The Ultimate Guide to WhatsApp for Business

Among a fair number of messaging apps, such as WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, LINE and many others, why has WhatsApp occupied the attention of almost more than half a billion daily active users in 180 countries? (Statista) When you visualize the growth of a project that was once only an idea of a startup of two former employees of Yahoo, you would feel curious with excitement to know all about the secrets of WhatsApp.

Scroll down and find out about the thing you spend your whole day chatting in and using.

The First Secret: How Did the Idea of WhatsApp Emerge?

The two founders of WhatsApp, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, made plans for their next careers when they left Yahoo with ambitions to join Facebook. Seemingly, they should have felt disappointed when they received the regret letter from Facebook for the job they applied for. However, if the matter overturned, and they had the job, it would have likely left them unable to start WhatsApp.

Out of deep thinking of introducing an app that has a mantra of “No ads! No Games! No Gimmicks,” it was a rocky launch of WhatsApp in 2009. Today's worldwide used app didn't succeed by day and night, but it took its founders to face numerous crashes and plentiful failures. What is surprising is that a business of such size is expected to include millions of employees, yet it has only 55 employees and 50 engineers behind the scenes. You may get why so! It is an Add free App, remember! Therefore, there is no need for employees for marketing or public relation, for its founders believed that “Dealing with ads is depressing.”

Facebook Buying WhatsApp Is Not a Secret

According to confidential a chart released by Onavo, WhatsApp's messages send per day have reached up to 8.2 billion. That is to say, it outpaced that of Facebook Messenger (on mobile); 3.5 billion. Therefore, Facebook wasn't only an observer of its rising competitor, but it planned to break the bank and made the largest acquisition to date, which is buying WhatsApp for $19 billion.

It is a breathtaking move of Facebook. It will contribute to its ongoing motive of enhancing worldwide connectivity via the internet because Facebook has announced that user growth comes first. Consequently, it will fuel Mark's ambitions of dominating the globe in terms of communication and messaging. This will, by all means, help Facebook prevent any other rival from eating its lunch.

In other words, it will make a difference in terms of:

Mobile Connectivity: WhatsApp will be a step further and a substitute of what Facebook didn't turn out to achieve via Messenger.
Engagement: According to Mark Zuckerberg, " WhatsApp is the only widely used app we’ve ever seen that has more engagement and a higher percent of people using it daily than Facebook itself."
Younger Audience: WhatsApp is more appealing to young people and youth around the world, and with Facebook taking control over WhatsApp, it will be capable of bringing back its youthful spirit.

A Recent WhatsApp Product: WhatsApp Business

WhatsApp Business is a separate app that is officially launched by WhatsApp in Android devices in January 2018. Later on, it rolled out to iOS devices. The app has a series of features meant to enable small businesses to connect with customers more easily. Moreover, WhatsApp has declared that WhatsApp Business is designed to, "Create a catalog to showcase your products and services."

Let's just take a deep dive into what the business app offers over the standard WhatsApp app and then look into setting it up and getting your business profile up and running.

Using WhatsApp for Business Is Not New, But WhatsApp Business Is New

Before having WhatsApp Business in the market, Business owners have used WhatsApp Messenger in many different ways. That is to say, despite the limited features of the ordinary WhatsApp, it was used creatively for, in an instance, internal team communication. The fact that almost everyone uses it spontaneously, it will help team members to stay in touch without explicitly asking everyone to check their WhatsApp because they are anyway addicted to it. Even if the ordinary WhatsApp isn't specialized nor customized, companies made use of it to send images, audio files, short video clips of the products and text messages to users across the world. Unlike SMS or Email, there is less format limitation, and delivery chances are higher.

Therefore, when WhatsApp Business was finally in stores, many people have built their companies with WhatsApp Business as their key driving business platform due to the great features it has over the ordinary WhatsApp.

Are All Devices Supported to Use WhatsApp Business?

WhatsApp Business runs perfectly on Android and iPhone devices that meet some requirements.

For Android Phones:

They should be running Android 2.3.7+.
During the verification process, your Android phone is able to receive SMS or phone calls.

For iPhone Devices:

For the iPhone, WhatsApp needs an iOS 9 or later. Also, WhatsApp Business can't support devices utilizing modified versions of the iPhone's operating system.

How Does WhatsApp Business Make the Difference in the Business World?

Having over 65 billion messages being sent via WhatsApp per day is a convincing reason to adopt such a communication channel for your business. Here is why:

Flexible Communication

Each business is based on three vital elements: communication, trust, and relationship. To clarify, the steadier internal and external communication you control, the more trust of the business you build, and, consequently, the stronger the business relationships you maintain. With WhatsApp Business, you can connect with your team members and customers easier. On one hand, you will follow up with your team via the group chats, and, on the other hand, you will be able to track your customers' problems, get quick feedback and testimonials so that they won’t drift away from you.

Cost Effective

As a small business, you absolutely care about the bills you pay and the costs required for building your whole business communications. However, WhatsApp Business is cost-effective when compared to calling and using SMS to communicate. In other words, you can stay in touch with all virtually via WhatsApp Business without the boundaries of your telephone bills. Let alone the benefits you can get from the quick replies, automatized messages, business statistics, etc.

Privacy

Your business is safe and secure, for you won’t have to worry about anyone eavesdropping your chats with your customers or team. This is due to the layers of protection WhatsApp has in forms of end-to-end encryption. Therefore, customers interact with you in a one-on-one conversation enabling your communication to be done in ensuring privacy. Koum has made clear about user privacy that " We want to know as little about our users as possible. We don't know your name, your gender... We designed our system to be as anonymous as possible. We're not advertisement-driven so we don't need personal databases."

