How To Use WhatsApp Marketing Messages for Business in 2021

The desire to send WhatsApp marketing messages in bulk has been strong across the business world for years. WhatsApp, the SMS-based service, is by far the most used messaging app in the world. With over 2 billion monthly active users, more than 60 billion messages are sent through WhatsApp every single day.

According to Nielsen’s Facebook Messaging Survey, 67% of mobile messaging app users said they expect to use chat more for communicating with businesses over the next two years. What’s more, 53% of respondents say they’re more likely to shop with a business they can message directly.

Clearly, the opportunity to get your brand’s message in front of millions of potential customers on WhatsApp is enormous. However, even with the WhatsApp business app, the platform is still yet to be business-friendly, unlike Facebook’s other social platforms.

Marketing on Facebook and Instagram Messenger for business has taken off, and chat marketing on WhatsApp is next in line — and sooner than you may think.

Customers.ai is coming to the rescue for WhatsApp marketing in 2021 with brand new WhatsApp business features! Which we’ll discuss more in-depth in this article.

But in the meantime, let’s discuss using WhatsApp for business in the present.

Today I’m going to show you the WhatsApp marketing messages currently available, as well as what to look forward to with new feature-rich business tools for WhatsApp in 2021, as well as how to be first-in-line to use them.

Here’s our WhatsApp marketing agenda for this article:

• How effective is WhatsApp marketing in 2021? 
• The best WhatsApp marketing software.
• How to use WhatsApp Click-to-Chat for marketers.
• WhatsApp broadcast and group messaging for marketers.
• Getting started with WhatsApp marketing for business.

How Effective is WhatsApp Marketing in 2021?

While WhatsApp isn’t as feature-rich as Facebook Messenger for marketing, it is moving in that direction. Marketers who create campaigns that work with, and not against, WhatsApp’s unique characteristics will have an advantage.

Since WhatsApp doesn’t sell ad space or have any business-specific features (yet) you have to be innovative with your WhatsApp marketing campaign ideas and approach.

Today there are only a few WhatsApp marketing tools that businesses can use within the WhatsApp Business app to help them with customer service, sales, and marketing.

These basic messaging tools include:

• An away message.
• A greeting message.
• Quick replies that allow a business to save and send frequently used messages.
• Linked accounts that customers can use to find the business on other platforms like Facebook.

WhatsApp also provides Business Statistics on the WhatsApp business app. Businesses can see metrics, such as how many messages are sent, delivered, read, and received. This allows marketers to better understand customers’ engagement and experiences on WhatsApp.

While WhatsApp is different in its reach and features than other messaging apps, it’s important to develop your WhatsApp marketing strategy alongside your general chat marketing tactics.

Currently, there are limitations you need to address when developing your WhatsApp marketing strategy. First of all, there is no such thing as a business account, so if your brand is creating an account it faces the same limitations as any other user.

Large-scale, one-to-many marketing on WhatsApp is a challenge. That’s because each WhatsApp account is tied directly to a single mobile phone number, and there’s a limit of only 256 WhatsApp users that you can message at once.

Since WhatsApp doesn’t offer any business tools or an API (yet), small-scale targeted WhatsApp campaign ideas, such as examples #2 and #3 below are the best strategy as of today.

However, that’s where Customers.ai is about to make a huge splash in 2021 with messaging automation tools for WhatsApp. 

WhatsApp Marketing Messages #1: The Best WhatsApp Marketing Software

There are some third-party WhatsApp marketing tools and services offering to set up multiple WhatsApp accounts and groups for marketers. However, most of the third-party WhatsApp tools can lead to being blocked temporarily or banned entirely from the service.

Plus, WhatsApp bulk message marketing with hacked together strategies in this type of environment can do damage to your brand.

Instead, you want a trusted third-party messaging app for business and marketing use.

To be first-in-line for the best marketing software for WhatsApp in 2021, the choice is Customers.ai, hands down.

The lack of advertising and corporate presence on WhatsApp means that early adopters can really stand out, if you do it right.

Business across verticals that connect with customers using WhatsApp messaging to generate bottom-line boosting benefits of real-time chat like:

• More leads: Businesses can instantly reply and qualify leads who start chat sessions.
• More sales: Business can instantly chat with prospects who are interested in buying.
• Better customer experiences: Messaging tools empower customers by providing 24/7 instant support.

With your insights, Customers.ai is setting out to create the best WhatsApp tools to help businesses be available 24/7, scale messaging communications, follow up instantly, and create alerts to notify live representatives to jump into the chat.

Coming soon as Messenger API support for WhatsApp rolls out, businesses will see more tools to help them scale messaging responses and provide awesome customer experiences.

Customers.ai is a premier Messenger platform solution provider partner committed to deliver the most effective tools for businesses to scale their messaging capabilities.

Businesses can reach an incredible number of engaged WhatsApp users at scale with the tools that will be enabled through the Messenger API. 

If you would benefit from future WhatsApp messaging tools from business, get started with customer communications for live chat, SMS, as well as Messenger for Facebook and Instagram today!

