WhatsApp advertising & selling for small businesses in SA

What is WhatsApp advertising?

The short answer: It’s a type of messenger marketing tool that allows you to promote your brand through WhatsApp. You can build strong relationships with your customers, reach bigger audiences and increase sales.

Is advertising on WhatsApp recommended for South Africans?

Yes. From a business standpoint, using WhatsApp as a marketing tool makes perfect sense no matter where you reside. South African businesses are almost criminally slow to embrace WhatsApp’s marketing power – despite the app having more than 21 million users nationwide.

That’s right, nearly 96% of internet users use WhatsApp. So why aren’t more South Africans jumping on this train? It’s likely due to a lack of awareness; but once you learn about all the benefits, you’ll understand why it’s such a good investment, which we’ll cover in the next section.

Why WhatsApp is an effective tool for your marketing strategy

WhatsApp is the most widely used direct messaging app, with over two billion users worldwide. And if you own a business, you can use this platform to reach even more customers.

Let’s delve into why WhatsApp is an effective marketing tool for your businesses.

WhatsApp ads can boost sales while cutting operating costs

Like any other social media app, WhatsApp provides a quick and easy way to spread the word about your business. From driving brand awareness to effortless after-sale care, you’ll have access to many ways of optimising your marketing efforts.

It’s no secret that marketing can cost small businesses a lot of money, but you can save on operational costs with WhatsApp advertisements. This works because small business owners can ask members/customers on the app if they want to receive digital pamphlets or not.

Compare that to how major retailers in South Africa spend a massive budget on printed pamphlets, newspaper inserts, and, more recently, influencers on social media. While these methods are effective, it would make sense for small businesses to make use of WhatsApp advertising instead.

WhatsApp is 15 times more effective than Email and SMS

In this day and age, fast and effective communication is crucial to customer relations and, eventually, online sales. Let’s face it, humankind struggles to pay attention for longer periods due to shorter attention spans, and you can blame technology for this.

That said, no one has time for — or enjoys — sluggish communication and long emails when shopping online. This is where apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram bridge the communication gap between sellers and buyers.

WhatsApp allows businesses to share promotional content with customers

Apart from catalogues, you can use WhatsApp Business to communicate business messages or promotions directly to your customers (if they are willing to receive these). This includes sending discount vouchers, updates or announcements, promotional offers, coupons, product launches, and cart recovery alerts.

WhatsApp can help you build a loyal customer base

Trust is a key component to accumulating loyal customers, and if you use this tool correctly, you’ll be able to expand your audience.

Firstly, WhatsApp has strict quality parameters and monitors business accounts closely to see if customers are blocking your number or ignoring your texts. If this is the case, your account will get impeded by WhatsApp to prevent spamming. This ensures you’re only communicating with potential customers who are genuinely interested in your products or services.

In return, customers are more likely to engage with you, which leads to loyalty and possible sales. WhatsApp also allows you to be more personal with your customers, which shows just how valuable they are to your business.

How to Sell on WhatsApp (for Business)

Now that you know why it’s a good idea to use Whatsapp advertising, it’s time to discover precisely how you can sell on the app. Follow the steps below, and you should be able to start your new marketing journey in no time:

Step 1: Download the WhatsApp Business App

Sharing a similar user interface, features, and qualities of the traditional WhatsApp, you can find and download the business version for free from the Play Store.

The one thing that sets this version apart is its ability to allow you to create a business profile.

Step 2: Create your business profile

After downloading the app, you’ll need to verify your cell number before you can start working on your business profile. This entails filling in valuable details such as the name of your business, email, website, address, and description.

You can also set up your profile picture in this step. If you already have a business logo, use that to make your company instantly recognisable.

Step 3: Set up business hours and craft a welcome message

Setting up your business’ opening hours ensures there’s no expectation to communicate with customers after operating hours. This is also where you can create a welcome message for your clients. For example: “Hi, welcome to (business name)! How may we help you?” — plus a call-to-action.

Step 4: Start advertising your WhatsApp Business

Now that your account is set up, it’s time to ensure your customers can find you. You can promote your WhatsApp Business on other Meta apps via email, web-based advertising, or through brick-and-mortar store marketing solutions.

