How WhatsApp Marketing (via WhatsApp Business application programming interface) is helping E-commerce Businesses
Overview
The Facebook-owned instant messaging platform, WhatsApp Messenger, or simply WhatsApp, came up with its prominent offering to the business world, known as the WhatsApp Business API. Conspicuously, for businesses around the globe to enable them to connect with customers worldwide, so even small businesses can benefit from the internet using the platform to communicate with customers on WhatsApp in a simple, secure, and reliable way. The platform makes it easier for businesses to interact with customers personally and to answer queries related to the products and services provided, thereby, providing a decisive and reliable shopping experience to the customers.
Businesses can use the marketing platform to create a product catalog to demonstrate products and services, the automation features provided will quickly respond to the queries regarding the deliverables without human effort.
The tools provided by WhatsApp Business API include features such as:
Business Profile — Using an official contact number, a producer or seller, or service provider can use the feature of Business Profile to provide their customers with significant information such as the description of the business, office address, the e-mail address of the business firm, website link, working days and timings, etc.
Automatic/Quick Reply Feature — This feature enables businesses to save a lot of human effort and valuable time by automatically replying to common queries within seconds after receiving them. For example, “hello” “what’s the price” “is it available” etc.
Labeling — WhatsApp Business Messenger allows its users to label chats with labels for convenient and reassuring usage of the application, avoiding any miscellany for the users. For example, labeling a new chat as “New Customer” and other chat for which the delivery was completed as “Order Completed” will save a lot of time for the provider to sort out conversations.
WhatsApp Business API currently provides its users with three offerings, namely, Person-to-Person, Person-to-SMB (Small Business App), and Person-to-Enterprise (for large businesses). Talking about Person-to-Enterprise, which is accessed as a programming language interface and not as an application. The API can be integrated with many back-end programs, such as CRM and other likely marketing platforms. Currently, the WhatsApp Business API for Enterprises or large businesses can be accessed by either using a BSP (Business Solution Providers) or simply by direct integration of the programming language platform that can be directly installed on the client’s server. Direct Integration usage of the API is not available for new users, currently. Must-haves for the API include WhatsApp or Facebook Business Manager Account — a tool that helps businesses communicate directly with their customers. For receiving payments securely, businesses can set up a ‘Line of Credit’ to their WhatsApp Business accounts.
Marketing with WhatsApp Business API
The freeware messaging platform, WhatsApp, being the most popular instant messenger in the world is now set to take over the traditional marketing approaches with its user-friendly Business Marketing API. WhatsApp Messenger’s monthly audience being 2 billion users worldwide and 340 million users being in India only. Therefore, the platform is an excellent choice for promoters of businesses around the world. The application programming interface provides a customer-centric approach to businesses of any size, from small to large, thereby providing an exceptional marketplace to buyers as well.
If talking about marketing, it is defined as a function, set of institutions, and processes for building, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings with the value of customers, clients, partners, and the community at large. Clearly, the WhatsApp Business API platform adheres to the definition appropriately by providing the e-commerce firms a platform for performing the function of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that directly value customers, clients, as well as sellers. In the process of marketing, the platform links the consumer to the marketer through information using the programming interface that further can be used to identify opportunities as well as problems that could have been faced in the traditional form of marketing. The platform also helps to improve the understanding of marketing as a process by generating, refining, and evaluating marketing actions on a day-to-day basis.
This form of marketing allows e-commerce businesses to stay in touch with their customers. As per data, more than half of the daily users of WhatsApp Messenger check the app every day. This performs as an opportunity for marketers as the customers on the platform are more likely to look at offerings as text messages rather than physical prospectuses, the opening rate of text messages being over 98%.
According to research conducted on the effects of marketing on sales, the simple task of adding a WhatsApp number on a company’s website may result in a 27% increase in sales and provides businesses with immense sales leads. It is easier for consumers to get in touch with the e-commerce seller through a daily use instant messaging platform on the ease of their hand with no extra effort of calling or visiting a store, just by putting a simple text message can provide customers with sufficient information about products of their choice. This acts as a win-win situation for both parties.
The use of WhatsApp Business API for marketing might help the e-commerce business firms in the following manners:
Diminished Marketing Costs
Although WhatsApp messenger is a free-to-use application for instant messaging, the Business API provided by the platform do charge businesses according to their operating capacity. WhatsApp Business Application is absolutely free for small and medium e-commerce entities but charges according to plans opted for large enterprises. However, the charges still stay far below par when compared to the costs incurred in the traditional marketing approach. Unlike physical catalogs and product pamphlets, the chances of messages reaching the target audience or desired group of customers is sky-high. It is said that an average user of the WhatsApp mobile application checks their inbox over 20 times a day.
