How To Build A Loyal Customer Base Using WhatsApp Groups
In this lesson, we will discuss how to build a loyal customer base using WhatsApp Groups. Let’s get you started.
WhatsApp Group Chats is a handy feature of WhatsApp that one can use for personal or business purposes. A WhatsApp group can have a maximum of 256 people.
A WhatsApp group comes handy when you need to send the same message to many people in your contact list. By creating a group, you can send a message once to all the group members and save your time for not having
to send the same message individually. In a group, you can simultaneously talk to all the members and get everyone’s opinion or consent for a particular topic. Group chats are a lot more helpful when you work with a team, and you need to pass all the necessary information through them.
WhatsApp groups can be created for multiple purposes. For example, you can create a group to prepare for an event. Add all the team members that will organize the event. Discuss the tasks and assign them to different members of the group. You can also discuss the updates and make important announcements in the group.
You can also use groups to filter your customers as new invites or regular customers. Creating groups of people with similar interests will lead to sharing experiences regarding your products or services and building a reputation.
You can create WhatsApp groups for work purposes. Create a group to receive important news regarding achieving the sales target for the next week or month. You can inform the members of the upcoming meetings and announcements. WhatsApp groups can be an excellent avenue for exchanging ideas and brainstorming with the team members.
WhatsApp groups can be used to group your potential leads and convert them into your regular customers. Add some of your regular customers to it to share their good experiences with using your products or services. Good reviews and feedback from your existing users can convince your potential leads to purchase your products, thus increasing your sales and growing your customers.
On creating a group on WhatsApp, you automatically become the admin of the group. An admin of the group is like an authority who can change the group settings and add or remove any group members. An admin can make
other members of the group as an admin. There can be multiple admins of a WhatsApp group.
To prevent the spamming of the group, admin can make the rules of what is allowed to be sent in the group chat and what's not. Admins can lay down the code of conduct to be followed within the group.
An admin can remove the members from the group who violate any rules. The admin can make new admins of the group or remove the existing ones. The purpose of the group is to share the necessary information. Hence the admin must direct the members not to share any irrelevant information.
Further, if you are the admin of a group, you can restrict the messages sent in the group only by the admins. The group members will not be able to send any message. They can only read the messages that are sent by the admins.
Marketers use WhatsApp Groups to send promotions of their products to potential customers. However, some marketers often make one common mistake by bombarding the inbox of the people with promotional messages, photos, or videos. Any individual could get fed up with this, and block you on WhatsApp. This is the last thing that any marketer would wish for. Getting blocked by your potential customers means that you are missing out the potential customers and generating sales and creating a negative brand image. There is only a fine line between marketing and spamming. If you are not careful, you can easily fall into the latter category. Keep your marketing campaign right, and you will see your brand growing exponentially.
Now that we have learned about the importance of WhatsApp Groups let us discuss group invite links and how to use it to invite others to your WhatsApp group.
Group invite links are the URL that anyone can click on to join a group on WhatsApp. If you are the group's admin, you have the authority to add more people to the group. You can directly add people in your contacts list to the group or via a group invite link. Group invite links save the hassle of having to add more people to your group one by one. Instead, simply share the link with them, and they will be able to join your group.
Let us show you how to invite others via group link.
The group invite link can be generated easily. You must share the link only with the people you trust. If the link is shared with any unknown person or groups, they might join the group and spam it with irrelevant messages. This will serve no purpose, and you might have to create another WhatsApp group to deal with customers.
If you think that your group invite link has been shared with random people who may join the group to spam it, you can disable the link and generate a new invite link instantly.
Let us first learn how to create a WhatsApp group.
Open WhatsApp. Tap on New Group.
Select the members for the group from your contact list. To remove any selected member, tap on the X icon. Remember that you can only add up to 256 people in a group on WhatsApp and that you can only add those people who are in your contact list.
After selecting all the members, tap on the highlighted icon to continue.
Add a name to the group. You can include emojis to the group name. Add a profile picture for the group. Adding a group profile picture is optional, which you can do later as well.
Below the title, you can view the number of participants, and their names that you are adding to the group.
Tap on the tick icon to continue.
A WhatsApp group has been successfully created. Any message that you send here will be received by all the members of the group.
Tap on Group Info to customize the settings for your group.
You can add a group description, choose custom notifications, and change media visibility. You can mute the notifications of this group, and view the participants of the group. Media visibility is used to determine whether the media in your chats should be displayed in your phone’s gallery or not.
Further, as a group admin, you can add more members to the group and even change the group name, and the icon.
Tap on Group Settings.
Edit Group Info: Allow whether the participants or the admins only can change the group details like subject, logo, icon, and description.
Send Messages: Allow the participants to send messages in the group. If you choose ‘Only Admins’, the admins will be able to send the messages and not the participants.
Edit Group Admins: Add/remove the group's admins from the list of participants within the group.
You can add more participants to the group by tapping on Add Participants.
Remember that you can add only up to 256 members in a single group, and can add only those in your contact list.
You can add new members to the group by sending them the invite link.
Tap on Invite Via Link.
Invite link will be displayed in a new window. You can copy the link and share the link via WhatsApp. You can also share the group invite link using other apps like Messenger, Gmail, etc. that are installed on your phone. If you believe that the invite link has been compromised, you can revoke the link, and generate a new link immediately.
You can send the link via WhatsApp to your contacts by tapping on Send link via WhatsApp.
Select the contacts on your phone to whom you need to send a group invite and tap on the send button.
You can copy the link as well as share the link using other apps installed on your phone.
To share the link using other apps, tap on Share link.
Choose the app via which you want to share the link. Here we can use Facebook messenger, Gmail, Bluetooth, etc.
If you believe that your invite link has been compromised and shared with unrelated people, you can revoke the invite link.
Click on Revoke Link.
A confirmation message will appear. Tap on Revoke Link to successfully revoke the link.
A small box will appear informing you that the invite link has been revoked. Click on Ok.
A new link will be automatically generated immediately that you can securely share with your contacts.
WhatsApp Group Marketing Strategies
WhatsApp doesn’t allow advertising inside the app. Unlike Facebook, you cannot create ads for WhatsApp. Hence there is no direct way to advertise your products or services. However, you can use WhatsApp's various features like Story, Broadcast messages, etc. to promote your products/services.
To promote your products on WhatsApp, you will have to be creative and innovative in your marketing approach. Even though the platform does not offer paid advertisements, you can still use its features. WhatsApp's leading utility is sending text messages and making video or voice calls with your contacts for free. You can make use of these features to advertise your products.
There are over a billion users on WhatsApp. Marketers advertise their products just by sending messages to their potential customers on WhatsApp.
In a group of new customers, you can send the promotions of your products that they might not be aware of or haven’t tried them yet. They can directly enquire about the features of your new products and the pricing. This way, your customers can get information without having to visit your store and helps you in building brand awareness.
In a group of your regular customers, send exclusive coupons and discount vouchers. Make them feel important and let them know that you care about your customers. Incentivize them so that they remain loyal customers. When the customers feel that they are being treated well, it will help you build their trust.
You must always engage proactively with your customers to always have a good experience in dealing with your business. Build rapport with your customers. When you respond to queries, fast will create a good impression on your new lead and build trust.
Hope you found the lesson helpful. We have discussed how to create a group for marketing and manage group settings. We have also covered some good marketing strategies. In the next lesson, we will discuss how to use WhatsApp Business to grow your sales and subscribers. Stay tuned!!!