Note: Use the WhatsApp opt-in method when promoting so that customers permit you to send them texts. This ensures your business remains compliant with POPIA laws.

Step 5: Manage your chats with customers

After following all these steps, you can start chatting with your customers to sell your products. However, these conversations require effective management to remain professional and productive. This is where APIs and chatbots can come in handy (more on these here).

Step 6: Verify your business account

Go one step further by verifying your WhatsApp Business account. A green tick next to your business name can boost customer trust and loyalty.

Launching your WhatsApp campaign: Best practices

So, you’ve got your business account up and running, and you’re chatting to customers, but interest and sales aren’t picking up as quickly as you thought. You can boost engagement on WhatsApp with some clever marketing tricks, such as the following:

• Offer customers a first purchase discount: This will especially prompt those who haven’t purchased yet to start buying since they now have a discounted price.
• Showcase your best-sellers: Putting these products and services right in front of undecided shoppers may influence them to buy something loved by fellow customers.
• Send personalised recommendations: Make your customers feel important and special by sending them personalised offers. This shows that you are interested in them and understand their preferences. These recommendations are based on your interaction with shoppers, their search history, and previous transactions.
• Use visuals and aesthetics to inspire your customers: Most shoppers purchase items based on their visual appeal, which is precisely how you can promote your products. Images, videos, PDFs, mood boards, lookbooks, and product demos are all ways to inspire customers to buy your products or services.
• Broadcast your sales and discounts: Every shopper loves a good sale or discount, and informing them about any good deal with a call-to-action is a surefire way to increase purchases. Doing this around specific holidays, such as Valentine’s Day or Christmas, is even better since people want to buy gifts for their loved ones.
• Automate Notifications & Reminders: Set up automated notifications for certain events such as delivery, abandoned carts, orders, and shipping via integration. This automation is more effective than Emails or SMS and helps personalise customer communication.
• Automate support and sales via a chatbot for quick response time: Not only will your shoppers receive instant replies, but the chatbot operates 24/7 and responds in a similar way to how a human would.

Costs of putting ads on WhatsApp

By now, you know that WhatsApp advertising can be a cost-effective marketing method. This is where things get a bit complex and situational since the WhatsApp Business Platform uses conversation-based pricing.

This works by charging per conversion and not per individual message. The platform considers 24-hour message threads between you and a customer as a conversation. The 24-hour mark starts when messages sent to customers have been delivered, known as an ‘opened conversation’.

These conversations are then categorised to determine if it has been opened:

• Marketing- conversations that include promotions, offers, updates, and invitations.
• Utility- conversations that convey specific agreed-upon requests, transaction confirmations or updates, and post-purchase notifications.
• Authentication- conversations that allow you to authenticate users with one-time passcodes.
• Service- conversations that help you resolve customer inquiries.

With that clarified, the rates are based on the conversation category and country or region rates. There are currently no rates in South Africa.

But just to give you an idea, a retailer based in England would pay £0.0273 for marketing, £0.0144 for utility, and £0.013 for authentication conversations when sending messages to South African customers.

So, how can South Africans use WhatsApp Business without having a country rate? You have two options – use WhatsApp Business for free or invest in an API (application programming interface).  As an alternative, companies such as CM.com offer a localised “Whatsapp Business” service which handles a few different aspects relevant to the South African market. These include a set rate per conversation, cost per number of user accounts, and the setting up of your business’s website.

Utilising WhatsApp Business to advertise for free

WhatsApp Business offers two free services that allow start-ups or small businesses to connect with their customers without spending money. Here’s how:

• Free tier conversations – WhatsApp business accounts receive 1,000 service conversations each month free of charge. Note that these are just for service conversation and not other conversation categories. This works well for small businesses with a couple hundred customers. If you don’t use up all the 1,000 free conversations, they do not spill over to the following month.
• Free entry point conversations – These are 72-hour windows where conversations between businesses and customers are free if the customer has messaged you using call-to-action buttons on Ads that click to WhatsApp or Facebook Pages.

Using WhatsApp Business API to advertise and sell

A WhatsApp Business API is an application program interface allowing businesses to send and receive bulk messages. It also facilitates seamless communication thanks to interactive automated messages and quick replies. Every WhatsApp Business API charges per conversation based on the country you’re in.

