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Ever wondered how you can send messages to a broader audience? Look no further than the WhatsApp Broadcast Message feature that allows you to send bulk messages to multiple users at once.
WhatsApp broadcast messages reach out to a wider audience while maintaining privacy and having one-to-one conversations with your customers for personalized support.
Thus, let’s walk through the whats, whys, and hows of WhatsApp Broadcast Message and other details that you should know.
Simply speaking, a WhatsApp broadcast message acts as an announcement or advertisement about offers, promotions, discounts, and such that are being promoted by your business. For example, your business would use WhatsApp broadcast messaging if it was doing a Christmas sale and you would like a wider audience to know about the discounts on your products.
Hence, broadcasting your messages on WhatsApp can be a very powerful tool to advertise your business offerings. Having said that, let’s transition to why your business should use WhatsApp broadcast message.
There are a lot of benefits and advantages to using WhatsApp Broadcast Message for your business. They are as follows:
Using WhatsApp Business App (which is free), you can send a WhatsApp broadcast message to your clients. To send messages, you need to follow the following steps.
One of the best practices for sending messages to users is to ensure they give their okay to your brand messages. This can be collected through prior conversations or prompts. That way you know which users are open to receiving offers, promotions, and other information from you before you create a broadcast list.
Once you have identified the users you want to send the messages to, it’s time to create a broadcast list. Here is how you can do that.
Using this process, you can create multiple broadcast lists to target certain user groups for specific offers or promotions.
To Note: A broadcast list can have at most 256 contacts.
Now, you can send the broadcast messages by selecting the list you want to send to. The recipients will receive it as a personal message, which promotes one-to-one communication. Also, they will not know if any other users have received the same message directly, allowing discretion for both users and businesses.
While the process of sending a WhatsApp broadcast message is easy with the WhatsApp Business App, it comes with some limitations. For some, the limitations may seem inconsequential but they can prove significant as you scale up your business.
Given that broadcast lists are limited to 256 contacts, you can send to that number of users at a time. This is great for smaller shops like grocery stores or local bakeries, but not for businesses that are looking to scale big and beyond 200+ customers.
As we mentioned the process earlier, you have to select the contacts to add to a broadcast list. All contacts have to be entered or selected manually for the broadcast list and cannot be imported.
This can be very tedious as your business keeps growing and you have multiple broadcast lists and hundreds of customers to send messages to.
User segmentation options are lacking as the WhatsApp broadcast list creation is very barebones. This restricts businesses from creating proper user segmentation and identifying target groups for your business.
Without being able to sort through users, it becomes hard for a business to scale their business properly in the long run.
The formatting and contacting system has to adhere to what WhatsApp is capable of with the Business App. Thus, there are some limitations in how you can portray or frame your messages to users. The basic template can only hold images, photos, videos, or links but it’s not really interactive.
No buttons can be used and you cannot even customize the looks of your promotion. This can be a huge turn-off for customers as they might feel like you are not giving enough effort, thus harming your business.
This is a bigger issue than it may seem. Since your messages sent to users are personal ones, you can be reported for spam and WhatsApp could take action against your number. So even if you are using their Business App, WhatsApp could restrict or ban you if you receive enough reports from users.
The WhatsApp Business App analytics system is very limited and does not provide you with a lot of data. Also, if the user you are sending to has not added you to your contacts, that will not show up as delivered. So, there are a lot of drawbacks in terms of analytics when using WhatsApp Business App for mass messaging.
You can’t put off broadcasts for later with the WhatsApp Business App. This means messages are sent the moment you click the send button. It can be a little inconvenient as you might want to target customers at a specific time or date but unfortunately, WhatsApp Business App does not have this functionality.
With WhatsApp Business App, there is no way to integrate Chatbots or use any automation techniques for broadcasting messages. Having automation really simplifies things for you and allows you to do all sorts of functions.
Not to mention, having a Chatbot integrated means that customers get better support and quicker replies. Hence, having automation options can make a huge difference for your business.
While these limitations can be a turn-off for you, fortunately, there are alternatives for broadcasting WhatsApp messages through the use of the Business API. Using the API has some initial setup that you have to go through. However, it comes with very few limitations and a lot of features and benefits for your business.
To use the WhatsApp Business API, you will need a Meta and WhatsApp Business Account and need to use a third-party service solution like REVE Chat. These tools allow you to automate and simplify your WhatsApp Broadcast Message and make them more interactive with different elements being added into the mix. Also, you will need users to opt-in to your campaigns via actions on your website or other pages.
