Ready to open a WhatsApp store? Where do you start and how do you ensure the success of your e-commerce business? Read on for answers and top tips on selling and marketing on WhatsApp.
In 2018, WhatsApp launched its enterprise app to enable brands to promote their products and services on WhatsApp.
It’s called WhatsApp Business, and it offers professional messaging tools, categorization options, branding features like the ability to create a business profile, etc. Since its release, the app has garnered a lot of attention and currently has over 50 million users.
While the app wasn’t originally designed as a marketing tool, you can now use the WhatsApp Business app to do everything from promoting sales, creating WhatsApp ad campaigns, and even selling on WhatsApp.
You just need to know how it’s done.
Here’s what you need to start selling on WhatsApp (with or without the WhatsApp Business API) and some tips for good luck.
How to sell on WhatsApp using conversational commerce
To get started, follow these simple steps:
- Download the whatsapp blasting app
- Register and create a business profile/page
- Set business hours and create a welcome message
- To boost consumer trust, verify your account via WhatsApp (we’ll help you with that if you choose to use our software)
- Use tags to organize your customers and chat threads, for example “New” or “Unpaid.”
- Create and save quick answers to frequently asked questions
- Create automated messages to respond to customers immediately
- Create a product catalogue available on WhatsApp and other platforms
- Create customer profiles and share products
- Open WhatsApp store
What is WhatsApp Store?
WhatsApp Business Store is where brands and individual retailers can create a catalogue to sell their products and services through WhatsApp, easily and quickly.
After signing up for a WhatsApp Business account and creating your WhatsApp catalog, you can share your unique store link and invite others to browse your catalog. Don’t stress WhatsApp has created a professional set of store tools to help brands and store owners easily showcase their products in a great way. Starify Marketing Software has a complete set of processes to help you build your own WhatsApp store quickly.
For Starify, WhatsApp Store means much more than that: we allow you to integrate your online store into our platform, whether it’s Shopify, WooCommerce or a store you’ve built yourself.
How to create a WhatsApp store directory
When creating your WhatsApp store catalog, you can choose from a range of features that will help you get more visitors from existing and new customers.
- Photo Gallery: Showcase what it is and why you should care your products with stunning images.
- Social: Include all your social handles on one digital business card
- Service Listing: List your services with a description and a Contact Us button to increase visitor conversion rate.
- WhatsApp Chat: Enable or disable the WhatsApp chat feature in the WhatsApp store
- Payments: List the payment methods that you accept on your WhatsApp store.
- Google Integration: Integrates Google Business and Google Maps to display your location and a link to your Google Business.
Benefits of WhatsApp Business API
What is the WhatsApp Business API?
The WhatsApp Business API is similar to the WhatsApp Business app, a platform for businesses to set up and manage their WhatsApp channels, but with more features and fewer limitations.
It is designed for large enterprises with multiple users and thousands of customer interactions.
To use it, you will need to do some deb directory software development or use a platform like charles, which has built the user interface and additional features on top of the WhatsApp Business API.
Here are some advantages
1. Reach more people with WhatsApp Broadcast
The first thing you should do is advertise your business phone number so that your customers can save it in their contacts ☏ Then, add your customers’ names to the products they’ve shown an interest in. This is useful if you’re creating broadcast messages or lists.
Then, divide your contacts into groups based on your sales process: customers in the “new” or “discovery” stage, “considering” customers (which includes customers who are likely to consider buying), and “decided” customers (which includes customers who have purchased from you before).
You can now send group messages to each of your lists and trust that they are receiving relevant and engaging content.
2. Automate your marketing campaigns to reduce work
Automating messages can help you streamline your sales, marketing, and customer support processes. What exactly does it do?
WhatsApp automated messages are pre-defined replies that are sent automatically to incoming replies to potential or existing customers on WhatsApp. The responses are sent without the help of a human agent.
You can create automated messages using keywords or “milestones.” When a keyword is detected in a WhatsApp message or conversation, a predefined response is sent. Milestones work with WhatsApp integrations such as customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and include actions such as online purchases, which automatically trigger a “thank you” message.
3. Drive sales through direct conversation
The benefits of having a personal, casual conversation with your clients are endless. After all, wouldn’t it be better to talk to someone about their purchase than to read emails or endlessly browse online stores? That being said, most of our clients have very few resources to use to respond to customer requests unless it’s built into their WhatsApp strategy. Most of our clients use automation. Or dial
Conversational marketing also leads to increased sales, cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. Direct conversations shorten the sales cycle. Using WhatsApp chat or live phone calls, you can avoid time-consuming forms, back-and-forth emails and arranging callbacks. Simply put, you can convey more information in less time.
Professional services for sale on WhatsApp
Now that you know how to start selling on WhatsApp, let’s look at some best practices for running a successful WhatsApp marketing campaign. A few quick tips:
- Use mobile devices for business
- Ask for customer’s phone contact information
- Get confirmation
- Create a WhatsApp Broadcast List/Group
- Tagging chat threads and customers
- Automate your messaging and chat processes
- Add fun links and promotions
- Send a personalized message
- Create a messaging schedule
- There are also some more in-depth tips for a successful WhatsApp strategy.
Set up automated flows: Use the WhatsApp Business API to set up automated custom messaging “flows”, which can include entire conversations and specific parts of conversations. Automated processes are often performed by chatbots, which can show customers catalogs, help them choose the right product, facilitate instant checkout with a shopping cart, send notifications, and most importantly, provide 24/7 service. The setup process involves creating the conversations and keywords required for the bot to send automated responses.
