In this article we will find out the importance of implementing a conversational marketing strategy. In particular, we will see how companies in the world of e-commerce can exploit the power of WhatsApp as an instant communication tool
Nowadays, online commerce is skyrocketing, putting brick-and-mortar stores under attack, which find themselves penalized by recent restrictions and the consequent change of customer habits.
In this context, more and more companies are looking for alternative ways to reach their customers, entering the digital market often without a well-defined strategy. Yet, the potential of e-commerce is manifold, if planned in the most appropriate ways, based on the characteristics of the company that decides to go down this path.
Additionally, headless e-commerce platforms have emerged as a powerful solution, allowing businesses to decouple their front-end presentation layer from the back-end commerce functionality, enabling greater flexibility and scalability in delivering seamless customer experiences.
And yet, e-commerce has some limitations; among these, the most significant is certainly the lack of a direct and empathic relationship with end customers, who are often detached from the emotional part that products evoke in physical retail.
For this reason, integrating conversational marketing into their online communication strategy is increasingly crucial for companies that need to go digitital.
WhatsApp is one of the most suitable tools when it comes to adopting a conversational marketing strategy, in fact, it allows companies to communicate with their users at any time, wherever they are. Companies thus have a direct channel available, to interact with customers or potential customers.
Moreover, WhatsApp is committed to protecting user privacy, thanks to end-to-end encryption. For this reason, the Zuckerberg platform is certainly a safe choice for customers who want to communicate with a company.
You can generate leads on WhatsApp in the following ways:
1) Website: by installing a chat widget on your website it will be possible to direct the traffic generated directly to WhatsApp, creating an instant connection between the user and the company;
2) Social Networks: by starting a post on Facebook or Instagram containing a link to your WhatsApp number, it will allow the engaged users to be able to contact the company easily. Otherwise you can activate the WhatsApp button on your Facebook company page;
3) Facebook Ads (not available in Italy): by creating an ad with the goal of “Messages” with “Click that refers to WhatsApp” it will be possible to start a chat with your target audience;
4) E-mail: it will be sufficient to add your WhatsApp number within the e-mails of newsletters, promotions or order confirmations, to create a direct connection with users.
Once new leads have been obtained, they will be more than happy to communicate with the brand, given the high response rate that this communication channel boasts, compared to traditional e-mails.
All the new leads generated by WhatsApp have a much higher value than the others, due to the informality and immediacy that WhatsApp offers. In fact, it is possible to send a new promotional campaign to your leads and reach potential customers at any time.
With the possibility of integrating its product catalog, WhatsApp Business turns into a real showcase for the brand, in which users can browse the entire offer of the brands and be redirected in a moment to the related websites to finalize the purchase.
With a tool like WhatsApp it is possible to share photos and video demonstrations of the products, thus greatly improving the user experience. Users will feel more engaged and will be able to interact in person throughout the purchasing phases.
Organizing a drip marketing strategy aimed at your leads on WhatsApp can be remarkably profitable, and allows you to maintain a long-term relationship with potential customers and increase brand awareness.
It is essential to create a relationship of trust with your leads on WhatsApp, without being too intrusive, in order to be able to finalize sales directly through chat or by redirecting the user to your website or Amazon.
Offering quality customer care through WhatsApp will allow your business to anticipate and understand customer needs in a faster and completely innovative way.
Many companies are, in fact, already using WhatsApp as a channel for customer support, radically transforming the relationship with their customers, in a conversational and friendly atmosphere.
With WhatsApp, users can expose the problem they want to solve through messages, audio, photos and videos, thus making communication rich in information and shortening response times.
In fact, the reactivity with which companies are able to manage requests for assistance from customers is decisive, and WhatsApp is the most effective way to provide them with solutions in a short time.
With the Outside Voice tool it is possible to create real questionnaires, to be sent to WhatsApp contacts in a totally automated way, without any programming skills.
It is an extremely intuitive platform to use: you just need to create an account, set the questions to ask your users and send the link that will allow them to open the questionnaire directly on WhatsApp.
Outside Voice will take care of collecting all the survey data, which can be used for the consequent analysis concerning the aspects of your business that you wish to analyse.
