Conversational marketing: How WhatsApp is revolutionizing customer communication ?

Let's face it, traditional marketing is on its last legs. In the era of social networks and instant messaging, consumers expect more direct, personal, and engaging communication from brands.

This is the whole challenge of conversational marketing. The idea is simple: it's about engaging in dialogue with your targets, in an individualized and contextualized way, to create a relationship of proximity and trust. Rather than bombarding your prospects with ads and promotions, you seek to establish a real discussion to understand their needs and provide them with value.

The advantages are numerous. With conversational marketing, you can:

• Humanize your brand by adopting a warmer and more empathetic tone.

• Personalize your messages according to the profile and expectations of each contact.

• Establish real-time exchange to instantly respond to questions and requests.

• Generate more engagement and conversion by delivering the right content at the right time.

• Build customer loyalty by offering an ultra-personalized experience.

And guess which platform ticks all these boxes? WhatsApp, of course! With its intuitive messaging features, rich content options (images, videos, documents…), and gigantic user base, WhatsApp has everything to become your best ally in deploying a high-performance conversational strategy.

We'll explain why.

We've told you, WhatsApp has everything to please marketers in search of a more conversational customer relationship. But concretely, what are the benefits for your business? Let's take stock.

Reach a large, highly engaged audience

With 2 billion active users, WhatsApp stands out as one of the most popular and dynamic channels. There's a good chance that your current and future customers use WhatsApp. By marketing on WhatsApp, you maximize your interaction opportunities.

Establish a closer and more interactive relationship with your customers

WhatsApp's number one asset is proximity to users. Unlike traditional channels (email, SMS…), WhatsApp allows you to establish a real dialogue with your contacts.

By marketing on WhatsApp, you can exchange messages in real-time, share engaging content, receive feedback… In short, create a more direct and interactive relationship based on exchange and trust.

Personalize and humanize your messages

WhatsApp allows you to adopt a conversational approach that adapts to each contact. You can use the customer data you have (first name, purchase history…) to send ultra-personalized messages. WhatsApp also allows you to adopt a warm and friendly tone, in line with messaging codes.

Generate more sales and conversion

By creating a close relationship with your targets, WhatsApp allows you to engage them more effectively in the purchase funnel. For example, you can send them exclusive and individualized offers, share inspiring customer testimonials, or even accompany them in real-time in their journey. In summary, proximity creates engagement which in turn promotes conversion.

Reduce your communication costs

Prevention is better than cure, and WhatsApp understands this well. By allowing your customers to contact you spontaneously, instant messaging considerably reduces the number of requests to handle. You can also automate part of the responses with chatbots, available 24/7\. The result? Optimization of your customer support costs.

Convinced by the advantages of WhatsApp marketing? Then it's time to get started. To succeed in your WhatsApp strategy, you must follow a rigorous methodology. Here are the main steps to follow.

Create a WhatsApp Business account

The first essential step to get started with WhatsApp marketing is to create a WhatsApp Business account. This is the professional version of the application, dedicated to businesses. It allows you to set up a profile with key information about your company (name, logo, website, opening hours…) and access advanced features (quick replies, labels, statistics…).

To create your account, simply download the WhatsApp Business application, enter your professional phone number, and let yourself be guided through the profile setup and tool familiarization.

Define your objectives and performance indicators

As with any marketing strategy, you need to define clear and measurable objectives for your WhatsApp approach. What are you trying to accomplish? Recruit new leads, boost your sales, improve customer satisfaction? Sell or advise, sell and advise?

The choice of indicators to follow closely depends on your objectives.

For example, if your goal is to generate qualified leads, you'll track the number of contacts collected and their conversion rate. If you're looking to improve your customer relationship, you'll rather monitor the response rate and satisfaction.

Whatever your objectives, the essential thing is to equip yourself with a dashboard to pilot your performance.

Identify your target and build a qualified contact base

To fully exploit WhatsApp's potential, you need to address the right contacts at the right time. This involves knowing your target and their usage of messaging well.

What are their needs, expectations, interests? When are they most receptive? Understanding and segmenting your audience will help you build and personalize your messages.

You must also ensure you obtain explicit consent from your contacts before sending them WhatsApp messages. This is essential to comply with GDPR! The most effective way is to set up an opt-in form on your website and other points of contact.

Establish your editorial line and broadcast schedule

The crux of the matter on WhatsApp is content. To capture your targets' attention, you need to offer them messages that are both relevant and engaging. This involves defining an editorial line adapted to instant messaging: a friendly or even complicit tone, short and punchy formats, attractive visuals…

We also recommend mixing informative, promotional, and fun content to avoid audience fatigue.

You will also need to establish a broadcast schedule to pace your communications. What will be your sending frequency? At what key moments will you communicate? The challenge is to find the right balance between presence and discretion (the eternal question of marketing pressure management!).

