How to Increase Traffic to your WhatsApp Business Account

WhatsApp has become an integral part of every brand’s digital transformation strategy. The channel is being leveraged for a plethora of use cases across Customer Care and Conversational Commerce. More than 5 million+ brands are now using WhatsApp Business API to create provide an enhanced customer experience to its customers.

The ease of deploying a WhatsApp solution has made it easier for brands to get started with a WhatsApp chatbot. Businesses have understood the benefits of WhatsApp but driving traffic to this channel can be a challenge. In this blog, we uncover the key strategies that you can use to increase traffic on your WhatsApp chatbot.

The first and most crucial aspect to consider is driving visibility and discovery. The two key questions to ask here are: How will your customers know that you are available on WhatsApp? How will they opt-in to receive your services over WhatsApp?

A key point to note is that WhatsApp requires a brand to get an opt-in from a user before it can start engaging with them, i.e., the user needs to consent to start a conversation with your business.

Driving Discovery and Opt-in for WhatsApp

Now that you’re introduced to WhatsApp commerce let’s understand how your brand can get started with a WhatsApp chatbot. The first and most crucial aspect to consider at this stage is driving visibility and discovery. The two key questions to ask here are: How will your customers know that you are available on WhatsApp? How will they opt-in to receive your services over WhatsApp?

A key point to note is that WhatsApp requires a brand to get an opt-in from a user before it can start engaging with them, i.e., the user needs to consent to start a conversation with your business.

Let’s look at some techniques you can use to begin your brand’s conversations with customers on the world’s largest messaging channel.

1. SMS:

You already have access to your customer’s phone number. You’re probably sending out SMS campaigns to them. This is a great way to generate more traffic. SMS blast is one of the by default go-to strategies to tap into as redirection exit-entry points & to enhance customer awareness about the WhatsApp channel.

One great advantage for SMS blast is that content can directly be triggered, giving you the benefit of curating it as required and helping massively in the deflection rate.

SMS blasts can come in handy at multiple stages & pointers in the whole journey:

• It can be used as a first-level deflection for a complete user base in terms of letting the end-users know about the WhatsApp Channel
• SMS can be triggered during reach outs made by the client for support and during funnel stages as well.
• Another great way to use SMS as a consent opt-in message redirecting to the WhatsApp channel.

2. Website: Your website is probably the most critical asset for your business. It’s where customers visit to do business with you. Here are a few sections that can be used to generate more awareness for your WhatsApp channel:

• Contact us page: Reaching out via WhatsApp is easy and getting more traction than ever. Adding a click button to the contact us footer makes it easy for an end-user to reach the business.

• Home page: This is the ideal place to information regarding your WhatsApp channel. Messaging on the Home page about the WhatsApp channel can be generic around “Use WhatsApp to get in touch with us .”

• Header: The header (mostly RHS top scroll) is a perfect site placement to make people aware of the channel and number. It is an instant & effective catch.

• Conversation starter button: Having a constant floating WhatsApp Icon or “Chat with us “ button on every relevant page gives the end-user easy access to the channel/business and also becomes an easy way out when any concerns/questions/requests.

The easier it is to find an entry point into WhatsApp on a website, the easier it is to start a conversation. Tapping a link or scanning a QR code is faster and easier than manually typing in a phone number.

The more prominent the placement, the more likely people will choose WhatsApp to engage with your business.

[Download Report] How is WhatsApp Shaping Commerce?

3. Telephony: You can generate more traffic via telephone in two ways:

• IVR Deflection: This should be used during peak hours with the highest wait times. Simply add a “move conversation to WhatsApp “ option to your IVR menu. IVR deflections become a necessity for the business with having a parallel solution like WhatsApp, which helps instantly in almost all the possible scenarios.
• The user base can be deflected and made aware of the solution at multiple stages.
• When the wait time & queue passes a certain configured threshold.
• When the user drops off after a wait or the call gets disconnected.

• Missed Call: Missed call automation is widespread in India. Hence this is another seamless way to get customer opt-ins. A user can simply give a missed call to your virtual number to get started!

4. Social Media: Your customers are likely using any or all social media channels to stay connected with their friends and family. This provides you an opportunity to get customer opt-ins where they’re spending most of their time. Let’s look at how you can leverage organic and paid social media to boost awareness and drive traffic to your WhatsApp channel.

Organic social media:

• Account bio/description: This placement is permanent and will not get lost in the stream of feed or stories.
• In-feed post: You can include the link in social media posts. Organic Instagram posts cannot contain links, so users must dial the number manually. In-feed posts have relatively short, in-feed visibility as they get quickly buried among other posts.
• Instagram profile page story highlight: Highly visible, as they are pinned to the top of your business’s profile. Once in the story, users swipe up to start a conversation.