The automatic messaging feature minimizes the effort and cost on human resources expenditure, inquiries for information such as product price, availability, product code, etc. can be done instantly with the ‘Automatic Reply’ feature provided by WhatsApp Business API controlled by the artificial intelligence that costs negligible human involvement.
Therefore, WhatsApp Business API helps businesses to minimize marketing costs by a large extent and helping e-commerce firms to improve sales, not only by providing a monetary benefit but also reduces involvement and effort of human resources.
Excellent Buyer-Seller Relationship
In today’s world, we are seeing more and more e-commerce websites using the feature of ‘Chat Support’, which is an easier way of providing customer service to consumers who are unable to or do not like their problems to be heard on telephonic (Voice Process) calls. Chat or messaging has become an easier, fast, and more reliable way of maintaining a good Buyer-Seller relationship. WhatsApp Business API provides e-commerce business firms to maintain such a connection where buyers can get in touch with sellers at their ease by putting in the least effort. Building profound relations with customers helps in gaining their trust and making one-time customers to lifetime customers of a business. As customer trust is hard to earn, the messaging process makes it simpler to use and involving lesser costs incurred to gain such relation with customers. It is believed that over 50% of buyers tend to feel more connected, satisfied, and relied on if they use a messaging service that is available to them at any point in time in a day without the time and working day restrictions. WhatsApp Business provides e-commerce business firms with a solid set of customizable opportunities.
Ease of Doing Business
Unlike the classic ways of marketing, the new technology has brought us to the easier and more convenient mode of the marketing process. E-commerce companies can redirect their customers to their website from the virtually created catalog. A digital catalog is a list of items that are typically in a systematic order as suited to the business to showcase all the items, goods, or services provided by businesses to its customer, digitally or virtually WhatsApp Business API helps businesses with its catalog feature. Using the catalog feature in WhatsApp Business, entities (small or large) can market their products online where customers can directly interact with sellers with all the queries regarding the product using their usual WhatsApp instant messaging mobile App. With this feature, firms don’t need to send item descriptions (about the product, pricing, product code, availability, etc.) to customers individually, which is done using the automatic text-back feature available on the API. Customers can also be redirected to the product website or elsewhere as desired. With this approach, customers are more engaged with a brand, more easily and conveniently.
Customer Trust
Under the ‘Market Development Strategy’ of marketing, the efforts of a business entity in acquiring the market focus more largely on gaining customer trust because such efforts involve entering new geographic markets, such as international markets where customers are used to the tradition so much that trusting a foreign company might be challenging. The benefit of the customer-centric approach provided by WhatsApp Business API gives the business immense scope of generating customer trust by being in touch with customers 24*7, providing customer service at ease for both parties, and building trust in existing customers. For example, the e-commerce giant Amazon can build concrete relations with its customers by providing them multiple modes of customer support whichever acts the most convenient thereby making goodwill in the e-commerce market.
Satisfactory Dispute Settlements
Customers can get in touch with the seller by texting them at the ease of their daily use of mobile applications, WhatsApp messenger, and within no time the seller’s front would respond to the customer with sufficient and satisfactory solutions thereby settling disputes without incurring much effort from both sides. The only challenge that arises in the procedure is to carry out functions of dispute settlements within the time-frames, but it is out of the scope of WhatsApp and is a responsibility on the seller’s front.
Costs and Benefits
Benefits include:
1. Privacy — The WhatsApp Business platform is a secure platform where the misuse of a customer’s data and information is negligible.
2. Customer Engagement — The fast and timebound interaction between customer and sellers help in maintaining the trust and future business opportunity with the customer.
3. Promotions and Advertising — The catalog feature acts as an excellent way to promote products. Other than this, sellers can use the automatic message feature to inform customers about the latest offers, discounts, etc.
4. Accessibility — The messaging platform is accessible to businesses of all sizes and budgets. It helps in minimizing the effort and costs incurred in marketing to a large extent.
Costs-
1. Reporting as Spam — WhatsApp is a large platform with billions of users monthly, where users can report bulk messages as spam that might cost a company because if tagged as spam can affect the brand image at large.
Denouement
With lots of benefits and costs but largely, benefits, to an e-commerce business looking to gain market for its product, WhatsApp Business API not only works in the interest of the buyer and the seller but also for the environment by implementing the concept of green marketing. Green marketing refers to the marketing strategy where products are marketed while assuming the safety of the environment. This means that WhatsApp marketing happens solely on virtual mode, minimizing the use of paper, plastic, and other substances that were classically used for the marketing purpose. Reclaiming a marketing trend that is done in a manner that is sensitive or responsive to ecological terms.