More than a decade ago, WhatApp arrived on the scene as a free messaging app for smartphones, featuring groups and never-ending conversations. But a decade down the road, WhatsApp has become serious business—quite literally!
With its vast global user base, WhatsApp enables businesses to enhance customer engagement and streamline communication. With over 2.5 billion users worldwide, including 390 million in India, leveraging WhatsApp for business communications can lead to substantial benefits.
How integrating with WhatsApp transforms ecommerce businesses
Incorporating WhatsApp into your business communication strategy can lead to enhanced customer engagement, improved support, and increased sales. Its widespread adoption and user-friendly features make it a valuable tool for businesses aiming to connect with customers effectively. Here's how:
High open and engagement rates
Messages sent via WhatsApp boast an impressive 98% open rate, which is significantly higher than traditional channels like email and SMS. This high level of engagement ensures that your communications reach your customers effectively, which increases the likelihood of prompt responses and actions.
Enhanced customer support
WhatsApp enables businesses to provide real-time customer support through text, voice, and video calls. This immediacy helps in resolving issues, addressing concerns, and providing swift support, all of which leads to improved customer satisfaction.
Automated messaging features
To manage customer interactions efficiently, WhatsApp Business offers features like automated greetings, away messages, and quick replies. These tools enable businesses to respond promptly to customer inquiries, even outside of business hours, ensuring consistent and professional communication.
Rich media sharing
WhatsApp supports image, video, document, and other multimedia content sharing, which enables businesses to send product images, promotional videos, and detailed catalogs, and makes interactions more engaging and informative.
Business profiles and branding
WhatsApp Business accounts enable businesses to create detailed business profiles, complete with their company names, logos, contact information, and business descriptions. This helps them build professional images and trust with customers, which enhances brand recognition.
Customer segmentation and targeted communication
WhatsApp Business enables customer segmentation, allowing businesses to categorize their audiences based on various criteria like purchase history, demographics, and behavior. This enables targeted and personalized communication and enhances engagement and conversion rates.
Broadcast messaging
Businesses can send messages to multiple customers simultaneously using broadcast messaging. This feature is particularly useful for announcements, promotions, and updates, as it ensures that important information reaches a wide audience efficiently.
End-to-end encryption
Security and privacy are paramount in business communications. WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption ensures that messages are secure and only accessible to the intended recipients, building trust and protecting sensitive information.
Analytics and insights
WhatsApp Business provides analytical tools that help businesses track the performance of their communications. These insights include message delivery and read rates, which enable businesses to refine their messaging strategies and improve customer engagement.
Cost-effective communication
Using WhatsApp for business communications is cost-effective, as it reduces the need for traditional marketing channels. The platform's features enable businesses to engage with customers directly, fostering stronger relationships without incurring significant costs.
The world of ecommerce is changing every day and effective customer engagement is the key to success. Also, this is an era of shrinking attention spans. Your brand is just another name for a customer. Hence, businesses that connect with their audiences through the right channels and at the right times see higher conversions, stronger customer loyalty, and increased revenue.
One of the most powerful tools for ecommerce marketing today is WhatsApp, and if your marketing software comes with a WhatsApp integration, you can take your marketing efforts to the next level.
How WhatsApp and email campaigns work together
Instead of choosing between WhatsApp and email, ecommerce businesses can combine both for a more effective marketing strategy. Here's how Zoho Marketing Automation enables seamless integration:
Friendly WhatsApp greetings and messages for new users
Kind messages and a tailored WhatsApp greeting go a long way in developing relationships with customers—as well as making them feel appreciated. It's important to create a strong first impression through personalized communication as soon as customers sign up. Doing so also helps you guide them through the customer journey. Additionally, sending customers personalized messages like discounts or free shipping offers on their first purchases encourages leads to take the steps you want them to take. Take a look at the message sent by telecom brand Jio to its new users.
Pro tip: Marketing solutions like Zoho Marketing Automation can help your business get started with WhatsApp marketing! As a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP), Zoho enables you to connect your WhatsApp Business account easily and automate your marketing efforts. Just keep in mind that you can't run WhatsApp campaigns using a personal WhatsApp account or the WhatsApp Business app on your personal phone. To conduct these campaigns, you'll need an officially verified WhatsApp Business account linked to a BSP like Zoho. With Zoho's support, you can earn the green tick verification for your WhatsApp Business account, which enables you to communicate actively with your customers and send out promotional or transactional messages via WhatsApp.
Providing order updates
Even if you can't have conversational messaging with your WhatsApp integration, the app is still helpful in providing real-time order updates for customers. From retail to food delivery apps, they all use this feature to keep the customers informed of each step in the delivery process.
Startup clothing brand Bow and Square has integrated WhatsApp into its ordering system, allowing customers to get real-time delivery updates. This has streamlined their delivery process and added convenience for customers.
Re-engagement and abandoned cart recovery
Previously, businesses relied solely on emails to re-engage customers in the ecommerce sector. By integrating with WhatsApp and sending abandoned cart recovery messages, ecommerce is crossing new boundaries.
If you thought clients were gone and adopted an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality, it's time to rethink your lost clients. The booming retail fashion sector uses this quite effectively.
As seen in the example above, lifestyle accessories brand Daily Objects reaches out to its customers who abandon their carts with a WhatsApp message. You can also send out an email first and time a WhatsApp message 24 hours after the email is sent out. Retailers also use discounts and coupon codes to encourage their customers to complete the purchase.
Provide better experiences with exclusive pre-access
Marketers try to excite their target audiences before official product launches. In doing so, marketers should focus more on "who" and "why" than on putting themselves in a "me too" box alongside competitors. Configuring your WhatsApp ecommerce enables you to easily capture your prospects' attention by creating a free trial or a product demo, giving rewards for beta participation, and even offering discounts for pre-orders.
Personalized promotions and discounts
Today, brands create a sense of urgency with concepts like flash sales, deals of the day, or limited-time offers. They might not be able to reach the customers on time by email, as not everyone checks their inbox all the time, but they are more likely to check their messaging apps.
Indian home delivery brands like Zepto and Instamart use WhatsApp for their flash sales. You can also trigger email campaigns with special offers, followed by a WhatsApp message reminding customers to use the discount before it expires. This helps generate higher conversion rates and repeat purchases.
Customer support and FAQs
Integrating WhatsApp for ecommerce enables brands to address frequently asked questions efficiently and thereby streamline customer support. For example, an electronics retailer can automatically send detailed product specifications, warranty information, or return policies to customers as soon as they inquire. By proactively sharing relevant information via WhatsApp, brands reduce the need for live agent intervention, which leads to faster resolution times. This approach not only improves customer satisfaction but also frees up support resources. With WhatsApp's high open rates, customers are more likely to see and engage with messages. WhatsApp helps ensure key information is delivered quickly and effectively.
Pro tip: Zoho Marketing automation supports WhatsApp messaging in over 71 languages! This includes special options for Hebrew and Arabic, which come with right-to-left editors. Brands can easily tailor their messages to fit their target countries and make them more engaging by adding emojis, images, videos, documents, or even calls to action.
For mid-level ecommerce businesses, integrating WhatsApp with Zoho Marketing Automation can be a game-changer. By combining email and WhatsApp marketing, you can create highly personalized and automated workflows that drive conversions and enhance customer engagement.
If you're looking to boost sales, improve customer experience, and optimize marketing automation, now's the time to integrate WhatsApp into your ecommerce strategy.
Comments