WhatsApp gives you access to billions of monthly active users, making it a platform you can’t miss when selling.
It offers several features to build relationships and make communication easier. You can give your business a professional picture and write a clear description of what you do. This will help your clients easily recognize you when they reach out.
If you’re selling products, create a product catalog to show it to your connections. WhatsApp makes it easier to run group promotions and regularly promote products and services on status updates. However, as a standalone software, it becomes tricky to manage conversations simultaneously as you add more people.
Individual WhatsApp numbers shy away from sales and marketing use cases without a reliable platform to add more functionality. Cooby’s WhatsApp productivity solution lets users organize their inboxes while using automation to reach and engage people. It ensures you never miss a chance to connect with potential customers.
Before we explore how Cooby supercharges your individual and business WhatsApp, let's look at the steps that will help you sell on WhatsApp.
How to sell effectively on WhatsApp
You can sell on WhatsApp most effectively by leveraging its features to build more engaged relationships with prospects. The strategy below will help you succeed when you follow these steps:
1. Create a professional profile
Appear as a business. You need to set up a professional image or a brand logo. This will help establish credibility. To enrich this trust further, make sure you have clearly outlined your business name, description, and contact details.
Then, update the status with new promotions and other relevant details to show you’re active on WhatsApp, and people can reach out to you.
2. Make good use of the features of WhatsApp Business
Below are some notable features that you can use when pursuing WhatsApp sales.
- Catalog showcases your products or services.
- Labels organize your contacts and chats(e.g., new customer, pending order, completed).
- Automated messages greet prospects at scale and help reply to common questions.
3. Increase engagement through personalization
An engaged WhatsApp community is more likely to increase your conversion rate, adding more customers to your business. With WhatsApp, you can broadcast campaigns to send updates and promotions to many contacts.
You don’t need to create a group to do it.
Cooby allows you to add more personalization to these broadcasts. The tool will automatically add names of the WhatsApp account to the message, making your updates feel more personal when they land on the user’s chat.
With Cooby, you can create tabs like prospects, customers, or loyal customers and send updates and promotions to chats in these tabs accordingly. This will add more personalization as your messaging would complement the buyer’s stage.
An Example of Cooby-powered WhatsApp
4. Follow up like a pro
Suppose you reached out to 100 people while sending updates or running promotions. You got responses from 10 and want to do something about the remaining 90 to get them to engage.
Cooby’s WhatsApp inbox automatically segregates people who have responded and those who haven’t. This way, you can again write new follow-up messages and send them to the remaining 90 people through automation.
Another way you can do it is using the Inbox Zero feature from Cooby.
Inbox Zero lets you control your inbox better and navigate chat as per priority. When you have reached out to 100 people, you can snooze the chat for, say, at least two days. If they respond, these chats will automatically appear in the inbox, and you can move forward with the conversation.
Similarly, if they don’t respond, these chats will automatically reappear in your inbox after two days. This will allow you to never miss out on following up with customers.
5. Provide value
People purchase your product when they see value in it. Your core purpose is to communicate this value by sharing useful content, exclusive offers, and exceptional customer support.
Always keep in touch with your audience on WhatsApp. Share tips, informative tutorials, or articles with them. But don’t scare them away by being too repetitive in doing this. Engaged customers love exclusive deals or early access. It makes them feel special.
When you run such exclusive offers, promote them a few days before and during the offer period. It’s best to automate sending such deals to customers who would find value in them.
Tip: When running exclusive offers, people frequently require your support to overcome hurdles that prevent them from purchasing the product or service. Ensure you’re prepared and have a service-level agreement (SLA) regarding response time.
Inbox Zero will help you respond to messages as they arrive, helping the team prioritize critical chats that require comparatively more assistance.
6. Streamline the buying process
Think of your buying process. Ask your loyal customers what information would they need when making a purchase. Ensure there are fewer gaps between what you’re communicating digitally and what customers expect.
When sharing your catalog, provide clear product information and pricing details. You can also make it easy for customers to place orders directly from WhatsApp. This will improve your conversion rate since customers don’t need to hop between platforms to purchase.
