The most recent AI use case WhatsApp is providing for its users is generating a list of all the communications you haven’t read.
The feature is dubbed AI-powered message summaries, as you might expect. It will use the new private computing system that the company has set up especially to protect and encrypt its AI data.
According to WhatsApp, the new AI feature may be used in both private and group chats, but in order to see the summary, you must actively activate the tool.
Using Meta AI to Summarise Chat
According to WhatsApp, these chat summaries are created by Meta AI and are solely viewable to users. WhatsApp, Meta, and the chatbot users used to generate the list are unable to read these summaries.
They will appear in bullet points, with the private processing label next to the lock icon and a visible-only-to-users label at the top. For the time being, WhatsApp is only making this functionality available to its customers in the US in English; later this year, more areas and languages will be enabled.
In order to keep the conversations private, secure, and unusable for AI system training, Meta has discussed its own private computing system that runs in a different cloud tier.
WhatsApp uses Meta AI throughout the platform with great care, and in order to maintain user satisfaction, the platform needs a strong back end.
WhatsApp is working to put safeguards in place to prevent this from becoming a problem, but AI training is being carried out using our data without the user’s knowledge.
WhatsApp to Add Ads on its Platform
The WhatsApp advertising that the Meta-owned messaging firm has formally unveiled won’t appear in users’ calls or chats, so don’t worry. Instead of showing up in users’ personal area, these advertisements will show up in the Updates tab.
The Updates page, where one may view WhatsApp Status posts, is where Meta is placing them. Therefore, no, consumers’ private discussions are not being interrupted by advertisements for shoes or shampoo. These sponsored posts, such as Instagram Stories with occasional promotions, will appear between friends’ status updates.
In an official blog post, WhatsApp stated that these new features will only be available on the Updates page, separate from your private conversations. This implies that a user’s experience remains unchanged if he or she solely uses WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family.
Minting More Revenue Through this Move
WhatsApp did not just adopt this notion without any prior planning. Since acquiring WhatsApp, Meta has considered monetising the app and introducing advertisements to make money.
Meta always had a distinct idea, even though WhatsApp’s initial creators opposed the messaging service’s use of advertisements. In 2020, they postponed their advertising goals, but they have since returned with a strategy that says it respects users’ privacy.
With over 2 billion active users worldwide, WhatsApp has emerged as a powerful platform for business communication. Originally designed as a messaging app, WhatsApp has evolved into a versatile tool that enables businesses to engage with customers, provide personalized support, and even conduct marketing campaigns. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the various ways businesses can leverage WhatsApp for their benefit, with a particular focus on WhatsApp Channels.
WhatsApp was initially introduced in 2009 as a simple messaging platform for personal use. However, over the years, it has transformed into a vital channel for business communication. With features like group calling, video calling, read receipts, and status updates, WhatsApp has become essential for building customer connections.
The Benefits of Using WhatsApp for Business
There are several reasons why businesses should consider utilizing WhatsApp as part of their communication strategy. Firstly, WhatsApp allows for prompt and direct communication with customers, enabling businesses to respond quickly to queries and provide personalized support. Secondly, WhatsApp provides a platform for businesses to showcase their brand and maintain a consistent brand experience. By creating a business profile and sharing relevant information, businesses can establish credibility and build customer trust. Lastly, WhatsApp offers various automation features that can streamline communication processes, saving time and improving efficiency.
Countries With the Highest WhatsApp Business App Revenue as of December 2022
WhatsApp Business is a free app designed for small businesses that want to establish a presence on WhatsApp. It offers features such as business profiles, automated away messages, and messaging statistics.
On the other hand, WhatsApp Business API is a more advanced solution that is suitable for larger businesses or enterprises. It provides greater flexibility and customization options, allowing businesses to integrate WhatsApp into their existing systems and workflows.
Setting Up Your WhatsApp Business Account
To get started with WhatsApp for business, you need to set up a WhatsApp Business account. Here are the steps to follow:
Download the WhatsApp Business app from the App Store (for iOS) or Google Play Store (for Android).
Launch the app and verify your phone number.
Set up your business profile by providing relevant information such as your business name, logo, and contact details.
Customize your settings, including automated away messages and quick replies.
Start engaging with your customers!
How to Build a Business Profile | WhatsApp Business
Leveraging WhatsApp Channels for Marketing
What are WhatsApp Channels?
WhatsApp Channels were recently introduced by WhatsApp to tackle the ongoing popularity of Telegram and the market it has achieved. WhatsApp Channel is a feature that allows businesses to send messages to multiple recipients simultaneously. This feature is particularly useful for marketing campaigns as it enables businesses to reach a large audience with personalized messages.
Benefits of Using WhatsApp Channels for Marketing
Using WhatsApp Channels for marketing offers several advantages. Firstly, it allows businesses to deliver targeted and personalized messages to their customers, increasing the chances of engagement and conversion. Secondly, WhatsApp Channels provide a direct and immediate line of communication with customers, enabling businesses to deliver time-sensitive information or promotions. Lastly, WhatsApp Channels allow businesses to track the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns through analytics and reporting features provided by the platform.
Best Practices for Using WhatsApp Channels in Marketing
To make the most of WhatsApp Channels for marketing, it’s essential to follow some best practices. Here are a few tips to consider:
Segment Your Audience: Divide your customers into relevant groups based on demographics, interests, or past interactions. This will allow you to send targeted messages that resonate with each segment.
Personalize Your Messages: Use the recipient’s name or include relevant details to make your messages feel personalized and tailored to their needs. This will help create a stronger connection with your customers.
Provide Valuable Content: Deliver content that is informative, entertaining, or provides value to your customers. Avoid sending spammy or promotional messages that might be perceived as intrusive.
Optimise Message Timing: Consider the timing of your messages to ensure they are delivered at a time when your customers are most likely to engage with them. This might vary depending on your target audience and their habits.
Use multimedia content: Take advantage of WhatsApp’s capabilities to send multimedia content such as images, videos, or audio messages. This can enhance the impact of your marketing messages and make them more engaging.
Integrating WhatsApp with Other Marketing Channels
Multichannel Marketing with WhatsApp
WhatsApp is most effective when integrated with other marketing channels. By combining WhatsApp with channels like email marketing, social media, or SMS, businesses can create a cohesive and comprehensive marketing strategy.
