WhatsApp is at the forefront of most of the internet marketing trends—whether that’s conversational marketing, hyper-personalization, or low-friction, high-relevance marketing communication. 

For example, Hugg Beverages—a direct-to-consumer (D2C) herbal drink company)—was able to increase their conversions from first-time users by 30% and order count by 20% using a combination of Click-to-WhatsApp ads and automated flows. 

In this blog, we’ll explore 10 ways in which we can help you maximize engagement, increase brand recognition, and build a loyal customer base. 

Before we delve in, please note that these tips are primarily for users who are on WhatsApp Business API, and not the WhatsApp Business account. 

Also read: WhatsApp Business versus WhatsApp Business API

1. Get Your Basics Right

The first step to a successful WhatsApp marketing strategy is proving to your recipients that you are a legitimate brand. This means completing your profile (name, image, description), and getting the green tick verification—something that’s only available for WhatsApp Business API users. 

This is also a great point to consider your budget. WhatsApp charges you on a per-message basis and the rates differ based on your region and the message type (marketing, utility, authentication, service) you choose to send. 

Bonus: Use this free price calculator by Gallabox to estimate the cost of running a WhatsApp campaign. 

2. Ask People to Opt In

WhatsApp is primarily a private messenger. So, it’s all the more important to get permission before initiating any communication with your users This not only shows that you respect their privacy but also helps prevent your account from getting blocked or banned by Meta—which owns WhatsApp and penalizes businesses for spamming or sending irrelevant messages to users. 

Here are some digital touchpoints where you can ask people to opt in for your messages: 

• Any time you ask for someone’s phone number, give them the option to opt-in for receiving messages from your business account on WhatsApp. 
• Make use of the powerful Click-to-WhatsApp ads. This requires your business to run Facebook and Instagram ads. When potential customers click on them, this launches a Whatsapp chat with your business account.   
• Include an opt-in for WhatsApp communications during sign-ups or purchases.

Nobero asking customers to opt in for WhatsApp communications when requesting their phone number

Brick-and-mortar businesses can also generate QR codes and display them in high-traffic areas such as the checkout desk. Another option is to keep placards with your QR code at offline events—users can simply scan the code and open up a WhatsApp chat window with your business account.

Bonus: Generate free WhatsApp QR codes 

The choice of opting out is as important as getting user permissions for opting in for your business communication on WhatsApp. It not only helps build trust with customers but is also a necessary criterion to adhere to WhatsApp policies. Plus, it helps keep your contact list clean—you can focus your efforts on engaging with people who (actually) want to hear from you.

3. Tailor Content to Match your Goals

WhatsApp is a powerful channel for delivering high-value, low-frequency messages, and it’s also great for setting up a full-funnel engagement process. However, for maximum impact, we recommend two things:

• Balance one-to-all broadcast messages with personalized, two-way conversations (via 1:1 chats and interactive chatbots)—that way you are not just sending out mass messages, but also creating opportunities for individual dialogue and interaction.
• Sync your marketing communication strategy with the customer lifecycle journey so you don’t overwhelm them with too many messages.

Best WhatsApp channels for different customer lifecycle stages 

• Awareness: Click-to-WhatsApp ads
• Interest: Broadcast messages
• Consideration: WhatsApp flows for retargeting campaigns
• Conversion: Chatbot services 
• Retention: Community and hotlines

Another tip to prevent message overload is to maintain a content calendar. By scheduling content in advance, you can avoid scrambling to send messages to your users as well as maintain consistency. Taking the strategic approach to creating a content calendar can help sustain your users’ interest and maximize engagement.

Bonus: Generate content using the Gallabox AI Template Generator

4. Get Your User Experience (UX) Right

It's not just about what you say but how people experience what you are saying. This includes how your messages look and how easily your users can read (and interact with) them. 

Here is where features such as multimedia content and one-click interactions come in:

• Break down the monotony of text content with images, carousels, videos, and even GIFs.
• Make it easy for customers to respond with pre-defined ‘quick replies’ and call-to-action (CTA) buttons.

Finally, ensure your WhatsApp messages align with your overall brand identity. This reinforces brand recognition and improves your credibility. 

5. Let Customers Make the First Move with Chat Widgets

If you’re already considering adding a chat widget to your website, then why not consider WhatsApp? Add a WhatsApp Chat Widget to your website and leverage its massive user base and instant messaging capabilities to address customer inquiries quickly and skip the email back-and-forths. 

LivingStone Stays’ WhatsApp chat widget  

Depending on the WhatsApp business automation platform you choose to manage the chat widget, you can also get other benefits like:

• CRM integrations to centralize customer conversations.
• Chatbot templates to create automated conversation workflows.
• Shared inboxes to auto-assign conversations to free agents.

Subhangi Basak, our Customer Success Manager uses the Shared Team Inbox in Gallabox to oversee all customer tickets and assign them to her team based on predefined rules. 

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“This helps us maintain our customer care's swiftness without compromising its efficacy.” – Subhangi Basak, Customer Success Manager, Gallabox.