You can send your customers payment links or QR codes to facilitate easy payments. Once customers make a purchase, make sure to send them updates about their orders and keep them informed at all times about what’s going on and when they can expect the delivery.
This way, customers feel more supported and see it as a better experience with a brand.
7. Collect and use feedback
Your job actually starts after a customer makes a purchase. Reach out to them again and ask about their experience purchasing (XYZ) products. Take feedback on the product and service and use it later in your testimonial on a website.
You can also use these reviews as social proof to fuel future purchases.
Tip: Take screenshots of positive customer feedback and post them on your status update to establish social proof. Make sure you get consent from the customer before using their review.
Customer reviews will add more credibility to your offerings. It will encourage more people to purchase them.
8. Keep optimizing the sales process
Analyze and understand what works. Adjust your approach based on what is most effective for your audience and what engages them.
This way, you’ll gradually build a strategy that excels at selling products and services on WhatsApp.
Remember, this is a process of continuous improvement and optimization. The more you improve your messaging, the better you’ll be able to engage customers and close deals.
Benefits of selling on WhatsApp
Businesses benefit from maintaining strong relationships with prospects and customers on WhatsApp. Below are some of the most noticeable benefits.
- Personalized interaction. One-on-one messaging creates a more personal connection with customers. It lets you sell products and services while connecting with them on a deeper level.
- Cross-border communication. It lets users easily communicate with international customers, breaking geographical barriers.
- Reduced advertising spend. When you engage the customers directly on WhatsApp, you don’t need to run extensive advertising campaigns.
- Ease of use. Features like status updates, catalogs, and broadcast lists are easy to use for marketing and sales.
- Higher open rates. WhatsApp messages have a high open-rate (58%), ensuring your communications are seen.
- Better engagement. Customers are likelier to engage with businesses through quick messaging than other platforms. Regular updates and personal messages help maintain ongoing relationships with customers.
- Integration with other tools. WhatsApp works with other systems like CRM software to streamline sales operations.
Integration with other business applications was earlier possible when you used the WhatsApp API platform.
With Cooby, you can connect individual WhatsApp numbers or WhatsApp businesses to HubSpot or Salesforce CRM.
Learn more about how to connect your WhatsApp with HubSpot and Salesforce CRM.
Selling on WhatsApp Business Vs. WhatsApp API platform: Which one is better?
The choice of a better option depends on your business needs, scale, and technical capabilities.
WhatsApp Business app is best for startups and small to medium businesses. It’s easy to use and requires no technical expertise to set up. The application is free and provides interactive features like quick replies, labels, and catalogs.
With its broadcast capabilities, you can reach out to 256 contacts at once. However, it’s recommended to reach out to fewer contacts at a time to avoid getting banned.
Earlier, WhatsApp Business was pretty disconnected from other business applications. However, Cooby integrates WhatsApp Business with Salesforce and HubSpot CRM, making it more interoperable.
On the other hand, the WhatsApp API solution is suitable for medium to large businesses. It offers multi-user support, where multiple agents can use the same number. The platform offers advanced features like personalized notifications and two-way customer communication.
However, WhatsApp API solutions require technical expertise or third-party service providers to set up and integrate the tools with business apps. This requires higher costs, as a third-party provider’s service fee is involved.
Even after getting WhatsApp’s approval, which takes a lot of time, the API platform can feel quite restrictive regarding messaging.
Learn more about the differences between the WhatsApp Business app and the WhatsApp API solution.
Supercharge your WhatsApp sales machine with Cooby
Cooby offers a range of features that make WhatsApp more productive for sales. It lets agents collaborate easily, share notes on specific chats, and work together to win deals. With CRM integrations, Cooby reduces the time you invest in administrative tasks while giving the sales manager more visibility into WhatsApp conversations.
If you engage customers through individual WhatsApp numbers (or WhatsApp Business), Cooby will be a suitable tool in your tech stack, helping your team be more focused and productive in their roles.
Take a free trial of Cooby and start selling more effectively.
