WhatsApp is now a key marketing channel with tons of features, but many brands aren’t making the most of it. It’s not just a messaging app; it’s a powerful conversational tool as well.
In India, WhatsApp has a huge user base (535.8 million), (2 billion+ worldwide) making it an excellent channel, even though the costs are high. Connecting with customers through WhatsApp is one of the best strategies for brands.
E-commerce companies are constantly driving traffic through marketing efforts, but many still struggle to improve their conversion rates. Traditional retention marketing methods like email and SMS are delivering diminishing returns due to poor open and conversion rates. This is where WhatsApp tools come into play, offering a powerful solution for boosting conversions.
But why do we need WhatsApp-specific tools when we have CRM tools?
Traditional CRM systems are primarily designed for one-way messaging and aren’t built for real-time conversations. In contrast, WhatsApp tools are optimized for two-way conversations, allowing businesses to engage with customers more interactively.
By integrating sophisticated WhatsApp tools with bots, companies can achieve 20-30% higher conversion rates, driving customer engagement and sales to the next level.
Read our blog on WhatsApp Marketing: All About WhatsApp Marketing for Business: 101, Best Practices & Measurement
Using the right tools for WhatsApp marketing can lead to great results. WWhatsApp keeps evolving, so it’s important for brands to stay updated. This is where the leading WhatsApp tools come into play.
WhatsApp tools enable brands to make the most of their full potential. By leveraging these tools, brands can optimise their WhatsApp marketing strategy, ensuring effective communication and maximising ROI.
This blog will explore how using WhatsApp’s tools can significantly enhance your marketing efforts.
Ignoring online marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone.
Table of Contents
1. What is a WhatsApp Tool?
A WhatsApp tool is a software that boosts WhatsApp’s capabilities, especially for businesses. These tools offer features like automated messaging, chatbots, marketing management, CRM integration, and analytics.
They help businesses automate customer service with chatbots, run marketing campaigns, send messages to many people at once, and manage contacts easily.
Additionally, WhatsApp tools also provide features like shared inboxes for multiple numbers and detailed reports to help businesses evaluate their customer communication strategy.
2. Features to Consider When Choosing WhatsApp Tools
WhatsApp tools can be a valuable part of your marketing strategy, helping you improve the customer experience on WhatsApp and ensuring timely responses to their questions.
Here are some features to consider before choosing a WhatsApp tool:
- Multi-User Support: Allows multiple agents to manage and respond to customer inquiries at the same time, ensuring no customer query is missed.
- CRM Integration: Connects with your existing CRM system to sync customer data and interactions, giving you a complete view of your customers for personalised responses.
- Broadcast Messaging: Enables sending messages to a large audience all at once, perfect for announcements, updates, or promotional content.
- Message Scheduling: Lets you schedule messages for specific dates and times, helping you maintain consistent customer engagement by planning communications at the best times.
- Analytics: Offers insights into how your messages are performing and how engaged your customers are, helping you make data-driven decisions.
- Chatbots for customer support: It can automatically analyse each customer query and send instant replies to common questions (FAQs). This helps reduce the workload on live agents, allowing them to focus on handling more complex issues.
- Conversational commerce: It allows customers to do their shopping directly within a messaging app like WhatsApp. They can browse products, add items to their cart, ask questions about them, and even complete their purchase, all without ever leaving the app. This is one of the more advanced features that makes shopping more convenient and seamless for users.
- Customizable Templates and Quick Replies: Provides options to create templates for frequently sent messages and quick replies for common questions.
3. WhatsApp Features and Use Cases
WhatsApp is continuously evolving to make business interactions smoother and more efficient with innovative features like WhatsApp Flows and direct ad integrations.
WhatsApp Flows: WhatsApp has recently launched a new feature called WhatsApp Flows. This feature allows businesses to create streamlined, step-by-step processes directly within WhatsApp.