Benefits of Multichannel Marketing with WhatsApp
Integrating WhatsApp with other marketing channels provides several benefits. Firstly, it allows businesses to reach customers through their preferred communication channels, increasing the chances of engagement. Secondly, it provides multiple touchpoints for customers, reinforcing brand messaging and increasing brand recall. Lastly, by using multiple channels, businesses can create a seamless customer journey, ensuring a consistent and personalized experience.
Examples of Multichannel Marketing with WhatsApp
Here are a few examples of how businesses can integrate WhatsApp with other marketing channels:
Email Marketing: Include a WhatsApp call-to-action in your email campaigns, encouraging subscribers to reach out for more information or to engage in a conversation.
Social Media Marketing: Use social media platforms to promote your WhatsApp channel, encouraging followers to join your WhatsApp group or contact you directly through WhatsApp.
SMS Marketing: Combine SMS and WhatsApp to deliver time-sensitive or urgent messages. For example, send an SMS alert with a link to a WhatsApp message containing exclusive offers or limited-time promotions.
The Role of WhatsApp in Customer Service
WhatsApp has become an increasingly popular channel for customer service. Its convenience and ease of use make it a preferred choice for customers who want quick and direct support.
Benefits of Using WhatsApp for Customer Service
Using WhatsApp for customer service offers several advantages. Firstly, it provides a real-time and direct line of communication with customers, enabling businesses to address their queries or concerns promptly. Secondly, WhatsApp allows for personalized interactions, creating a more engaging and satisfactory customer experience. Lastly, WhatsApp’s automation features, such as quick replies and chatbots, can streamline customer service processes, improving efficiency and reducing response times.
Best Practices for Using WhatsApp for Customer Service
To provide exceptional customer service through WhatsApp, businesses should consider the following best practices:
Respond Promptly: Aim to respond to customer inquiries as quickly as possible. Customers appreciate timely and efficient support.
Use Automation Features: Take advantage of WhatsApp’s automation features to provide instant responses or set up automated messages for commonly asked questions.
Personalise Interactions: Treat each customer as an individual and tailor your responses to their specific needs. Personalization goes a long way in creating a positive customer experience.
Maintain Professionalism: Even though WhatsApp is a more casual communication channel, it’s essential to maintain professionalism in your interactions with customers.
Monitor Customer Feedback: Pay attention to customer feedback and use it to improve your customer service processes. Actively seek feedback and make necessary improvements based on customer suggestions.
Exploring WhatsApp Business API
WhatsApp Business API Overview
WhatsApp Business API is a more advanced solution that allows businesses to integrate WhatsApp into their existing systems and workflows. Here’s an overview of the key features and benefits of WhatsApp Business API:
Flexibility and Customization: WhatsApp Business API provides businesses with greater flexibility and customization options, allowing for a more tailored and seamless integration.
Scalability: With WhatsApp Business API, businesses can handle a higher volume of messages and reach a larger audience.
Rich Media Support: WhatsApp Business API supports the sending of rich media content such as images, videos, and documents, enabling businesses to create more engaging and interactive experiences.
Analytics and Reporting: WhatsApp Business API provides detailed analytics and reporting features, allowing businesses to track the performance of their messaging campaigns and gain valuable insights.
Getting Started with WhatsApp Business API
Getting started with WhatsApp Business API involves several steps, including:
Partner with a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP): Choose a BSP that meets your business requirements and can provide the necessary technical support.
Obtain access to the WhatsApp Business API: Your BSP will guide you through the process of obtaining access to the WhatsApp Business API and assist with the necessary configurations.
Integrate with your Systems: Work with your BSP to integrate the WhatsApp Business API into your existing systems and workflows.
Test and Launch: Test your integration thoroughly to ensure everything is functioning correctly before launching your WhatsApp Business API implementation.
Emerging Trends and Innovations
WhatsApp is continually evolving, and there are several emerging trends and innovations that businesses should be aware of. These include:
AI-powered Chatbots: The use of AI-powered chatbots on WhatsApp is expected to increase, enabling businesses to provide more personalized and efficient customer service.
Integration with CRM Systems: Integration between WhatsApp and CRM systems allows for seamless customer data management and improved communication workflows.
Enhanced Security and Privacy Features: WhatsApp is continually enhancing its security and privacy features to provide a safer and more secure environment for businesses and users alike.
More Business-oriented Features: WhatsApp is likely to introduce additional features specifically designed for businesses, further expanding its capabilities as a business communication platform.
End Note
WhatsApp has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses, offering opportunities for marketing, customer service, and seamless communication. By understanding the various features and best practices, businesses can effectively leverage WhatsApp for their benefit. Whether it’s using WhatsApp Channels for marketing campaigns or providing personalized customer service, WhatsApp has the potential to transform the way businesses engage with their customers. As businesses continue to adapt to the digital landscape, WhatsApp for Business provides an essential channel for building meaningful connections and driving business growth.
FAQs
How does WhatsApp for Business work?
WhatsApp Business, a free app accessible on both Android and iPhone simplifies customer interactions by offering a suite of automation, sorting, and rapid response tools, allowing businesses to engage with their customers seamlessly.
What are the benefits of using WhatsApp for business?
WhatsApp allows for prompt and direct communication with customers. It also provides a platform for businesses to showcase their brand and maintain a consistent brand experience and offers various automation features that can streamline communication processes, saving time and improving efficiency.
What are the examples of multichannel marketing with WhatsApp?
Email marketing, social media marketing, and SMS marketing are examples of multichannel marketing with WhatsApp.
What are WhatsApp Channels?
WhatsApp Channel is a feature that allows businesses to send messages to multiple recipients simultaneously. This feature is particularly useful for marketing campaigns as it enables businesses to reach a large audience with personalized messages.
Whenever we talk about marketing at present, online marketing always makes its way into the conversation. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you are in; marketing is one of the most important factors for the survival of that business, and online marketing is now the flag bearer of that.
There is hardly any business that is not marketing itself online. In a world where everyone is connected through social media, marketing a business through those channels is probably one of the best options.
The social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are already popular mediums for marketing and are used by businesses for connecting with customers to increase their sales, build their brand, and make their presence felt.
With how social media is changing and getting new features added, the marketing style is also evolving. Recently, in this list of platforms, another social media has made its way, and that is WhatsApp. In this article, we will find out about WhatsApp marketing and why it is on the trending list.
“Ignoring online marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone.”, KB Marketing Agency
Considered one of the most popular messaging platforms in the world, WhatsApp is free for everyone. It is used by over 2 billion people in the world and enables us to send messages, be they text voice, picture, or video messages. Not to forget voice calls and video calls, which are also on the feature list of this messaging app.
