Build a Marketing Strategy on WhatsApp

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1. Determine Objectives and Key Performance Indicators

Like any traditional marketing strategy, step one is to define the marketing and business objectives your company should achieve. This creates a roadmap and allows you to focus your efforts on those objectives. You need to identify performance indicators to measure the impact of the campaign. This allows you to judge whether objectives were met and, if not, make adjustments to optimize underperforming campaigns.

2. Define Your Target Audience

Clearly defining each target segment is essential to effective communication—it determines tone and optimizes strategy success. You should study each profile type to adapt your approach, even creating different personas. First, determine purchasing behavior, as well as demographic and psychographic criteria, which should not be overlooked. You can use your existing customer base through surveys or studies of past marketing campaigns, especially on social media, or collect analytics data your company already has. Put simply, the better your brand knows its target audience and users, the better it can communicate the right product with the right tone and offer solutions tailored to their needs.

3. Set Up WhatsApp Business

The WhatsApp app everyone knows is different from WhatsApp Business. You'll need to download it first and then configure it. With WhatsApp Business, you can use the admin panel to add a catalog, out-of-office messages, business hours, labels—everything to optimize communication. Next, create a business profile with relevant company information and ideally generate a short link to include on your website. Creating a virtual storefront, or catalog, is recommended for product sales because it's highly optimized. Everything in this WhatsApp version designed for businesses has been optimized—personally, I use it for Flojo and wouldn't be without it. If you'd like to test it, contact me by clicking here.

4. Create a Brand Representative to Chat With Users

Research shows it's easier to have a first conversation with a person rather than a faceless entity. The human touch is valued in this type of interaction. Since we all use WhatsApp personally with friends and family, it's recommended to use a brand representative who acts as a live advisor, maintaining that sense of closeness with the brand. It's better to sign off with the representative's first name—Jean, Laura, or Corentin—rather than the company name. Customers know who they're speaking to and can easily follow up, rather than having direct access to the generic company name and an unidentifiable person.

5. Create Distribution Lists

You can use various distribution lists in WhatsApp Business based on your target segments. This allows you to deliver personalized promotional campaigns to each segment, making them optimized and relevant. For example, when a user starts a conversation with you, a welcome message can be sent, or if they browse the catalog and show interest in a product, you can send them a relevant link. Distribution lists can also be tied to trigger events for automated messages, such as cart abandonment.

6. Create WhatsApp Communications

Using WhatsApp Business for communication might include sending current promotions, blog links, site links, personalized recommendations, reviews, customized customer support, surveys, or simply addressing customer needs. Don't lose sight of the objectives you set in step 1—just because you're not directly addressing that goal doesn't mean you can be careless about other aspects. And follow proper etiquette. As you develop the strategy, plan different approaches for speaking with customers—avoid only pushing promotional content. Instead, show your audience that you can vary your communication and offer them different options.

7. Create a Product Catalog

You can create a product catalog, a virtual storefront that's highly recommended to increase your company's sales. The brand can easily showcase products and services so all customers can access them without needing to send a message. The catalog highlights useful product or service information—descriptions, images, prices, links, and more. However, as of now, it's not yet possible to purchase directly through WhatsApp. It seems this feature may come in the future, but nothing is official yet. Users can click the link sent to them to access the page and proceed to checkout.

8. Provide Effective Customer Service

WhatsApp Business's great strength is creating closeness between brand and customer. You can use personalized messages to notify customers of your hours or that you're on vacation if you're self-employed. Using these methods can increase your visibility and build customer trust. Customers feel understood, get information immediately, and know the message will be read during favorable hours. Unlike emails sent through a website form, you can chat directly on WhatsApp Business—a customer opens an existing conversation (if there is one), or they might receive a welcome and out-of-office message together.

All these methods, built into WhatsApp Business, strengthen your brand image with customers and especially your after-sales service. You can use it as customer support or a professional channel to reach new audiences. Everything is well-designed and easy to use—you have all the tools you need to create your WhatsApp Business marketing campaign.