Here is how using a solution like REVE Chat allows you to do that.
Using REVE Chat, you don’t have a limit of 256 contacts, you can actually message as many users as you want. Through an import system, you can add as many contacts as you want and message them based on the segments you have created for yourself. To import, you will need an Excel file that contains all the contact information.
To start this process, you need to click the “+ Import” option as shown in the image below, and then upload the Excel file with all the details.
After uploading the file, you will need to add attributes to all the information that is being added as shown below.
Alternatively, you can also add individual contacts manually. All you have to do is click the “+ Add Contact” button and fill out all the necessary details like Name, Phone Number, Email, etc.
This way, you can add as many contacts as you want. Furthermore, it allows you to scale your business infinitely and send messages to any user you feel fits your promotions, new products, and the like.
A WhatsApp broadcast message can be made using a Campaign. The system allows you to add as many contacts to it and has different parameters and attributes for it. Not to mention, you can run as many campaigns as you want with REVE Chat.
To create a campaign, you first click the megaphone icon on the bottom left of the image below.
This allows you to go to a tab that shows the “+ New Campaign” option on the top right. After clicking that, you need to fill up the details as shown below.
This includes the Campaign Name, channel to use it on (WhatsApp by default), WhatsApp Business Number, and Message Template with an option to create a new one. Target Audience where you can create or use a segment. Also, a scheduling system is available if you need the messages to deploy later.
The pop-up will also show you a preview of how your message template looks like.
With REVE Chat, you can segment users better by using conditions and sort contacts based off of those requirements. To add segments, you can just click the “+ Add” button and start creating one.
Next, you have to give the segment a name and set conditions and attributes to sort your contact list as shown below.
To set conditions, you have to first start with an attribute such as location, different phone users, and so on. An example is shown below.
You also select a condition that will be compared to the Type Value you put in. For example, if you type in “USA” and select Equals as the condition, it will show the users in your contact list that live in the US.
Also, you can have multiple conditions where both or either condition are factored into the sorting as shown below.
With such an advanced segmentation system, you can create customer groups for the future and utilize them for different campaigns. That way, you can do efficient targeting with better lead generation and payoffs.
Through the use of custom templates, you can align and construct your messages in an interactive way and send them to users. This makes a better impression on the customers and generates more leads. To create a template, you can see the image below as a reference point.
You need to enter a name, which channel you want to use it for (which is WhatsApp in this case), your Business Number, and the category you want your template to be on. The category option is customizable along with everything you might need to create a brand new template.
Whether it be alignment, how the messages look, headers and footers, adding action buttons, and many more. To learn more about our template building, please visit our documentation on it as it guides you through all the various options and features REVE Chat has to offer.
Since users are opting in for your campaigns, your account will not be flagged as spam any longer. Not only are interested parties coming to you, but you are also sending your messages to the users who have already subscribed to your newsletter or promotions. Overall, this increases transparency between businesses and customers and decreases the likelihood of your broadcasts being regarded as scams.
Through the use of REVE Chat, you can get better analytics and data. As users have already opted-in to your WhatsApp broadcast message, you can track how many messages have been delivered, read, replied to, or have failed to reach the customer. This can be viewed in Campaign Details as shown below.
That way, you can check how well your campaigns are working and whether you need to make adjustments for future promotions.
Using REVE Chat’s many integration options, you can integrate a Chatbot with your WhatsApp Business account. This allows quick replies, fast queries, and better customer support. Not to mention, all the information is now at the tip of the customer’s fingers.
Also, you can schedule campaigns at a specific time or date, which allows for the maximization of a campaign for your needs. With a better contact importing option, Chatbot integration, and more, REVE Chat allows your business to automate the tedious work and focus on improvement and growth.
WhatsApp broadcast message is an excellent way to reach out to a massive number of users. While WhatsApp Business App has its limitations, it has a lot of benefits for smaller businesses.
However, when you consider scalability and automation, the use of a third-party service provider is necessary and REVE Chat is here to help you with that.
With our robust automation tools, excellent campaign creation, and extensive user segmentation, you can customize promotions and offers through unique templates and wow your users.
So sign up for REVE Chat right now and see for yourself how beneficial we can be for your WhatsApp broadcast messaging campaign.
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