WhatsApp Business app: How to reach your target audience

The WhatsApp Business app is ideal for promoting your brand and products, building connections, and communicating with your audience in real time.

But the key to using it for customer care is to focus on high-quality interactions. It's easy for customers to ignore your messages, so don't give them a reason to!

In recent times, it's become clear that businesses need fast and efficient ways to engage with their customers and make sales. The WhatsApp Business app has become one such method. However, there's a skill to using it, and in this blog we investigate what businesses can do to engage their target audience in the best possible way.

Knowing your target audience

There's little point venturing into any marketing activity with the WhatsApp Business app without first having identified your target audience.

Knowing who you're trying to reach with your products or services is the bedrock of everything you do marketing-wise. One great way to work out what type of customers your business will interact is to create buyer personas.

Identifying your target audience means asking yourself questions such as:

• Am I targeting people who come to me directly for a solution to a specific problem?

• Do I have that solution?

• What are my potential customers' pain points?

• How do I want those people to communicate with me?

Once you've established who you're going to be engaging with, and which of their problems you're going to solve, you'll have a better understanding of the best way to communicate with those prospective customers.

Read more:

• How to determine your target audience in three simple steps

• Buyer personas: A guide to reaching your target customers

Communicating with customers in the right way

Messaging tools like the WhatsApp Business app give you the chance to talk to your target audience directly and in a way they are already familiar with. However, using these platforms in the most effective way means understanding the proper way to engage with customers.

Bear in mind that you don't need to adopt formal business language – indeed, you can talk to your customers as you would someone you know well. But taking such a personalised and informal approach means having a strong brand identity and voice.

It's also useful to consider that while embracing a more casual style of WhatsApp chat might help you forge better relationships with your customers, it may mean people feel they can be blunt and direct about things they don't like about your business or your service. But this is where good customer service comes in.

A note on privacy

When communicating with your customers using the WhatsApp Business app, you want these people to have your contact number saved in their devices.

Because WhatsApp is so personal a way to chat with existing and potential customers, it's vital you're not seen to be sending unsolicited messages. Once that happens, people are far less likely to talk to you, and will probably block you altogether.

For guidance on this, see How to let people know about your WhatsApp Business profile below.

Read more:

• How to create a brand identity for your small business

• Defining your brand personality will improve your social media marketing

Keeping customers engaged

Tools such as the WhatsApp Business app are great for communicating with customers. But remember: it isn't a one-way conversation. Your aim should be to foster active engagement with all those people who are interested in your business and considering buying from it.

The WhatsApp Business app is one of the quickest ways customers can get in touch with your business with questions, feedback or complaints. If someone uses WhatsApp to contact you in this way, be sure to respond as soon as you can, being as welcoming, helpful and professional as possible.

By ignoring questions – and particularly complaints – for too long, you risk people viewing your business as uncaring and unresponsive. That could harm your reputation.

Address customers' questions and issues when they reach out to you over WhatsApp, instead of redirecting them to your website. You can even pre-write answers to common questions to make sure your response is ultra-efficient.

That said, try not to use WhatsApp Business as simply a reactive tool. Make sure you're promoting engaging content at the same time, as it can help establish your brand as a 'thought leader' and build trust among your existing customers and people who may use your business in the future.

Read more:

• Seven steps to better customer engagement

How to let people know about your WhatsApp Business profile

1. Click to chat feature

Although WhatsApp Business lets you speak to customers as if they were friends, your friends tend to have your number saved in their contacts list. That's not always the case with customers.

Thankfully, there's a solution that means your customers don't need to add you as a contact before you can engage with them.

Enter WhatsApp's click to chat feature. As long as you know a person's phone number and they have an active WhatsApp account, you can create a link that will allow you to start a chat with them. When you click the link, a chat with that person automatically opens. Click to chat works on both your phone and WhatsApp Web.

How to create click to chat links

2. QR code website chat

Another way to get a conversation with a customer started on WhatsApp Business is to use the ever-popular QR code. Sharing your QR code makes it easy for customers to connect with your business and is an effective way to increase customer engagement.

How to share your WhatsApp Business QR code

3. Share your phone number

Sounds simple, and it is. However, it does mean widely promoting your phone number in places where customers will see it. You also need to stress the importance of them adding your number to their phone or device.

Some places to promote your WhatsApp Business phone number include on your:

• website's contact page – this is where most people will look for ways to get in touch with you, so make sure it's clear they can reach out to you via WhatsApp

• social media profiles and ads – just add the click to chat link or show a QR code and invite customers to contact you

• product webpages and blogs – a great way to let customers know they can ask you a question via WhatsApp if they want to know more about a product or service before they make a purchase

Relevant resources

Use the WhatsApp Business app to:

• Create an engaging business profile

• Build an engagement plan

• Create engaging content

• Reach your target audience

• Boost your sales