- Seat Selection: For example, users can now select their seats for a flight or event directly through WhatsApp. Instead of going through multiple steps on a website, you can complete this task in just 2 or 3 steps on WhatsApp.
- Appointment Booking: Another use case is booking appointments. Whether it’s for a hairdresser, vacation, or restaurant, you can now handle the booking and rescheduling directly through WhatsApp,making the process much simpler.
WhatsApp Ads to Acquisition: WhatsApp is also enhancing its capabilities for integrating ads directly into the messaging flow.
- CTW Campaigns: This type of campaign (Click-to-WhatsApp) allows users to start a buying journey directly on WhatsApp from an ad. Companies can use this feature to offer promotions and handle transactions directly through WhatsApp. For instance, a brand can run a Facebook ad that, when clicked, takes users directly into a WhatsApp conversation. This allows users to interact with the brand, make purchases, or get more information without being redirected to a website or app.
WhatsApp Commerce: WhatsApp Commerce allows brands to create product catalogues that customers can browse, select products, and make purchases directly within the WhatsApp interface, making the shopping experience seamless and integrated.
4. Optimal Deployment Times for WhatsApp Tools
Maximizing the impact of WhatsApp tools requires deploying them at the right moments in the customer journey for optimal engagement and results:
- Pre-Purchase: Answer questions and share product details to build trust and help potential customers decide to buy.
- During Purchase: Offer support and solve problems to keep customers from abandoning their cart.
- Post-Purchase: Send order updates and ask for feedback to improve the experience and build loyalty.
- Customer Retention: Run loyalty programs and send personalised offers to keep customers coming back.
- Event-Based Engagement: Promote special events, sales, and offers to increase participation and engagement.
5. The Top WhatsApp Tools
The top WhatsApp tools include LimeChat, Gupshup, AiSensy, and Interakt. Each of these tools has special features that help businesses run smoothly and connect with customers more effectively. Let’s take a look at a comparative analysis and understand what makes them effective and what their strengths and weaknesses are:
5.1. LimeChat
Founded in 2020, LimeChat helps e-commerce brands enhance their sales, support, and marketing efforts on WhatsApp. With powerful chatbots capable of handling complex inquiries and recommending products, its integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and CRM platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce help lower customer acquisition costs, boost retention, and create seamless, personalized experiences on WhatsApp.
Key features
- AI-Powered Customer Support: LimeChat’s AI-driven platform handles up to 80% of customer queries through automated responses on WhatsApp, reducing the workload on human agents.
- WhatsApp API Integration: LimeChat integrates seamlessly with WhatsApp API, enabling businesses to provide instant, automated responses directly on the platform.
- 24/7 Availability: The AI-powered automation ensures round-the-clock support for customers on WhatsApp.
Pros:
- Advanced AI for handling complex customer queries
- Seamless integration with e-commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce
- Reduces workload on human agents
Cons:
- May be too complex for small businesses with simple needs
- Requires initial setup and training for optimal use
5.2. Gupshup
Gupshup, founded in 2004, is one of the most robust and leading enterprise-grade conversational platforms in India. As one of the market leaders, Gupshup continuously upgrades its platform, offering a unified messaging API that supports over 30 channels. It is a versatile, multi-channel platform that supports communication through SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, and more, providing a comprehensive solution for businesses. Gupshup also offers a comprehensive channel with minimal failover issues.
With its advanced WhatsApp automation and powerful analytics tools, Gupshup excels in managing customer engagement across multiple channels, helping businesses streamline and optimize their messaging efforts.
Key Features
- Comprehensive Messaging API: Gupshup offers a single API, supporting unified messaging solutions across various channels such as WhatsApp, SMS, RCS and more.
- AI powered bot building tools: Automated chatbot based support. Bot development platform & vertical specific bots with AI/NLP.
- Rich Media Support: Gupshup’s API allows businesses to send rich media messages, including images, videos, and interactive elements on WhatsApp, enhancing customer engagement.