WhatsApp marketing allows businesses to communicate with their customers in a more personal and direct way through the messaging app. It enables businesses to send targeted messages, promotions, and updates to their customers and also allows customers to reach out to businesses easily with any questions or concerns they may have.
There is a separate business app called WhatsApp Business that can be used for marketing and connecting with customers. It was released in 2018. This form of marketing takes the help of the messenger in promoting the products and a brand.
Just like any other social media, this marketing helps reach a huge number of customers and build better relationships with the sole aim of increasing sales.
Why You Should Consider WhatsApp Marketing for Your Business
Reasons to Contact Businesses on WhatsApp
There are several reasons why you should consider using WhatsApp marketing for business growth, and some of them are listed below:
With its 98% open rate, WhatsApp is a great option to connect with customers of the business, as it ensures that the message will be seen by the users, making the business visible to the customers as well as potential ones.
The trust factor is also important. Brands that use chat apps for marketing are more trusted by customers.
Building strong relationships with customers becomes easier as messaging apps help build strong connections with them. Personalized messages can be sent, which in turn keeps the customers engaged with the brand.
Sales can increase if WhatsApp is used for marketing, as people will notice the messages and feel confident enough to get involved with the business.
Probably the most important reason would be the lower cost of marketing. It receives more conversion, and one needs to just download the app, and all you need is the internet to use it. It is one of the lowest-priced platforms that can be used for marketing.
To get started with the marketing process, there are a few special features that make this app a hit platform for marketing and business growth, and they are:
Business Profile
WhatsApp Business Profile
You can create a business profile on WhatsApp that includes a clear description of your business, contact information such as website and email address, and other details that give customers a better understanding of your brand.
Quick Replies
With this feature, you can save messages that you send regularly and quickly respond to customers’ inquiries. This saves time and effort and ensures that customers receive prompt replies.
Automated Messages
WhatsApp allows you to set up automated messages, similar to a chatbot, that can greet customers, provide basic information about your business, and offer support.
Read Receipts
You can see if your message has been delivered and read by the recipient, which helps you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Targeted Audience
Your WhatsApp contact list already contains a targeted audience that is likely interested in your business, which makes it easier to reach out to potential customers.
Overall, these features make WhatsApp a powerful marketing tool that allows businesses to connect with their target audience, save time, and increase efficiency.
How WhatsApp Marketing Can Boost Your Sales and Customer Engagement
WhatsApp marketing can be a powerful tool for business growth as it helps boost sales and customer engagement. Here are some ways in which it can help:
Customer Segmentation
With WhatsApp, businesses can segment their customer list and send targeted messages to specific groups. This allows for more personalized and relevant communication, which can increase engagement and sales.
Interactive Content
WhatsApp allows businesses to send interactive content like images, videos, and GIFs. This type of content is more engaging and can help businesses showcase their products and services in a more compelling way.
Customer Feedback
WhatsApp can be used to collect feedback from customers, which can be used to improve products and services. This can also help businesses identify areas for improvement and provide better customer service.
Order Tracking
Businesses can use WhatsApp to send order updates and tracking information to customers. This provides a convenient way for customers to keep track of their orders and increases transparency, which can lead to greater trust and loyalty.
Group Chats
WhatsApp group chats can be used to foster community and encourage customer engagement. Businesses can create groups for loyal customers, product enthusiasts, or those interested in specific topics related to their brand.
High Open Rates
WhatsApp messages have a high open-rate as compared to other marketing channels, which means that businesses can reach a larger audience and generate more leads.
The answer is very simple: WhatsApp was smart enough to launch a business app for small companies. This marketing feature helps the business get connected with the customers on a personal level, as one-on-one communication is possible from both sides. This combination of direct access, low cost, and easy-to-use features has also contributed to its popularity.
With the feature of status sharing, creating awareness for the brand has also become easier. All these features make it a popular platform for marketing, and thus it is making noise in the business world.
Some of the top companies are using WhatsApp marketing for their businesses, like BookMyShow, Nykaa, MakeMyTrip, and more.
Overall, WhatsApp marketing offers several advantages, such as direct customer communication, low cost, and a high engagement rate, which makes it a popular platform for businesses to promote their brand and increase sales.
At the time where we live, every business needs to make a strong presence online. WhatsApp as a platform for marketing is going to be more famous in the future as it is giving out opportunities to several small businesses. Without marketing, the survival of a business is almost impossible, so when a platform has been provided with such great features for marketing, it is bound to be big in the future.
FAQs
What are the benefits of WhatsApp marketing?
WhatsApp marketing offers several advantages, such as direct customer communication, low cost, and a high engagement rate, which makes it a popular platform for businesses to promote their brand and increase sales.
When was WhatsApp Business released?
WhatsApp Business, which can be used for marketing and connecting with customers, was released in 2018.
What are the popular features of WhatsApp marketing?
The special features that make WhatsApp a hit platform for marketing are a business profile, quick replies, automated messages, read receipts, and a targeted audience.
How can WhatsApp marketing increase sales and customer engagement?
WhatsApp marketing can boost sales and improve customer engagement in many ways including segmenting customers, gathering feedback, creating interactive content, utilizing group chats, offering order tracking, and taking advantage of its high open rates.
In Q2 2022, TikTok was once again the most downloaded app, marking the eighth time in the previous ten quarters that it has maintained the top spot. Since the start of 2020, only Zoom (Q2 2020) and Instagram (Q4 2021) have outperformed TikTok in a quarter.
As the biggest publisher of mobile apps, Meta maintained its position. In Q2 2022, Meta produced half of the top 10 apps, with Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp ranking among the top five. The most downloaded apps in 2022 are:
Surprisingly, an app that faced a lot of criticism is listed at the top in the lists of Overall downloads.
TikTok
In Q2 2022, TikTok was once again the most downloaded app, marking the eighth time in the previous ten quarters that it has maintained the top spot. Since the start of 2020, only Zoom (Q2 2020) and Instagram (Q4 2021) have outperformed TikTok in a quarter.
Instagram
For the fourth consecutive quarter in Q2 2022, Instagram was the most popular app in Asia, followed by Facebook, also owned by Meta. With approximately 65% of all Instagram installs in Asia occurring in India, Instagram is the most popular app in India.
Facebook
Facebook app is the world’s most popular social networking application. It is used almost everywhere for social and business communications. In Q2 2022, Facebook ousted TikTok from the top spot on Google Play in the United States.