6. Nudge Users with Automated Workflows

Automated conversations can reduce your workload while simultaneously keeping customers engaged. They’re particularly great for handling straightforward, rule-based interactions such as:

• Suggesting products or upsells based on customer behavior and purchase history.
• Moving leads through the sales funnel with personalized content and offers.
• Keeping customers notified about order confirmations, payment reminders, and even event details.

Sending drip campaigns via Gallabox

And while WhatsApp Flows work great for basic flows and data collection, you are likely to benefit more from an automation platform such as Gallabox, which offers advanced features including Drip campaigns and Chatbots.

7. Consider Personalized Conversations

According to most marketing experts, the best thing about automated conversations is they enable personalization at scale. And depending on your WhatsApp automation platform, here are three ways to personalize communications:

• Use dynamic variables to include customer information (like their name or purchase history) in messages.  
• Leverage AI bots that can fetch custom answers by analyzing customer details, your frequently asked questions (FAQs) section, and other resources.
• Map out chatbot journeys that trigger responses based on customer actions and events.

Build custom AI bots with Gallabox’s no-code builder

8. Stay Relevant With Audience Segmentation

Just like personalization, segmentation can also help you send targeted campaigns—only this time you focus on specific customer groups rather than individuals. Plus, you also get data on how different customer personas engage with your communications and services. 

Sattvic Stores, for example, was able to reduce its marketing budget by 30% by using tags in Gallabox to categorize customers and send targeted product recommendations through WhatsApp Broadcasts. 

Segmentation also plays a key role in experiments like A/B testing campaigns to identify what resonates best with each segment. You can also experiment with different messaging frequencies, channels, and timing to optimize engagement.

9. Marry Strategy with Data-Driven Insights

Depending on your WhatsApp automation platform, you can get access to a variety of campaign performance metrics. These include open rates, click-through rates, and opt-out rates, which you can use to measure their effectiveness and optimize future campaigns. You can use these metrics to reallocate your marketing spending to high-performing campaigns. 

Plus, as customers interact with your various campaigns (and chatbots), they give you loads of first-party data related to their interests and behavior, which can support your segmentation and personalization efforts. 

Not just that, your sales teams also stand to benefit as they would be able to identify high-potential leads by analyzing how they engage with your campaigns.

10. Integrate WhatsApp with Other Tools

Isolated campaigns and conversations can create data silos leading to a lack of context and missed opportunities. With multiple teams interacting with customers via WhatsApp, things can get chaotic. Besides, customers may also be interacting with your brand via different channels—WhatsApp, email, and social media. 

So make sure to connect WhatsApp with the rest of your tech stack (such as CRM, enterprise resource planning or ERP tool, logistics platform, payment gateways) and even your Facebook and Instagram accounts to centralize data and ensure personalized conversations across all touchpoints.

An added benefit—you don’t have to look for (or transfer) data manually. ITEES Eye Hospital, for example, saw a 70% increase in employee productivity when they integrated Gallabox with Odoo, their CRM platform. 

Simplify WhatsApp Marketing with Gallabox

Now that you've had a chance to understand the top 10 best practices for WhatsApp marketing, you may want to try it out yourself. After all, doing is better than thinking.

With features such as no-code automation, AI chatbots, and drip marketing, Gallabox empowers you to create highly personalized, high-converting WhatsApp campaigns.

If you are wondering about how much this would cost you versus the return your business will get out of it, you can check out Gallabox's 7-day free trial.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What are the key benefits of using WhatsApp for marketing?

The three main benefits of using WhatsApp as a marketing channel are personalized communication (via WhatsApp flows and automation), higher conversions (80% of WhatsApp messages are opened within 5 minutes), and better customer engagement (gives you a direct communication line to customers).  

2. How can I measure the success of my WhatsApp marketing campaigns?

If you have a WhatsApp Business account, you get access to basic conversation metrics. For deeper insights and in-depth analysis, you'll need to build ‘attribution tables’ by connecting your message data to conversion events.

For those using WhatsApp Business API, it’s a lot simpler as most automation platforms come with in-depth campaign analytics and custom reporting functionalities. This is available at a single click on Gallabox’s platform.  

3. How do I ensure my WhatsApp number is not blocked or marked as spam?

One way to avoid being marked as spam and getting blocked is to prioritize user experience. This includes getting user consent, sending messages that are relevant to their interests, and providing a clear opt-out option. 

Building brand credibility can also help—add a detailed profile (with your website and contact details) and get the green ‘verified’ tick to show customers you’re a business that can be trusted.

4. How can I target customers on WhatsApp?

When running Click-to-WhatsApp campaigns, Facebook Ad Manager allows you to target your customers in two ways:

• Lookalikes: You target customers who are similar to your existing customers.
• Custom: Add a set of conditions to target customers who are familiar with your brand (they’ve either interacted with your social accounts or website).

5. How can I run a successful business on WhatsApp?

Two key factors that impact the results of your WhatsApp Business campaigns are automation and analytics. 

While automation tools can help you personalize at scale (ensuring relevant communications), in-depth analytics can help you test out different campaigns (and enable you to create a strong data-driven strategy).