- Scalable Solution: Designed to handle high message volumes, making it ideal for large-scale marketing campaigns and customer support operations on WhatsApp.
Pros:
- Top Meta partner with complete customer journey solutions.
- Self-serve platform, easy to implement and use.
- AI/NLP-powered bot development with journey builder and decision tree flows.
- ACE LLM GPT models built for effective business-to-customer conversations.
- Strong global presence in SMS and push messaging channels.
- Industry-specific, fine-tuned models for tailored solutions.
- Seamless integration with CRM systems.
- Ideal for enterprise customers and those transitioning into the mid-market segment.
Cons:
- Do not have the ability for app and emailed based marketing as of now.
- Not typically the preferred choice for smaller brands.
5.3. AiSensy
AiSensy is a powerful WhatsApp-focused platform tailored specifically for small D2C startups. Unlike multi-channel solutions, AiSensy offers a single-channel approach, specializing exclusively in WhatsApp automation. This makes it an ideal choice for startups looking on leveraging WhatsApp as their primary channel for building customer relationships, managing queries, and driving sales.
Key Features
- User-Friendly Interface: AiSensy offers a user-friendly experience tailored for WhatsApp API, simplifying setup and management of communications.
- Automated Greetings and Responses: Features like automated greetings and quick replies ensure immediate acknowledgment and assistance on WhatsApp.
- Payment Integration: Supports payment gateways within WhatsApp, enabling smooth checkout experiences and facilitating transactions directly in the chat.
Pros:
- User-friendly experience focused on WhatsApp (advanced UI)
- Easy integration with online stores
- Automated greetings and payment gateways
Cons:
- It is limited to WhatsApp, not suitable for multi-channel strategies.
- One downside of AiSensy is its limited customer service, as it operates with a do-it-yourself approach, which may require users to handle most issues on their own.
5.4. Interakt
Interakt, launched in mid-2020 started as a game-changer for D2C brands with its powerful WhatsApp Business tools. It quickly became popular for being affordable and easy to use. By 2022, Interakt had over 5,000 brands using it and offered even more features for commerce and automation. Today, it’s the top WhatsApp Sales Channel app on the Shopify app store and is also available on Google Play and the App Store, making it the top choice for businesses using WhatsApp.
Key Features
- WhatsApp Marketing and Support: Interakt provides a comprehensive solution for marketing and customer support via WhatsApp API.
- AI-Powered Targeting: AI-driven features enable targeted messages and personalised interactions on WhatsApp, increasing campaign effectiveness and customer engagement.
- Seamless CRM Integration: Integrates with CRM systems, allowing efficient management of customer data and interactions within WhatsApp.
Pros:
- Comprehensive suite for marketing and support
- AI-powered targeted messages and personalised interactions
- Multi-agent support and advanced analytics
Cons:
- Can be expensive for small businesses
- Requires a learning curve to utilise all features effectively
Integrated marketing is a way of looking at the whole marketing process from the viewpoint of the customer.
6. Conclusion
It’s important to note that these WhatsApp automation tools need to be integrated with existing client tools for CRM, e-commerce, and more. Providing support and service for setup, along with handholding during the initial phase of tool adoption, is crucial for a seamless transition.
Now that you know about different WhatsApp tools and their benefits, it’s time to find the ones that fit your business best. Look at what each platform does best and choose the one that suits your business needs. Get ready to turn chats into sales and boost how you connect with customers!
Hope this blog gives you a detailed idea on WhatsApp Tools and its key components that you can similarly apply and integrate in your marketing strategy as well.
Disclaimer – This blog reflects our experience of working with multiple tools over the past decade.
Also Read Our Blog On – All About WhatsApp Marketing for Business
If you’d like to discuss how we can help with WhatsApp Integration and optimize your marketing strategies, we’d be happy to set up a consultation call. Feel free to reach out to us at alibha@daiom.in.
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