Create attractive messages with rich content

The advantage of WhatsApp is being able to send a wide variety of formats to capture attention. In addition to text messages, you can integrate images, videos, voice notes, emojis… Take advantage of this to enhance your communications!

You can even create small quizzes or polls to generate engagement.

A tip: think mobile first! Your content should be optimized for smartphone display, with short texts, a clear structure, and adapted visuals. Test them before sending to check their readability. And above all, always make sure to bring value to your readers. This is the key to building a relationship of trust.

Inspiring campaign examples

Lacking inspiration?

Here are some examples of successful WhatsApp campaigns to give you ideas:

• VIP: A good practice that we see more and more consists of offering your best customers exclusive access to your new products or special promotions via WhatsApp. The idea? Create a sense of privilege and strengthen the engagement of your most loyal customers.

• Challenge: You can also organize a contest on WhatsApp to generate interaction. The objective here is to invite your contacts to share content (photo, testimonial…) related to your brand for a chance to win a prize.

• Tailored advice: Another interesting avenue is setting up a personalized recommendation service via WhatsApp. The goal is to help each customer find the product or service best suited to their needs, in an individualized way.

• Interactive tutorials: You can also share tips and tutorials on WhatsApp to help your customers use your products, whether in the form of videos, visuals, or via a chatbot.

• Exclusive offers: To boost your sales, why not distribute flash offers, limited in time and reserved for your WhatsApp community?

• Feedback: WhatsApp can also be used to solicit your customers' opinions after a purchase or interaction.

We'd like to write: "etc.". WhatsApp offers a wide field of possibilities and we could multiply examples and ideas even further!

Ready to dive into WhatsApp marketing? Before you start, here are some best practices to adopt and pitfalls to avoid.

Request opt-in and respect privacy (GDPR)

We can't stress this enough: on WhatsApp as elsewhere, consent is king. Before sending any message, you must obtain explicit agreement from your contacts, respecting GDPR rules. Offer them to sign up via an opt-in form, clearly specifying the purpose and frequency of your communications. And of course, allow them to unsubscribe easily at any time.

Adopt a natural and friendly conversational tone

WhatsApp is an intimate and personalized channel. To succeed on this channel, you must adopt the right codes. Forget corporate jargon and pompous formulas. Put yourself at your audience's level, with a simple, direct, and warm tone. Be empathetic and kind. Your goal is not to lecture your contacts, but to bring them value. Write as you would speak to them!

Prioritize quality over quantity, don't spam

The fatal mistake on WhatsApp? Spamming your contacts to the point of overdose! Nothing like that to see them flee at full speed. As in any relationship, you need to know how to make yourself desired.

Limit yourself to 2-3 messages per week, so as not to saturate your subscribers. And above all, make sure that each message brings real added value: exclusive info, relevant advice, an enticing promo…

Show reactivity and empathy in exchanges

Don't forget that WhatsApp is a conversational channel. Your contacts expect a certain reactivity from you. Be available to answer their questions and react to their comments, if possible in real-time. Nothing more frustrating than talking into the void!

Show empathy and listening in your exchanges. Your goal is to weave real proximity with your customers.

Intelligently automate with chatbots

Personalization, yes, real-time management, yes, but you know it: all this is time-consuming.

To gain reactivity, you can use chatbots to automate part of your conversations. It's very practical for answering recurring questions or qualifying leads.

But beware of excessive automation! Your contacts expect above all a human and authentic presence. Our advice: work well on your bot scripts and plan for a real advisor to take over for customers who request it.

Measure and optimize your performance

Like any marketing strategy, your WhatsApp marketing strategy must be continuously piloted and optimized. So:

• Regularly monitor your key indicators (number of subscribers, engagement rate, conversion rate…) to measure your ROI.

• Identify what works and what catches less, to continuously improve.

• Don't hesitate to test different types of content and formats to see what inspires your contacts the most. Your approach should be agile and evolving. Test & learn, the marketer's motto!

Things are clear today: any mobile marketing strategy must consider integrating the WhatsApp channel, just like other tools such as mobile wallet or push notifications.

And we hope this article has convinced you: WhatsApp is no longer just a "nice" application for chatting with friends. It has become a real marketing channel, which can contribute to giving a new dimension to your customer relationship.

Based on conversation and proximity, WhatsApp allows you to engage in authentic and personalized dialogue with your audience, at the right time and in the right tone. Enough to boost your visibility, your engagement, and ultimately your turnover, obviously.

But to succeed in your approach, you must respect certain key principles:

• Obtain consent from your contacts and respect their privacy.

• Adopt a natural and empathetic tone, in the spirit of conversation.

• Prioritize the quality and relevance of your content, without spamming.

• Show reactivity and listening in exchanges.

• Automate intelligently, preserving a human presence.

• Continuously measure and optimize your performance.