WhatsApp
With more than 100 billion-plus downloads, WhatsApp is one of the most popular and widely used chat applications. WhatsApp also supports communication between international phone networks. WhatsApp moved up one spot to take the third-most installed spot in Europe.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a social networking and messaging app, the fifth most popular app in 2022. It allows users to send snaps in the form of pictures, videos, and emojis and chat with other Snapchat users. With 144.35 million users, India had the highest Snapchat user base worldwide as of April 2022. With almost 107 million Snapchat users, the United States placed second overall. It is popular among young people, especially those under the age of 16, which raises privacy issues for parents.
Telegram
Telegram, a cloud-based, cross-platform, encrypted instant messaging service, offers optional end-to-end encrypted video calling, VoIP, file sharing, and other services. Telegram crossed 500 million monthly active users in January 2021. As of the end of August 2021, it had received 1 billion downloads worldwide, making it the most downloaded app internationally in January 2021. The monthly active users on Telegram surpassed 700 million in June 2022.
Messenger
Messenger, a proprietary instant messaging app established by Meta Platforms to send messages, trade files, photographs, videos, stickers, audio, and other media, stands in the seventh position of most downloaded apps in 2022. Users can converse with bots and respond to messages sent by other users. The service also supports voice and video calling.
CapCut offers basic video editing features to help in capturing and snipping moments. Free in-app typefaces, effects, and cutting-edge capabilities like stabilization, chroma key, seamless slow-motion, and keyframe animation have all been alluring. CapCut exceeded 20 million downloads, delivering its highest quarter on the App Store since Q4 2019 in Asia.
WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp Business, standing in the ninth position in Q2 2022, targets small business owners dealing with a few client requests daily. It has a similar user design to the consumer WhatsApp app, with a few extra functions. For instance, businesses get a verified Business Profile. Small businesses can also set up Catalogs to promote and market their goods on the network.
Spotify
Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon founded Spotify, a privately held Swedish supplier of media services and audio streaming, on April 23, 2006. As of September 2022, it had over 456 million monthly active users, including 195 million paying subscribers, making it one of the biggest music streaming service providers.
**These estimates of the top 10 most downloaded apps in the world are as provided by Sensor Tower in Q2 2022. These estimates include unique installs and do not include pre-installed Apple and Google apps.
Every day a ton of new mobile apps are released, making it challenging to keep up with them all. It can be challenging to choose the best one, so if you plan to create your app, be sure to look at the most popular ones worldwide to get a sense of what products are most successful on the market.
The top five apps downloaded the most in 2022 across all stores and categories provide an overview of the general direction users were heading in at the time. The months following the global implementation of lockdown and shelter-at-home policies saw a dramatic increase in app downloads and popularity.
Mobile app and game developers have benefited from being digital even though many industries had to bear the brunt of financial and economic lapses caused by COVID-19. Compared to many other services, digital products are easily accessible and are not much impacted by physical limitations.
FAQs
Which is the most downloaded app in the world?
TikTok is the most downloaded app. It has more than 2 billion downloads worldwide.
Which is the most downloaded app in 2022?
In Q2 2022, TikTok was once again the most downloaded app, marking the eighth time in the previous ten quarters that it has maintained the top spot. Since the start of 2020, only Zoom (Q2 2020) and Instagram (Q4 2021) have outperformed TikTok in a quarter.
“Subway Surfers” is the most downloaded mobile game of the decade, with 1.8 billion downloads.
What were the most downloaded apps during the quarantine?
Aarogya Setu, Zoom, WhatsApp, TikTok, Ludo, Google Pay, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Youtube, and Snapchat.
Which is the most used app in the world in 2022?
With over 1 billion active users worldwide, TikTok has received the most downloads and is currently the most used app, closely followed by Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
With over 2 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp has become a go-to instant communication platform for B2B and B2C brands. However, beyond the purveyor of internal communication, WhatsApp can also be used to convert Instagram leads. Amazing, isn’t it?
Well, actually, it is a no-brainer. With 44% of people using Instagram for their weekly shopping, there ought to be a process that streamlines the communication flow and facilitates personalized marketing. What better way to convert these hot leads through WhatsApp chat?
Believe it or not–a WhatsApp link is the fastest way to solve your potential customer’s doubts or extend additional support. By communicating through WhatsApp, customers feel heard, preventing last-minute abandonment as their query chain has been cut-short.
Before we get into more details, let’s understand what it means for your business.
A WhatsApp link directs your Instagram profile visitors to a WhatsApp conversation. This means that you can chat with your potential customers anytime and anywhere, with business updates, promotional messages, feedback, query resolution, and surveys.
In addition to sending messages, you can exploit this feature for your business’ advantage by sending videos, voice messages, product images, and documents directly from the app and fulfilling your customer’s assistance requests.
Along with this, businesses can streamline their messages and take advantage of WhatsApp’s automatic responses, chatbot, and organizational tools to scale up their contact points while solidifying their customer base.
So, is adding a WhatsApp link on Instagram fruitful for converting leads?
A big yes–the customers will just be a click away from shooting their queries.
They won’t have to wait for days to get their doubts solved
The conversion cycle gets shorter by leveraging a quick redressal system
Now, with these advantages at hand, let’s see how you can convert your Instagram leads through a WhatsApp link.
How to convert your Instagram leads through a WhatsApp link?
Enter the number associated with your WhatsApp and submit the verification code
Now, the WhatsApp button should appear, facilitating all your Instagram leads to get in touch with your company.
Through boosted posts
Instagram Post Boost
Add your WhatsApp number to the ‘Contact Options’ on your Instagram business profile
Choose an existing post whose reach you’d like to amplify
Click on the blue button, select messages, and WhatsApp
Set a goal, budget, duration, and audience for your ad
Review your objectives and click on ‘create your ad.’
Once approved, your ad will be live in 24 hours.
By Adding WhatsApp Link to Instagram Stories Highlights
Instagram stories is a great way to boost the brand reach and sales. And adding a WhatsApp link on Instagram stories highlights is one of the great personalized way to display things as you can help the user with their query by directly landing them on WhatsApp.
To add links to Stories you need to fulfill following criteria first:
You need an Instagram business account.
You got to have more than 10k followers.
WhatsApp link on Instagram StoryWhatsApp Link with Icon on Instagram
Create a new story. Upload a WhatsApp icon image with an aspect ratio 9:16 and post it a story and insert your WhatsApp link within the story.