However, both the cons and pros must be considered when it comes to developing an auto-reply system in an instant messaging platform, where users expect replies.
The advantages of using a bot for your e-commerce are:
1) Faster conversations: chatbots allow you to answer simple or even more complex questions quickly and efficiently;
2) Constant presence: you can keep your bot active 24/7, and this will allow your users to get answers at any time, without having to wait for human intervention;
3) Lower costs: artificial intelligence allows companies to cut some costs, for example, for customer care staff or for sales agents;
4) Data collection: it is possible to connect the chatbot to an analytics, so that this shows the data relating to the users who interact.
Instead, the disadvantages of using a bot are:
1) They can fail: bots sometimes fail to understand user requests, as they are too complicated to be managed by AI, or for programming reasons.
2) Lack of empathy: being robots, they obviously have shortcomings from an emotional point of view, which can be reflected in the quality of the conversation with the user
3) Difficulty in communication: it may happen that chatbots are unable to have a satisfying conversation, with delays in replies or even missed replies, due to programming bugs or too pretentious user needs.
It can be said that the solution in this area lies in the middle, where automation makes room for human intervention, when the bot fails to satisfy the demands of the audience.
Building an automation system for WhatsApp could prove to be unsuccessful, since the types of requests that you can get through this channel are many, so it could be very difficult to develop a solution that can include all of them.
The biggest problem with WhatsApp Business is that it cannot be used by multiple devices at the same time. Which means that you can only manage a corporate account from one device at a time.
This can be a huge problem for companies with a sales or customer support team who handle massive amounts of chats with users. These limits can cause confusion and affect the services offered by the company itself.
With Callbell you can manage your sales or support team in an organized and structured way, so you can communicate efficiently with your customers.
The main features of our platform are:
1) Integration of the main messaging apps: within Callbell, in addition to WhatsApp, it is also possible to connect Facebook, Instagram and Telegram, in order to manage your sales and support team on all communication channels;
2) Automatic assignment of chats: all you need to do is invite your sales or support team to collaborate on Callbell to immediately start managing conversations, which will be allocated in a totally automated manner between them;
3) Quick tag creation and replies: by applying tags to users it will be possible to identify them more easily. In addition, our platform allows you to set up quick responses that will make communication with the user more immediate;
4) Chat widget: Callbell offers its free chat widget that you can install on any site, without too much effort. Thus it will be possible to redirect the traffic of your website in the main messaging channels. Our widget collects data that allows you to monitor website visitors, to receive useful insights on the channels that users prefer to use to communicate with the brand.
5) Analytics: the Analytics module is available for all accounts, and allows you to monitor the performance of agents, view the main metrics related to chat management and export information about your contacts.
6) Chat history backup: this function allows you to download the entire chat that took place with users, so that it can be stored and analyzed at any time.
If you want to start using our platform right away, you can create a free account directly from this link.
Thank you for reading, see you next time!
How can you integrate WhatsApp into a website?
In this way, the user will just have to start the chat (the user will then give you his opt-in). There are several ways to integrate WhatsApp on your website, such as: using the WhatsApp API documentation, using the Callbell chat widget or the GetButton one.
What are the ways to integrate a WhatsApp link on the website?
Let’s start with the most technical (and really very simple) solution. This solution allows us to integrate the click-to-chat link anywhere on the website. In fact, you just need to add your custom link to an image, button or any invitation to allow WhatsApp to connect.
Use the Callbell chat widget
A chat widget is a great way to add a WhatsApp button to your website, which is similar to other Live Chat support solutions that we see all the time on the internet. This will allow users to your website to start a conversation with a simple click, redirecting all traffic to their preferred instant messaging channels.
To do this, you will need to create a free account on Callbell, create your custom widget with just a few clicks and install it on the website via WordPress or Google Tag Manager. You can program the widget to be visible on both the desktop or mobile version, as well as both. Once this is done, the widget will appear at the bottom of the pages of your website and will give the public the possibility to start a conversation with you by clicking directly on the WhatsApp button.
About the author: Hello! I am Alan and I am the marketing manager at Callbell, the first communication platform designed to help sales and support teams to collaborate and communicate with customers through direct messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and Instagram Direct
