzz and brand awareness.
Netflix sends WhatsApp subscribers personal messages with content suggestions based on their viewing histories. Hellmann's Mayonnaise launched the "WhatsCook" campaign, helping consumers learn new recipes based on ingredients they already had—leading to an average of 65 minutes of high-quality engagement.
Unilever installed billboards around major Brazilian cities featuring a WhatsApp number. When customers contacted it, they received tips on caring for clothes, new product details, and discounts. The result: 12,000 unique customers sent over 290,000 messages, and sales increased 14x.
Messages sent via WhatsApp Business have a 98% open rate, compared to email open rates of 15–30%. Roughly 175 million people per day interact with businesses on WhatsApp alone.
"Conversational commerce is about delivering convenience, personalization, and decision support while people are on the go, with only partial attention to spare." – Chris Messina, inventor of the hashtag
Per the Baymard Institute, online shopping carts are abandoned roughly 70% of the time. Customers are 2.4 times more likely to make a purchase after receiving multiple abandoned cart messages via WhatsApp.
Here are a few ways to effectively use WhatsApp Business to gather feedback:
WhatsApp Business integrates with platforms to enable campaign building, management, and data collection with the same sophistication that marketers expect from email and other channels—seamlessly connecting to your existing back-end management capabilities.
Integrating WhatsApp Business into your marketing strategy is easy:
When it comes to brand marketing, WhatsApp dominates the field. And here at Connectly, our two-way conversational platform utilizes WhatsApp to help you implement more effective marketing strategies. Our no-code tool allows you to create interactive marketing campaigns without wrestling with complicated code.
Get started with WhatsApp today by requesting a demo or signing up for a free trial.
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