For e.g- Open the link chain and enter the URL:
api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=Your number (followed by your phone number in the international format)
View the published story and save the story as an Instagram Highlight.
Name the highlight Chat on WA or something similar.
Benefits of converting Instagram leads through a WhatsApp link
Building a contact list
By converting leads through WhatsApp links, you no longer need to bid adieu to your customer after the order has been delivered. Instead, you can build a long-term relationship.
Through this method, you can optimize your contact list and even import all the contacts to a CRM and send messages to your customers in bulk. This way, once the prospect has approached you via Instagram, you can save their contact details and directly engage with them even after their order has been successfully delivered.
Seamless user-experience
A grave concern of customers before buying a high-end product: What if it doesn’t work well? People are anyway skeptical about the purchase, and having no provision for direct communication makes the decision-making process even harder.
By converting your leads through WhatsApp, your customers rest assured that the brand will be just a message in case of any dispute with the product quality. You can automate customer support queries in case of high sales.
You can also leverage WhatsApp list messages and custom replies to address FAQs with a faster response time and use the opportunity to strike a meaningful conversation with your customers throughout the journey.
Maintaining retention span
With dozens of new products launching every day, it is tough to maintain your audience’s retention span. They make one scroll on Instagram, and boom, another brand is displaying their ad. What to do in this scenario?
Once you’ve enticed the prospects through your product offerings on Instagram and redirected them to WhatsApp, half of your work is done. Now, you need to provide them regular updates regarding their order and give them a reason to buy from you again.
Send feedback forms, give intimation regarding new product launches and build a strong relationship that increases their retention span.
While you do that, make sure:
You keep the communication short and to the point
Don’t spam your customers with frequent messages
Reinforce your messages with videos, pictures, social proofs, etc. wherever required
Make it personalized and quirky
Upsell and cross-sell
WhatsApp has an incredible open rate of 99%. Once the prospect has bought any of your product/services, you can send(after getting their permission) product catalogs, new launch details, discount offers, and upsell or cross-sell your products.
For instance, if you’re sending them order updates, use the opportunity and recommend other products to them. The idea is to use what they have already purchased as an indicator to know what else they might be interested in.
Here’s an example of such a message focused on cross-selling:
Hey Priyanka,
Your black dress has been delivered. Hope it looks great on you!
But, we think your picture-perfect look would be incomplete without our perfect pair of heels. Click on the link below and check out our latest collection of heels available at a 10% discount with express delivery.
This way, you would know their preferences and also get a chance to sell your other products to the same customer base.
Building a sustainable brand
Compared to simply adding your website link in the bio where your prospects can leave a message via a form or email, putting your WhatsApp link redirects them to an opportunity to receive a response from you instantly.
Your response and brand loyalty go hand in hand. According to a recent report from Gartner, customers are more likely to stick with a brand long-term when their service expectations are met.
This signifies that if your communication is top-notch, you can get an influx of leads into your inbox and recurring purchases–thereby building a sustainable brand. So, build a robust and quick communication system through WhatsApp and strike while the iron is hot to en-cash the opportunity and maintain their attention while it is still fresh.
Efficient buying process
With social commerce on a boom, Instagram has become a HubSpot for generating sales. Over 130 million users engage with shopping posts on a monthly basis, proving that this app is useful for driving both product awareness and sales.
However, selling is just the tip of the iceberg to being in the game for the long term. You need to provide a seamless user experience and solve any of their objections quickly before they move on to another brand. And diverting your traffic to WhatsApp helps with that.
Through WhatsApp, your customers can communicate with your brand, send in their queries, and make the purchase–all in relatively less time. This makes the entire buying process more efficient and transparent.
Conclusion
Holding a stellar value proposition for your brand would all be in vain if you don’t provide an eccentric customer experience. And placing a WhatsApp link on your Instagram profile does precisely that. You no longer need to scout for another messaging platform or chase potential customers through DMs to close the deal. Just add the link-generating feature; if your price and offering excite your prospects, they’ll directly reach out to you.
The feature also creates credibility and trust for your brand because:
They feel a direct connection as WhatsApp symbolizes a personalized form of marketing
They can chat with your brand–that gives them a sense of security for investing their money at a credible place
Moreover, with the tracking function, you can track the efficacy of this feature and use the metrics as a base for making decisions related to advertising budgets, branding, and inventory. Whether you’re a small business owner or a well-established brand, converting Instagram leads through WhatsApp will be an effective investment for you.
FAQs
1- How to create a click-to-chat link for WhatsApp?
You can create click-to-chat link, by using the following link, entering the WhatsApp phone number after the ‘=’: api.whatsapp.com/send?phone= .
2- How one can use WhatsApp for Business?
WhatsApp business can be use for showcasing Product catalogue, communicate with others, provide good customer service.
3- How do I create WhatsApp QR code for ?
You can create WhatsApp QR code using free QR code generator by entering the country code without the + symbol, followed by the WhatsApp phone number.
Whatsapp is a social messaging app that helps people to communicate with one another just by having an active internet connection. Soon after the commercial hit of the Whatsapp messenger app, the developers decided to add some impressive features to fulfill the needs of the users. So it led to the implementation of WhatsApp video calling and audio calling features.
Soon after, the developer decided to help business people by implementing a WhatsApp money transfer facility. WhatsApp Business API was first introduced in the year 2018, which helped business people to portray their products in a better way.
Covid-19 outbreak and continuous lockdowns have made people work online and go digital. In the same way, people started promoting their business on social media platforms and some messenger apps as well.
Whatsapp messenger is one of the most important messenger apps that has implemented WhatsApp API to help small and big business portray their products.
WhatsApp Business Website
In simple words, the WhatsApp API acts as a support and sales channel that might helps users to find the preferred product according to their needs. The products and details will be listed in a WhatsApp account, and these details will be visible to all the contacts. Sometimes business owners might even receive a bulk order from their customers.
How to Apply for WhatsApp Business API?
The process is simple; anyone can apply for WhatsApp Business API just by following some simple steps. But people are often confused about choosing the right pathway for completing the process. Below mentioned points might guide people in a better way to create a Whatsapp Business API account with ease.
Choose The Right Platform
In general, there are two methods for creating a Whatsapp Business API account; users can either create an account directly or use a third-party application to create and utilize WhatsApp Business API.
Whatsapp has provided some options to help users signup with the API, but doing this will be a disadvantage in some aspects.
