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Business Management

Benefit of WhatsApp for your Small Business

By
Staff Writer

2022-05-10
According to Statistica, WhatsApp is the most used social media platform in South Africa as of the 3rd quarter of 2020 at 93.2% usage. That means there are over 9.13 million WhatsApp users currently in South Africa alone. This number is projected to reach 11.49 million by 2025. If you crunch the numbers yourself, comparing email open rates of 30% on average and text being 98%, why aren’t you using WhatsApp to drive your marketing message and reach your audience?

WhatsApp has various forms of communicating with your audience through:
  • images
  • voice messages
  • your location
  • videos
  • documents
  • GIF’s
Unlike SMS or Email, there are fewer restrictions on the format and delivery chances are higher. If you want a good response, try a fun and engaging way to promote your business using WhatsApp

Here are our top 5 benefits of using WhatsApp for your small business:

  1. Create a Business Profile: Customers can quickly view your business details such as your website, location, email address and business description.
  2. Enhance your customer experience with quick turnarounds: You can save and re-use messages that your customers are asking frequently. Such as your opening times, basic qualifying questions or even delivery ETA’s.
  3. Automated Messages: This saves you time and ensures your customers feel as though they are receiving personal attention. Your customer will receive an instant reply, even if you’re unable to respond. This includes your welcome introduction messages or introducing your brand to potential customers. Remember to think carefully about your approach with automated messaging, ensuring you keep your interactions personalized. For example, If you are using WhatsApp Business as a customer support line. Set up your chat to be from a human. Ie "Hi, it’s Chris here from customer support. How can I help you today.” People like to speak to people, so focus on your customer journey and implement this little personalization to create an unforgettable experience.
  4. Labels: Arrange your contacts and chats to segment your customers. By assigning labels you can quickly search through your contacts. This will help you sort messages by urgency and recognize returning customers.
  5. Display your services using the catalogue feature: It lets your customers browse your products without leaving the app. Use this feature strategically to highlight your new arrivals or promotions. You can draw attention to your offers by sending out engaging promotions through WhatsApp and encouraging consumers to purchase your goods and services through the app. 
Plus you can glance at your message statistics to see who has received, opened and read your marketing messages.

Connect with a Marketing mentor and they will guide you on how to set up WhatsApp Business and leverage the marketing tactics.