WhatsApp: The Future of Marketing?
The number of smartphone users in Indonesia was estimated to reach 82 million users in 2020. Currently, Indonesia is the fourth-largest smartphone market worldwide after China, India and the USA. At Least 40% of those are using Messenger Apps. So why is WhatsApp Marketing so attractive for your business?
First of all, WhatsApp has an average open rate of messages of 98%. Compared to Email, which is around 14,5% this is a dream of every marketer. Messanger Marketing in Indonesia, and the rest of the world, will play a key role within the next few years and if you wanna WhatsApp for Business in 2020 Konek Asia will now educate and teach you on how to do exactly that.
Where will WhatsApp Marketing be in the Future?
Facebook is ‘’backing away’’ from their earlier plans to sell WhatsApp ADs inside their messaging service app. Instead, Facebook will focus on features that will ‘’allow a business to communicate with customers and organize those contacts’’. Facebook still plans to include ADs similar to Instagram located in the stories with a direct link to the respective ADs. You will also see the company’s upload photos, videos or GIFs that disappear after 24 hours of posting them in the status of the contacts we have. There will also be the feature of sending newsletters within WhatsApp instead of Email which makes it much more personal and has the advantage that the messages do not disappear between numerous advertising messages in the recipient’s email inbox. This way the customers feel contacted on a way more personal way and set the foundation of a long-term customer relationship. According to a Facebook Messaging Survey, 67% of mobile phone users said they are expecting they using chat and messaging Apps for more communicating with business over the next two years.
What does that mean and why should you use Whatsapp for Business?
This means, in 2020 and further, you will send less Emails and start communication on WhatsApp with your customers. You will use your Social Media and your Content Marketing to communicate with your customers on their Mobile Phone, send them right into your WhatsApp Messenger and have an opening rate from your messages of 98%. WhatsApp has no cost. You can send messages to your entire Subscriber base for free and unlike other channels such as Facebook, Twitter & Instagram which are progressively limiting your organic reach. There will be a time in the future where you can invest in WhatsApp Advertising ads and monetize the Messenger Platform even more.
What Target Group can you reach with Messengers?
With WhatsApp Marketing in Indonesia, you will be able to reach every Target group of your specific Audience. You can strategize and plan out customer’s journey with different surveys, quiz and even just simple Yes/No Answers like many Marketers doing nowadays already with Facebook Messenger Bots. Through that, you will be able to identify your different audiences and address them individually with a personal message via WhatsApp Marketing. This will be, in the future, the most important Social Media tool for your Business to communicate with each different Target group on a personal level. It is truly the best way to start and maintain long-term customers relationship.
WhatsApp Marketing and the cooperation with Facebook ADs Manager
WhatsApp ADs will also be integrated into Facebook advertising. If a user of the social network interacts with a brand, the company will be able to contact him directly by sending a message through WhatsApp. This will be a highly effective way for the business to contact potential consumers on a very personal level with incredible opening rates. Company’s will already know the mechanics and monitoring of the ADs inside Facebook(Business Manager), and so makes it easier to invest in the ADs from the Facebook AD manager.
Here are some examples of how to use WhatsApp for your business
A popular Delhi restaurant partnered with a Marketing Agency just like us at Konek Asia to create a custom API for their Target Audience, which resulted in a running ticker in place of a WhatsApp status and a GIF in place of a profile picture. This ticker displayed new offers, menus, and gigs to the customers who previously saved the restaurant’s number. In return to avail of the offers, the only thing the customers had to do was taking a screenshot of the offer and send it to them.
-The result: The inquiries went up by an impressive 117% and the sales increased by 28%. The creative way of this campaign also resulted in great word of mouth marketing and it was featured in many publications as well.
A mayonnaise brand called hellman in Brazil used WhatsApp Marketing to increase brand exposure and engagement.
They acquired users by a special website set up by the company. It required users to give their phone number, name and other details. Afterwards they got contacted personally by the company via WhatsApp. The asked the users to upload ingredients and a chef gave them advice on what to cook.
-The outcome of that: over 13.000 registrations and the user spend on average 65 minutes interacting with the chef on WhatsApp, which in today’s world is a lot of time on interacting in a marketing campaign.
Law and Regulations
The terms and conditions present a legal uncertainty for businesses. No concrete regulations are governing the use of messaging services commercially. However, companies who are sending advertising messages requires the consent of the recipient, so marketing with WhatsApp uses the double-opt-in procedure. That means to register for a WhatsApp Newsletter, you’ll be asked to explicitly confirm your subscription. This can be done, for example, using a predefined word such as ’’Go’’ or ’’Start’’. The desire for companies to use the messaging service as a marketing channel has been increasingly pursued by the time and energy invested in the development of WhatsApp Business. Whether it’s possible to efficiently use this WhatsApp variant for advertising just like Instagram or Facebook ADs, though, is still questionable.
Bottom-Line?
Marketing on WhatsApp is something no many businesses are using yet. There are no defined templates like those on Facebook and no KPI’s predictors like those on Google AdWords. But the one thing that makes WhatsApp Marketing for Business stand out and attractive is the engagement. The Messenger app lets you hit your customers to the right nerve. It is where your users are most active.
We at Konek Asia are happy to help your business, not only with Social Media and Google but also educate you even more on how you can use WhatsApp for your Business.
By the way you can text us in Whatsapp 😉