Small-scale industries might suffer a lot to find the right platform to have the API on board. But companies who have the option to develop API might find it easy to develop the API.
This is an important factor that must be considered while choosing the platform to create Whatsapp Business API.
Having a third-party application will be an added advantage in many aspects because it can assist small companies in creating the API with ease. Without these third-party applications, companies might find it difficult to develop the API.
Small companies might have human resource problems and face many technical issues in developing an API. But having a third-party application for all these problems will be an added advantage.
Having a service provider will reduce human efforts and increases productivity instantly. Because of this reason, people prefer to use this kind of third-party service provider to increase the overall user experience in a better way.
Entering All The Essential Details
Soon after choosing the right platform, users should enter all the essential details required to complete the process. The authorized person must enter all the basic information, including company name, URL, region, production volume, and sales percentage.
Without entering these details, business owners will not be able to create a WhatsApp Business API account. The service provider and WhatsApp might require all the details for setting up a business API account. This will help users to process the account legally. As it is a business account, people should make sure to complete the process with ease.
Activating The Account
For activating the account, users should first enter the mobile number in which they will receive all the essential updates regarding WhatsApp Business. If the mobile number is already registered, there is no need for registration, but if the number is not registered, the company might request you to register the mobile number first.
Soon after the approval process, the account can be activated. This process might take a bit longer but can help people track what they do. Soon after completing this process, the entire message backup will be sent to the Business Solution Provider (BSP).
These steps will help people complete the activation process, but the templates and the features in WhatsApp will help enhance a business’s sales percentage.
How to Get Started With WhatsApp Business API?
Implementing Impressive Message Template
It is necessary to setup up a WhatsApp Business API with an impressive message template as it will be visible to the clients directly. The visualization should be appealing and clear so that the users can easily understand the contents in a better way.
WhatsApp Business Template
Moreover, WhatsApp Business has several rules, so people should follow these rules to implement various things in practice. For instance, HSM is one of the most effective methods by which WhatsApp monetizes the API service.
So people should make sure to raise a request and wait for approvals to complete the process.
Is a Green Tick Important for Your WhatsApp Business?
Yes! It is essential to have a green tick near the WhatsApp badge as it indicates the reliability of the seller. It means WhatsApp verifies the seller, so the users can no longer be worried about the reliability of the seller.
A reputed brand that prefers to send 500+ messages to their customers can receive the badge easily.
Completing the entire process might take a long time but will benefit both buyers and sellers. Small business owners who prefer to have a WhatsApp business should make sure to utilize this properly to obtain more clients.
Generating leads, asking for customers’ feedback, sending timely promotional messages through chatbots, and much more automation can be made using the Whatsapp Business API feature.
Benefits of WhatsApp Business API?
Anything and everything can be altered according to the business need. Even the language and also the automation can be altered according to the need of the user. In simple words, people can easily have a look at the things that can be carried out using this business API.
Directing the customers into the WhatsApp chatbox has also been made easy by using this API. To do this, business owners can easily post some advertisements online, which will eventually help in obtaining better sales targets.
Moreover, sending personalized messages will also be an added advantage in many aspects as it might attract users in a better way.
Now people might find it easy to complete the process. So make sure to use WhatsApp API features to enhance the overall user experience in a better way. Most users find it difficult to choose the right platform but might choose the right one soon after utilizing WhatsApp API. It reduces human efforts and enhances the overall user experience by providing better quality outputs.
FAQs
How can I get WhatsApp Business API approval?
You must create a WhatsApp Business account on the mobile number you wish to receive updates for WhatsApp Business. You will receive a code and your business verification process will be started.
How can I install WhatsApp Business API?
You can install WhatsApp Business API by applying yourself on the website or by using third-party software.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by WhatsApp.
“No advertisements! “No tricks! No games! ” — A basic premise that enabled a simple messaging service to defeat behemoths like Facebook Messenger, iMessage, WeChat, Snapchat, Kik Messenger, Line, etc., and others despite having only 50 employees.
Whatsapp’s journey is unlike any other renowned startup tale, in which the founders generated the idea, formed a team, dropped out of college, and received pre-seed capital from a behemoth like Facebook or Google. WhatsApp was created by folks in their thirties who had decent full-time jobs with reputable brand names.
This internet messaging app was created to meet a legitimate need (empowering mobile-based conversations), and it was able to leverage practically every increasing trend, such as push alerts, as well as a necessity, such as encryption.
Today, more than a decade has passed since the company was founded, and still the firm makes millions of dollars while adhering to its no ads, no games, and no tricks principles. Know more about Whatsapp’s success story, its business model, founders, revenue model, funding and more.
WhatsApp – Company Highlights
Startup Name
WhatsApp
Parent Company
Meta
Also Known As
WhatsApp Ireland Limited
Legal Name
WhatsApp Inc.
Industry
Instant Messaging, Subscription Service
Headquarter
San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, West Coast
WhatsApp Messenger, or just WhatsApp, is a Meta-owned free, cross-platform centralised instant messaging and voice-over-IP service which is available worldwide. Users may exchange text and voice messages, initiate audio and video chats, and exchange photographs, user locations (even live locations), document files, and any other stuff using the app. WhatsApp’s client application is available on both mobile devices and desktop PCs. To use the service, you must have a cellular phone number to sign up for the service.
WhatsApp’s key differentiator is that the application makes it feasible to send and receive messages and calls with the prerequisite of just an active internet connection, making it essentially free to use and great for phone calls, and even international calling. We don’t have to worry about data plan limits or go through any sign-up costs for using WhatsApp.
While there are several messaging applications which can be compared to WhatsApp, it has a few distinct characteristics, the most essential of which is WhatsApp’s cross-platform capabilities.
At once, WhatsApp may appear to be nothing more than a text messaging service, but it is capable of so much more. And here is an overview of WhatsApp’s most significant characteristics:
End-to-end encryption, a secure communication technology in which only the parties who are chatting may receive the messages, is used by WhatsApp.
You may record and send voice messages to one person or group conversations using voice messaging.
WhatsApp enables video calls in addition to voice conversations, including a group mode that allows up to eight people to be on the same call.
Rather than using email or other document-sharing applications, WhatsApp allows you to share various types of documents, including spreadsheets, PDFs, and slideshows.
You can share photos, videos, stickers, and GIFs without stressing about them being distorted or not being downloaded, as may happen when sending SMS messages across various mobile systems and cellular providers.
WhatsApp has a desktop version available for both Mac and PC.