In South Africa, using WhatsApp Business API is more cost-effective and often more affordable than SMS or voice-based communication channels. This will also improve your customer communication, enable prompt responses, automation, and chatbots, and provide analytics and insights, among other benefits.

Here are our top picks for WhatsApp Business API providers in South Africa:

1. DoubleTick
2. Clickatell
3. 360dialog
4. Infobip
5. Karix
6. Cellfind

Using click-to-WhatsApp ads via Facebook

Unfortunately, South Africans can no longer link their WhatsApp Business account to their Facebook Business Page.

However, you can consider creating ads on Facebook or Instagram that click to a WhatsApp conversation. This allows you to start conversations with existing customers and reach more clients.

A quick note: Click-to-WhatsApp ads are only available for posts with videos, single photos, and external links.

Before using this tool, you’ll need to connect your WhatsApp Business account to your Facebook Page. Follow these steps to start creating click-to-WhatsApp ads:

1. Go to your Facebook page and click ‘Promote’.
2. Click ‘Add to your advertising plan’ or ‘Create new ad’.
3. Click on ‘Goal’, then select Get more messages.
4. Click on ‘Button label’ and choose ‘Send WhatsApp message’.
5. Set up a welcome message.
6. Choose your audience or click ‘Create new’ to construct an audience based on age, interests, and location.
7. Set a duration schedule and budget.
8. Finally, click ‘Promote ad’ to start running your ad.

Using WhatsApp as a chatbot on your website

While it’s always better to respond manually to each customer, this can become tedious and overwhelming as your business grows. This is where WhatsApp chatbots come in handy.

Keeping up with the latest trends, it’s no surprise that AI can be used to connect and communicate with your clients over WhatsApp. These AI-powered chatbots keep communication flowing with automated replies that imitate human conversation to reply as quickly and informatively as possible.

This can boost customer experience significantly and ensure 24/7 support. There are several chatbot-building platforms available that require no coding. However, there are some requirements for chatbots – you need access to WhatsApp Business API, a verified business on Facebook, and a WhatsApp Business phone number.

Using your eCommerce website URLs to sell securely on WhatsApp

While consistent communication with customers can benefit your relationship with your audience, too much of it can start to feel like you’re spamming them. Instead of going back and forth with details such as product prices or discounts, share a link to your eCommerce website.

Here are the benefits of sharing your website URLs on WhatsApp:

1. It’s safer – Customers can place an order and checkout securely on your eCommerce site instead of sharing your banking details. If scammers gain access to your bank account number, they can use it for fraudulent ACH transfers or payments.
2. It’s convenient – This method provides a hassle-free way for customers to access your online store without over-communication.
3. Make more sales – You’ll have a greater chance of recapturing a sale if customers abandon their cart through remarketing efforts.

Do’s and don’ts of using WhatsApp advertising for your business

Here are some quick do’s and don’t to keep in mind when advertising and selling on WhatsApp:

1. Do communicate consistently and reliably with customers using highly relevant and persuasive content – aim for one or two times per month. Don’t spam them, this will only lose you, valuable shoppers.
2. Do opt for personalised messages. Don’t send generic texts.
3. Do use other communication channels and platforms like Email, Facebook, and Instagram in combination with WhatsApp Business. Don’t use WhatsApp alone for marketing.
4. Do respond immediately using live agents or chatbots. Don’t leave your customer waiting.
5. Do only contact customers who have opted-in to receive texts over WhatsApp. Don’t contact clients without their permission.
6. Do contact customers within working hours and consider time zones and regional regulations for international clients. Don’t message them during odd hours, as this can lead to distrust and even legal implications.

Final thoughts on selling on WhatsApp

There you have it – everything you need to know so you can start using WhatsApp Business for your marketing strategy. From increasing sales, boosting customer loyalty, and communicating effectively, WhatsApp Business is an exceptional tool for any business owner.

As for small businesses in South Africa, yes, there are some limitations, but you no longer need to spend thousands of rands to reach your customers, expand your audience and make sales! So if you were struggling with figuring out how to sell more, the solution is at your fingertips.

Read Next: How to sell online without a website.