8 steps for a successful WhatsApp marketing strategy

Whatsapp has an open rate of 98%, five times higher than email and SMS, which makes it the best marketing channel. Yet, to reach the right target audience and achieve the desired revenues, you must determine a data-driven strategy.

Whether you want to use the WhatsApp Business App or WhatsApp API, you can rely on a few steps to guarantee the success of your marketing campaign.

1 Define your goals, objectives, and KPIs

First, you have to start by determining your goals from the marketing campaign; this will help you align your efforts with your overall marketing objectives and, thus, create a clear, data-driven strategy.

Determining objectives to assist you in planning your ultimate plan is equally essential. For instance, if you pinpointed three goals, you have to determine sub-goals or objectives that can be achieved consecutively in a relatively short period.

Ensure that your goals and objectives are SMART, that is, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Then, you will be able to track the performance and make adjustments to your strategy when needed.

Finally, determine your KPIs to measure your campaign's performance. Your KPIs will differ according to your goals, but they usually include the number of shares, open rate, conversion rate, etc.

2 Determine your target audience and buyer persona

You must clearly define your target audience to guarantee the success of your campaigns. A highly engaged audience is vital to yield interactions.

You can determine the target audience by studying data from tools like Google Analytics, CRM, and Google and Social media ads reports.

Work on sketching a buyer persona or ideal customer profile based on the demographics and other available data. Determining your persona will help you target the right people and quickly build a significant database.

Focus on understanding your customers' pain points and why they buy your product. It will help you deliver value and convince them with your campaigns.

3 Build and segment your customer database

Building a customer database is easy if you are familiar with the best list-building tactics and strategies. Then, you can create and distribute sign-up forms across possible channels.

You must segment this list because sending a campaign to all the contacts should never be the norm.

Here are three ways you can follow to segment your database:

• Customers' stage in the funnel: you must divide your contact lists based on their position if they are potential leads, new subscribers, or customers. This will help you determine which type of content to send to each segment.
• Buyer personas: your business might have one buyer persona or different ones. Catering specific content to each persona will help with conversion.
• The health of your contact list: you must ensure that your list is up to date regularly to avoid sending messages to people who opted out, for instance. You will also be able to identify people who haven't made a purchase in a long time and plan how to warm them up.

It's crucial that you only send marketing campaigns to people who opt-in to receive these messages so that you maintain high ROI.

4 Choose the right marketing solution

Undoubtedly, WhatsApp has a higher open rate than email and SMS. Still, you have two choices: WhatsApp business app or WhatsApp API.

WhatsApp Business App is free for small businesses that do not exceed 4000 dollars in sales. These stores usually do not have an extensive customer database and are run by a small team that can use the WhatsApp account with single login details.

Whatsapp API, on the other hand, is a solution offered by WhatsApp to tech companies, like Kartly, to build conversation management platforms for large and medium companies with over 4000 USD in revenue.

Whatsapp API helps stores deal with vast numbers of customers simultaneously, especially since the team will have access to the account with different login details.

It will also help decrease the cost of customer acquisition thanks to retargeting campaigns, such as cart abandonment, seasonal sales, etc. WhatsApp also allows you to integrate your catalog, providing a whole in-app shopping experience.

Consider your database and store size to make a choice.

5 Build your brand persona

The best successful brands have a distinguished persona. People prefer to deal with a person, not companies, so you must work on determining your brand persona.

A persona consists of the specific set of values and characteristics that you built your company upon and are seeking to share with your audience.

The persona needs to be reflected across your company assets and channels.

One more helpful tactic is to give your chatbot a name.

6 Determine the content of your campaign

You can send an unlimited number of campaigns using WhatsApp API. You need to diversify your content to witness significant interaction with your messages. Continue to nurture your relationships with your customers with educational and entertaining content. For example,  you can send usage tips as a follow-up on sales.

Also, diversify your offers. Only offer discounts some of the time. Other options, such as free shipping, bundle deals, and contests, can be intriguing.

Your messages must add value to your customers so that you guarantee interaction and avoid blocks. Add multimedia to your messages, too, to grab people's attention.

The last step to consider at this stage is to determine the frequency of your campaigns. Do not spam users with multiple messages a day. Focus, instead, on important occasions such as product launches, seasonal sales, and national and international occasions.

7 Deliver excellent customer service

Check these Customer service messages library for your support efforts.

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59% believe messages offer faster and better support than other mediums. That's why it's only fair that WhatsApp receives high open rates. To maintain the confidence of your customers and their interaction, you have to provide excellent service.

Guided chatbots will help answer frequent questions on the spot and provide a path to human agents whenever needed.

You must nurture leads throughout the funnel and after the sale; these messages will help retain customers and increase loyalty.

8 Track and measure your ROI

Once you determine the above steps, you can easily send your campaigns to qualified opt-in leads. Then, track your ROI. Measure your KPIs against your goals and decide on the outcome of your campaign. Thanks to the reports feature, you can also study the data provided by Kartly, as a conversation management platform.

Alter and adjust your campaign according to the results.

Follow these steps and witness the success of your WhatsApp marketing campaigns firsthand.

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