WhatsApp’s specialized business account lets businesses to promote their products and services, and communicate with consumers on a handy and user-friendly platform.
You’ll need to download the app on your Android phone or iPhone and register an account before you can use WhatsApp. You’ll see that you’ll require your phone number to set up an account after installing the application.
WhatsApp, unlike several other services, does not employ unique usernames. Rather, WhatsApp uses a number to identify users. This means that everyone who uses WhatsApp will be included in your list of contacts immediately, making setting up very simple.
Once you’re fully operational, familiarise yourself with WhatsApp’s capabilities, which range from making international calls to sending audio messages to many many services as written above.
Instant messaging is a sort of internet chat that allows users to send texts in real-time online or using another computer network. Messages are usually sent across 2 or more parties when each user enters text and sends it to the recipient(s), who are all connected to the same network.
Instant messaging varies from email in that interactions take place in real-time or instantly. Most current instant messaging apps employ push technology and include additional features such as emojis, file sharing, bots, Voice over IP, or video chat.
One of the primary reasons businesses are gravitating towards mobile texting is that it saves a lot of time while maintaining a high level of customer service. The explanation for this is straightforward. Customer service over the telephone or in-person are both synchronized activities that need both sides to participate at the same time. You’re working with one individual once they’re ready to end the engagement, and there’s nothing you can do but assist them. Email is asynchronous, meaning it is sent by one individual and read and responded to by another. You can help a lot of people in a short amount of time, but your response may come long after the desire to read has passed.
For most parts of the world, mobile texting is limited to Facebook and WhatsApp. Over 2.5 billion individuals use one of these two platforms, and in some areas, the two applications account for over 90% of the market. Because of Facebook’s (Now Meta) popularity, rival messaging groups have sprung up that appear to be the polar opposite of Facebook. Both Telegram and Signal were formed on strong pro-encryption principles, and they constantly criticise Facebook for commercialising communications.
WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging app in the world, with over 150 million users. Both Viber and Telegram have gained popularity in particular nations and areas, including the Middle East, Africa, and South America. In 2021, WhatsApp had the most downloads, however, its overall downloads were down in the year, 2020.
The domination of Facebook and WhatsApp is even more obvious in India, where these two applications account for 92 per cent of all engagements. Telegram and Signal penetration have not made much of a difference in total sessions, despite skyrocketing usage after WhatsApp’s privacy change.
In 2009, former Yahoo employees, Jan Koum and Brian Acton launched WhatsApp.
Founders of WhatsApp – Jan Koum, Brian Acton
Jan Koum
Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s co-founder and former CEO, is in charge of setting WhatsApp’s general direction and strategy. Jan is also responsible for designing and interface of WhatsApp’s platform, as well as the development of its underlying technology and infrastructure, with his co-founder Brian Acton. Jan moved to California in 1992, from his hometown in Ukraine. Here, in California, he attended San Jose State University but eventually dropped out from there.
Brian Acton
Brian Acton, Signal Technology Foundation’s Founder and Executive Chairman, is also the co-founder of WhatsApp. Brian serves as a software developer. He’s also a Silicon Valley expert, experienced working at Adobe, Apple, and Yahoo before joining WhatsApp. Brian co-founded WhatsApp in 2009 and helped it grow to over a billion users globally. Brian is a Central Florida native with a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University.
WhatsApp – Startup Story
Jan Koum, the co-founder of WhatsApp, bought an iPhone in January 2009 and immediately recognised the opportunities and prospects of the app market on the App Store, which was just a few months old at the time. He wanted to make an app that showed users’ current state besides their names.
They went to Alex Fishman for more information after discussing the proposal with Acton. However, without the assistance of an iOS developer, this concept could not be realised. As a result, Alex recommended them to Igor Solomennikov, a Russian developer whom he discovered on RentACoder.com.
The road to success was not easy at first, but they persevered, as have many other great businesses. On February 24, 2009, Koum successfully developed the iOS application and established ‘WhatsApp Inc.’ in California.
He chose the name ‘WhatsApp’ because it sounded very much like what’s up, which corresponded to the concept of statuses.
He showed the app to some friends, including Fisherman, but none of them liked it. Additionally, difficulties such as app crashing, battery draining, and other issues left Koum so unhappy that he lost all faith and began looking for new employment.
Apple released the push notifications upgrade in June 2009. This update was created to notify users even when they’re not operating an installed application. Jan took advantage of this shift and tweaked Whatsapp so that it sends push alerts to contacts anytime a user modified his status on the service.
Fishman’s Russian pals found it amusing and began using it to keep track of their own whereabouts and contact each other with updates like “I woke late” or “Can’t chat, I’m at the office.”
This function quickly became a conduit for instant text messaging, and users began communicating with one another through status updates, such as someone posting “What’s up Jack?” and Jack responding by altering her status.
“Being able to reach somebody halfway across the world instantly, on a device that is always with you, was powerful,” – Jan Koum
WhatsApp 2.0 was released in beta shortly after recognizing the need for an instant messaging service. People were enchanted by the possibility of registering and signing in with merely a phone number and they were able to send messages to friends through the internet rather than through operators’ SMS plans, all of it for no extra cost.
WhatsApp’s mission statement says, “Behind every product, the decision is our desire to let people communicate anywhere in the world without barriers.”
The vision of Whatsapp set by mark Zuckerberg is “WhatsApp on a path to connecting more than a billion people.”
WhatsApp’s mission statement explains why the company was founded and what has kept it going since its inception.
WhatsApp – WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp verified claims that they were developing and evaluating 2 additional business tools in September 2017. The applications were released in January 2018, with different target audiences:
Small businesses may use WhatsApp Business.
An Enterprise Solution enabling larger enterprises with international client bases, such as e-commerce shops, airlines, and banks, to provide customer care and conversational commerce (e-commerce) over WhatsApp chat utilising live agents or chatbots.
In October 2020, Facebook announced the introduction of per-message price levels for services delivered through the WhatsApp Business API.
WhatsApp – Business Model
WhatsApp generates revenue by charging large and medium businesses for use of its Business Application programming interface. But, before we go any further, have a glance at the company’s prior monetization initiatives.
Previously, WhatsApp used to monetize its users through subscriptions. Users have to pay $1 each year to use the app. Given WhatsApp’s 2 billion users, that would yield a $2 billion income rate of economic growth.
Facebook dropped the $1 charge two years after the purchase, in 2016. The underlying aim was to keep focused on user growth and assist WhatsApp in becoming the undisputed messaging leader.
