Tuesday 3 January 2017

WHATSAPP IS EMERGING AS A PROMINENT DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNEL.

1. Introduction

Digital Marketing has emerged as a prominent marketing strategy owing to a large number of people getting access to the Internet mainly via mobile phones. Apps are now part of one’s daily life and the amount of time spent online by users is increasing on a daily basis.
Whatsapp, an instant communication messenger is one such app that is topping the charts. Whatsapp id no longer limited to personal communication and is fast turning into a medium of information sharing on mobile phones. It therefore opens up a marketing platform that can be used to one’s advantage for branding.
Whatsapp Marketing is swiftly gaining traction in the world of Digital Marketing due to Whatsapp’s fast growing subscriber base which includes a wide range of audiences across different age categories.

2. How to setup & do campaigns using whatsapp

Whatsapp provides a wide range of features that makes it an attractive option for marketing. Its popularity can be attributed to its vast features and ease of use. It allows sending messages in the form of text, images, audio, video and vcards. Its rich and vast set of emoticons is an add-on for it as well.





The “Delivered” (double ticks) and “Read Receipt” (blue ticks) can act as an acknowledgement by the end user of having received and read the message providing some reliability in having the message delivered.
The “Last Seen” feature can provide useful inputs to understand the usage pattern of the message recipient. The potential customers can thereby be approached at suitable times.
The WhatsApp Broadcast feature allows creating a Broadcast list (a saved list) of message recipients that can be used to send messages. Thus promotional messages can be sent to a list of recipient in one go. The Broadcast feature allows overcoming the limitation of SMS Marketing of sending messages to DND users as every contact who has the sender’s number saved in the contact list receives the message.
There is a restriction on WhatsApp Broadcast, it permits telecast just to those individuals who have your number spared in their phone-book. This has been done to guarantee that this component is not utilized for spamming.
With a specific end goal to send a WhatsApp message to numerous contacts, make the accompanying strides:
1. Open WhatsApp
2. Tap the Menu Button to open the main menu
3. Select New Broadcast
4. Tap on the plus sign(+) to choose contacts whom you need to send the mass message
5. Tap on Done
6. Tap on Create
Presently WhatsApp will open the message screen with all the chose contacts included as the beneficiaries. Sort the message and send it.
This broadcast list will be spared like some other visit discussion. You can open this rundown and send more messages in future.
However, the frequency of the broadcast message to customers should be controlled and typically should be based around the rapport shared with them. Care should be taken that the customer is not bombarded with too much information which could overwhelm them. This could have a negative impact of the customer blocking/ignoring the messages.




3. Metrics of share of Whatsapp vs the overall social media marketing (digital marketing)

Recent studies indicate that around 96% of the smart phone users in India use Whatsapp among other communication applications. It is undoubtedly becoming the most common app to be used, with users spending a good amount of time on it on a day-to-day basis.





4. Future trends

With a user base of over 1 billion global users and counting, Whatsapp provides a platform to connect to a large number of audiences instantly in a cost effective manner. This platform thereby opens up a new phase for marketing brands and products and turning contacts into potential customers. Marketing teams would come up with plans and strategies to improvise and leverage the Whatsapp platform to get maximum output.




5. Conclusion

Business owners are now starting to realize the marketing potential that WhatsApp can support for their business. Online lead generation is the best outcome of WhatsApp marketing.
Whatsapp is now a popular communication tool. It would be a significant contributor to the Digital Marketing. Individuals, start-ups and marketing agencies can benefit immensely by devising apt strategies to make use of this platform effectively.