Create your free Customers.ai account or log into Customers.ai to design and launch messaging experiences to help you achieve your goals. Launch ready-made messaging flows for:

• Growing an email list
• Booking appointments
• Remarketing ads to custom audiences
• Customer support chat
• And more!

Customers.ai’s OmniChatⓇ platform streamlines the messaging campaigns and conversations happening across the most popular messaging apps so you can view and respond to SMS, Messenger, web chat, and other messaging conversations all in one place!

But in the meantime, here are two options you can get started with right away to send WhatsApp marketing messages for business!

WhatsApp Marketing Messages #2: How to use Click-to-Chat for marketing

WhatsApp does provide a way to add a click-to-chat link to your website, email signature, or social media pages that makes it easy for people to start a conversation with your brand.

Anyone who clicks on this link can start a chat with a number you choose. The click-to-chat link works both on the phone and WhatsApp for desktop.

A WhatsApp Link can also open a chat with an automatic greeting message to send to the number.

Creating your link manually is fairly simple. There are three parts to a click-to-chat WhatsApp link:

1. The standard link.
2. The phone number you’d like customers to text when they click the link.
3. The template text to be displayed in the entry field when they click the link.

For example, if you wanted to create an automated WhatsApp marketing message that said, “Hi! Want to learn about WhatsApp chat automation?” your link would look something like this: 

https://wa.me/6174335511/?text=Hi!%20Want%20to%20learn%20about%20WhatsApp%20chat%20automation?

Keep in mind that consumer expectations for messaging are for near-instant replies. So, make sure you have the resources to manage your incoming messages, or you could limit availability to specific windows of time.

WhatsApp Links can help you generate a predefined message for your customers to reach out to you with. You can share this link with your audience when they interact with your digital assets. From websites and images to ads and emails, you can embed these links across your platform and talk to your customers in real-time.

Talking to your customers can also make your marketing and customer support functions more fluid. A WhatsApp Chat Link can also help you collect your customers’ phone numbers, improving your lead generation and sales.

WhatsApp Marketing Messages #3: WhatsApp Broadcast Messages

Apart from chatting 1-to-1, the WhatsApp Business App Broadcast feature allows users to send bulk messages and rich media content to multiple contacts at once — for free. 

Businesses can use WhatsApp broadcast messages for new product updates, changes in operating hours, promotions, and more.

A WhatsApp broadcast or some call it WhatsApp Business Broadcast is a feature only available in the WhatsApp Business App. It is similar to WhatsApp group chats in the same way that it allows you to quickly communicate with many people.

The key difference in a broadcast is that it sends the message to each person individually. So when that contact replies to your broadcast, they reply in a private chat where none of your other WhatsApp contacts can see it.

Although you won’t find it on the WhatsApp Business website, WhatsApp Business Group is just a name people use when they are talking about WhatsApp groups created in the WhatsApp Business App.

You may be thinking this sounds too good to be true. Well, there are some serious limitations. 

WhatsApp has put in certain limitations to prevent spamming. Only contacts with your number saved in their phonebook can receive your broadcast message and there’s a maximum number of 256 recipients in each broadcast list.

Why should marketers create a WhatsApp Broadcast Message?

A WhatsApp Business Broadcast message can be used the same way you send an email newsletter. 

You can use your WhatsApp Broadcast message to inform people about new products or services that you offer, outages of your services, and about anything else you believe would be important to send to your WhatsApp contacts list.

How to create WhatsApp Broadcast Messages

To create a WhatsApp Broadcast Message, go to the Chats page found at the bottom of the screen. Here you’ll find your WhatsApp Broadcast Lists. Find where it says New Group at the top right.

Give your WhatsApp Group a title. In the example below, you’ll see that I’ve named my WhatsApp Group “WhatsApp Marketing.” Then add your contacts by clicking on the + Add Participants option.

There are two ways you can send a broadcast. You can select all the contacts you wish to send a broadcast to and send it, or you can organize your contacts with labels and then send a broadcast to one or more sets of labeled Contacts.

Keep in mind that WhatsApp groups do have a user limit though. You’re only allowed to have up to 256 people in a WhatsApp Group Chat.

However, here’s what to keep in mind: Everyone in the group chat can chime in and also see everyone else’s responses.

So, if you plan to send regular WhatsApp Broadcast messages to 200+ people, that’s a lot to keep up with for the average customer support team. Even more important, you don’t want to start a conversation between 200+ people where each person receives all the responses.

Important: Here’s how to prevent a mini catastrophe where 100’s of your prospects and customers are losing their minds in a massive group text…

After creating a WhatsApp group, go to the Group Settings and click on the Send Messages option and then select Only Admins when choosing who can send messages to the group.

Group chats let you message with up to 256 people at once, sharing messages, photos, and videos. 

Getting Started with WhatsApp Marketing

Remember that, like other text message marketing services, part of the power of WhatsApp is that it’s tied to our phones, which tend to seem more personal to us than our computers—they’re not shared and we carry them everywhere. So any marketing campaigns you tackle should reflect (and respect) the personal aspect. This is where consumers interact with their friends, so trust and creativity are key.

Important Next Steps