Paid social media:

• Facebook & Instagram ads that click to WhatsApp: One tap/click: “Send Message” button will open WhatsApp conversation.
• Influencer social media post: If the influencer promotes your business on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., they can use a link. Instagram posts cannot contain links so that influencers can mention the number, and users can dial the number manually.

5. Emails: Email is an active communication channel when users are trying to contact you; hence this channel can be effectively used to segregate and divert the user base to WhatsApp solution.

Mention the WhatsApp solution and add a redirection link in every support email.
Also, the WhatsApp solution link can be added to every email communication that goes out in the footer section. Active newsletters, emails, promoting the use case, and mentions around quick & handy responses that the users can get on WhatsApp.

[Case Study] How is Upstox making online investment easier with WhatsApp?

5. Traditional Advertising:

Now that we’ve understood the different techniques you can use to make customers aware of your WhatsApp presence, let’s look at how you should select the channels that make the most sense. The process of arriving at the solution includes answering four critical questions:

1. Where should we place entry points?

You should always add entry points to WhatsApp where your customers engage with your brand. E.g., If your target market is young people, ensure that you’re leveraging social media to drive opt-ins.

2. What behavior do we want to encourage?

E.g., If you’re going to answer product questions to close sales, create a “Click to WhatsApp” campaign and entry points on product pages.

3. What call to action should we include?

Always let customers know why they should start a WhatsApp conversation with you. Here are just a few:

• Have questions? We have answers! Click to chat.
• Can’t decide? Ask us! Message us on WhatsApp at 90009–90009
• Need help but hate waiting on hold? Click to message us on WhatsApp.

We strongly recommend A/B testing to determine the best approach for your brand.

4. How can we provide context-aware responses?

Deep links automatically trigger a pre-populated message rather than simply opening a WhatsApp thread. You can use deep links to delight users with context-aware responses that focus on their specific needs.

WhatsApp has made it highly flexible for you to get customer opt-ins. Practically, you can use every communication channel to get customer opt-ins. Now, let’s understand how your brand can leverage marketing notifications to nudge your buyers ahead in the buying journey.

Helpful Tips

You should continue to optimize for the user experience while obtaining opt-in. For example, you should:

• Users should expect the messages they receive. Set this expectation by:
• Obtaining an opt-in encompasses the different categories of messages you will send (ex: order updates, relevant offers, product recommendations, etc.).
• Obtaining separate opt-in by specific message category. This mitigates the risk that users will block your business because they receive unsolicited messages.
• Provide clear instructions for how people can opt-out of receiving specific categories of messages, and honor these requests.
• Ensure your opt-in and opt-out flows are clear and intuitive for users.
• Clearly communicate the value of receiving this information on WhatsApp.
• Monitor your quality rating, especially when rolling out new opt-in methods.

Now that we’ve understood how your brand can increase traffic on your WhatsApp channel, let’s look at a few strategies that you can deploy to boost conversion rates on WhatsApp.

1. HSMs to Trigger Journeys:

Transactional HSMs — These are a great way to engage the customer base with a high hit and read rate & get the conversation flow triggered

2. Direct Triggers — Consent & Menu:

Reaching out to a wider user base (mostly everyone) directly from the WhatsApp channel is one of the best ways to engage and get the conversation started

This first notification can be used as a dual strategy for letting the user base know about the solution with menu options as well as getting a response from the end-user in terms of consent to receive notifications in the future.

3. Direct Triggers — Marketing Notifications:

Marketing notifications allow businesses to send more types of proactive notifications to people that opt-in to receive them.

Businesses can send non-transactional notifications to their users whenever relevant such as:

• Product recommendations related to a customer’s previous purchases
• Helpful information alerts
• Relevant offers
• Newsletters

Read more about Marketing Notifications here.

Why is this a game-changer for customer engagement?

Expected: People have already opted-in to receive this information from the business over WhatsApp, so they are not surprised when they message them.

Relevant: The messages are personalized to the specific person (Ex: based on recent purchases or recent engagement with the business, personalized content in the message itself).

Timely: People receive these messages when they are relevant.

To sum up

As more and more brands are kickstarting their WhatsApp journey, it’s essential to understand how to increase traffic to this channel to maximize your ROI. Successfully boosting your traffic depends on many factors, and there’s no formula or the right way to boost traffic. The key to winning this is: experiment, analyze, deploy & repeat.

Haptik has also powered WhatsApp solutions for some of India’s most prominent brands such as Jio, TATA, HDFC, Dream11, OLA, Kotak Mahindra, etc. We’re a recipient of 15 G2 badges and recognized by Gartner and Opus Research. With handling over 4+ Billion interactions, we’re India’s largest Conversational AI company!

Did we mention that we have built the World’s largest WhatsApp chatbot for MyGov India?

Did we mention that we have built the World’s largest WhatsApp chatbot for MyGov India?

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Originally published at https://www.haptik.ai on January 12, 2022.