Magnitude Marketing Channel

When taking a moment pause to explore what WhatsApp Business is going to do for you as a marketer, you will see plenty of strategies and features helping you boost revenue and increase conversions. The good thing is that not all business users are fully aware and active to depend on this platform for marketing. Therefore, this is a good chance to target your audience that’s likely to be less annoyed and more receptive to your campaigns. But, stay alarmed that these campaigns are innovative and engaging to grab your customers to take the first move and message you with their phone numbers.

Take the Absolut Vodka WhatsApp campaign as an ideal example. They wanted to invite people to the launch of their new collections smartly; fans had to contact the officer via WhatsApp to convince him why they worth an invitation to the party. People start sharing over 1000 photos, videos, songs, and even a voice message from the Queen of Holland convincing the boss that they are eligible to attend. This has exploded more than 600 contacts generating more leads, engagement and a lot of brand awareness. Watch the campaign here.

Another thing WhatsApp Business can do for you is that it allows you to send reminders to your customers. For example, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines do send flight information, booking confirmation, check-in notification and flight reminders for their customers within 10 different languages using their verified WhatsApp Business account. Smart enough!

Appealing Stories

The first thing to bear in mind is that you have to work resourcefully to build up an audience. Then, you can make artful stories to bring your customers closer and more curious to see what your team is preparing behind the scene. While only 35% of daily users post stories in the recent days when compared to the other platform; 81% on Snapchat and 60% on Instagram, it is highly expected to be a ranking method sooner or later. This is because, as Tech Crunch says, over 3 million businesses have already taken the leap by using WhatsApp Business, and there are over 10 million downloads on Google's Play Store. Hence, this brings a higher chance to make the stories for WhatsApp Business able to brand a personable identity for your services and products.

Again, remember that there’s no point in posting a story when you still don't have contacts to view it! Lead your customers and then amaze them with motivating stories.

What Is #1 Tip When You Are Looking to Promote Your Business through WhatsApp Business?

It is an advantageous step when you explain to your audience who are browsing your website that they can actually reach you via WhatsApp Business. Add the "Click to Chat" button on your website to orient your audience into the Business chat in WhatsApp.

Now, as a Business Owner, Can You Link Your Facebook Page to the WhatsApp Business?

Sure! It is an expected and deliberate step of Facebook to get to integrate all its significant apps (Instagram and WhatsApp) into its main platform. As a result, it makes the contact to your WhatsApp Business more accessible when easily previewed in your Facebook page. Moreover, you can run ads on Facebook that has WhatsApp message as the call-to-action button.

To connect your WhatsApp Business Account to Your Facebook Page:

First, go to Facebook page settings and look for the WhatsApp tab.
Enter your WhatsApp Business number and click "Send Code".
Verify code.
Add WhatsApp Button to your Page.

Well, in case you would like to run ads that click to WhatsApp, see more detailed information from here.

What Kind of Business Can Be Done on the WhatsApp Business App?

It is worth pointing out that WhatsApp Business is fundamentally designed to take the hand of small businesses who are struggling to be discovered on larger e-commerce platforms. Therefore, despite the size of your business in the market, you can still invest in digital marketing and drive traffic by having your customers' queries answered on the go and, consequently, improving customer satisfaction. WhatsApp Business features of instant replies, away messages and short links can help you reach your end.

Some business that do well on WhatsApp Business have their products "Sold Out" in record time. Here are some examples:

Crafts & Arts
Jewelry & Accessories
Food & Grocery
Hotel & Lodging
Clothing
Services

Photography
Stylists
Beauty Consultants
Event planners

Big Brands Using WhatsApp Business

Whatsoever big the businesses are, they don’t hold on to their old-fashioned ways of originating customers. Nevertheless, they keep investigating way more advanced methods to maintain their old subscribers and add new others to their list. Here are some examples of how marketing whales are spotting WhatsApp Business for killer changes.

Netflix

As a means of communicating with its subscribers, Netflix leverages WhatsApp Business in India to send messages and recommendations to its users about what to watch.

BookMyShow

BookMyShow is also one of the batch businesses that partner with WhatsApp Business to help people purchase movie tickets online through a QR code. This is the true behavior of adapting the sophisticated technology into your business; no paper or printing is required. Instead, it exploits WhatsApp Business as a default ticket confirmation channel for all its users.

Hellman’s Mayonnaise WhatsCook Campaign

What Hellman's does during its WhatsApp Campaign was thought-provoking! They come up with brilliant ideas driving more than 13.000 Brazilians to seek to contact them. That is, they encourage their customers to capture their fridge and send the picture to their WhatsApp Business Account to get in touch with the chef and start cooking the meal together. They knew very well how to make brand awareness through building an informal bond with the customers via WhatsApp Business. What a smart campaign!

How to Create a WhatsApp Business Account

Download and open the app.
Accept terms and conditions.
Verify you phone number with which you want to talk to customers.
Build your profile. Tap More options > Settings > Business settings.

What Does WhatsApp Business Have Over WhatsApp Messenger?

Despite having WhatsApp Messenger used before to run business, the launch of WhatsApp Business records a noticeable shifting in the way businesses lead generation, manage relationships and follow up with customers. So, how does WhatsApp Business differ from WhatsApp Messenger? What additional features do you get?

Let just point out firstly to the "Unsimilar Logos "which makes the visual awareness of both apps obvious. Besides, WhatsApp Business has the feature of ""Identifying Chats" by which you will be alerted when receiving a message that, " this chat is with a business account."

Here are other fantastic standard features for companies to enjoy:

Business Profile

Your customers can reach you easier with all the necessary information about your business that you add to your business profile. It includes Business Name, Number, About, Address, Category, business hours and email.