WhatsApp: the NewGen marketing tool
WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging subscription service for smartphones. In addition to text messaging, users can send images, videos, and audio multimedia messages to each other. Client software is available for Android, BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, iOS, Series 40, Symbian (S60), and Windows Phone
Competing with various Asia-based messaging services (such as LINE, KakaoTalk, and WeChat), WhatsApp handles ten billion messages per day. According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp “has done with SMS on mobile phones what Skype did with international calls on landlines. The service is free for the first year and then costs $ 0.99 / year.”
Everyone knows that WhatsApp is a great tool for messaging friends, however what you didn’t know is that WhatsApp can be used as a campaign tool to generate marketing leads. The app is free and can serve as a solid marketing channel with the potential to land customers for your business more than anything else.
Why choose WhatsApp for your marketing campaign?
The application is almost free!
You can send a large number of messages without limits. It is available for all smartphone platforms including iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Nokia, Blackberry, Symbian. Everyone uses it because you don’t have to go to a website to fill in the details or confirm your identity to use it. You just need your mobile phone number and voila!
Better functions than traditional SMS / MMS
WhatsApp supports many different types of messages, from plain text to images and audio files. Usually sending an MMS message would cost quite a bit of money, so the fact that they can be sent to as many clients and prospects as you want for free is great.
You can also send the GPS location of your stores! Product videos, product images, and audio messages (a short personal message from your CEO could be sent to multiple customers and prospects in one go!) This wonderful app supports everything. You can start your own WhatsApp group and invite your customers and prospects to join, or you can create an internal marketing group that will help you stay connected with your campaign partners 24/7.
Therefore, WhatsApp as a campaign tool can do everything that a traditional email or SMS campaign could do. To top it off, Whatsapp is close to our heart, people can’t take their hands off their phone because of this app. Hence, any message that is communicated through this medium has the immediate and maximum scope.