That means scrapping any plans to include advertisements in the product. While Facebook’s Messenger app has in-app advertising, the company’s management has chosen to engage with companies to monetise WhatsApp.
WhatsApp introduced its Business API in 2018, marking the company’s first sustained effort to commercialise the programme after its purchase.
Small businesses can utilise the B2B service for free. Larger firms, on the other hand, must pay every time they send a response 24 hours after the first message was delivered. Everything after the 24-hour mark will cost between $0.05 and $0.90 for each message responded.
WhatsApp also collaborates with other companies to supply its API, such as the cloud communication platform Twilio.
WhatsApp – Funding, and Investors
Date
Round
Amount
Lead Investors
Jul 1, 2013
Series B
$52M
Sequoia Capital
Apr 8, 2011
Series A
$8M
Sequoia Capital
Oct 1, 2009
Seed Round
$250K
–
WhatsApp – Competitors
WhatsApp’s competitors are iMessage (1.3 billion active users), Telegram (500 million active users), Viber (260 million active users), WeChat (1.2 billion active users), Signal (over 50 million active users), and LINE (217 million active users). During WhatsApp disruptions and scandals, both Telegram and Signal have experienced signup increases.
WhatsApp is developing additional capabilities for its smartphone and desktop users. This time, the Facebook-backed messaging app is putting a new version of message responses through its paces in preparation for a future WhatsApp beta update for Android handsets. New upgrades and features for iOS and Desktop users are also being tested.
In a recent update, WhatsApp introduced a new plus icon to the reply bar: after touching it, the user will be able to give a reaction to the message by selecting a different emoji.
WhatsApp plans to release a few additional features in the near future. They are providing an option in their versions up to 2.22.3.5 where users will be able to sketch using pens and pencils. The business intends to introduce a variety of pencils that will allow you to sketch on your photos and videos.
Another potential is a function that allows users to blur their photos. This blur photos feature was previously only accessible on WhatsApp for iOS, but now it is being rumoured that it may be accessible for WhatsApp Beta testing on Android phones as well.
The new “Profile Picture” under the message notice is another improvement that we’ve heard is coming shortly. In prior versions, when someone got a new text message, they could simply see the sender’s name. However, they will now be able to see their profile picture next to their name, which is nice since you will know who has contacted you.
WhatsApp is now used by over 1.5 billion individuals in 180 countries. The software has already replaced SMS, MMS, and other outdated communication methods that its target market previously employed. And now, with Facebook’s ambition of bringing companies on board, cell carriers’ features may become utterly obsolete.
The business has also released a desktop version of the software (WhatsApp Web) to make it more convenient to use on a PC or Mac. Mark Zuckerberg is going all out to push WhatsApp to new heights in the corporate world. With several upgrades flowing out and people being blown away by its capabilities, the company will retain its position in the market.
WhatsApp – FAQs
What does WhatsApp do?
WhatsApp Messenger, or just WhatsApp, is a Meta-owned free, cross-platform centralised instant messaging and voice-over-IP service which is available worldwide.
Who founded WhatsApp?
In 2009, former Yahoo employees, Jan Koum and Brian Acton launched WhatsApp.
Which companies do WhatsApp compete with?
WhatsApp’s competitors are iMessage, Telegram, Viber, WeChat, Signal, and LINE.
When was WhatsApp launched?
In 2009, former Yahoo employees, Jan Koum and Brian Acton launched WhatsApp.
Over two billion people of the world’s population are using WhatsApp on a monthly basis in 2021. There are around more than 400 million WhatsApp users in India and most of them are individual users. WhatsApp also serves as a platform for businesses to reach out to their customers. The ‘WhatsApp business verified badge’ helps businesses in this aspect and that is why many SMEs want to know how to get WhatsApp verified badge.
WhatsApp initially rolled out access to its Business APIs to only selected brands in India. Brands such as MakeMyTrip, GoIbibo, RedBus, OYO Rooms, and BookMyShow were some of the early adopters of WhatsApp Business APIs. So, if you want to get verified on WhatsApp, here’s the complete guide.
Advantages of Getting WhatsApp Business Verification Badge
WhatsApp has now finished the advanced testing of its business APIs and consequently increased the availability of the same, which is why everyone wants to know how to get a green tick on the WhatsApp business. The APIs are accessible to more entities than ever and anyone can get a WhatsApp business verification badge.
Some advantages of having a WhatsApp verified account are:
Coveted “WhatsApp green tick” verification.
Access to WhatsApp APIs for sending notifications.
Use WhatsApp CRMs to manage customer support: shared inbox, bot automation, etc.
To whom does the verification badge benefit? The WhatsApp verified account helps established and growing organizations wanting to increase their user base globally. Having a WhatsApp business verification definitely adds to one’s credibility.
While the regular WhatsApp Business account you get through the free WhatsApp Business app has some benefits, having an official WhatsApp business verified account via the WhatsApp Business API will get you the popular green checkmark in your business profile and much more.
Not many businesses can boast about possessing a verified tick at present. This is why many try to find ways to get a WhatsApp business verification badge.
This is how a WhatsApp verified business account looks
What is Whatsapp Green Tick?
This is how WhatsApp verified icon defines a verified business account:
An official WhatsApp business verification will get you the green badge next to your business’s contact name. You might have noticed that some businesses already have it.
If you want to get a verified badge on WhatsApp business with the green checkmark, you’ll have to take an approach pretty different from simply downloading, installing, and signing up with the free app. You’ll need access to the WhatsApp Business API. The WhatsApp verification badge involves efforts and money but it’s ultimately worth the grind.
You can directly sign up for WhatsApp business verification by visiting WhatsApp Business API from Facebook.
As mentioned above, Facebook has partnered with business solution providers globally to help organizations and entities onboard through WhatsApp business APIs and in order to help verify WhatsApp business accounts. The approval time for a WhatsApp verified tick while working with these BSPs is usually between 1-3 weeks.
The process of WhatsApp business verification is as follows:
Sign up with a business solution provider (BSP).
Create a ‘Business Manager’ account.
Give the BSP your 16-digit Business Manager ID (BMID).
Step 1. Sign up with a business solution provider (BSP)
A BSPis a platform that connects your business with the WhatsApp Business API and provides all of the advantages of the platform such as WhatsApp business verification green tick and more.
Such a platform has the resources and is authorized by WhatsApp to conduct all the necessary checksinto the legitimacy of your business. The BSP has the power to help you get verified on WhatsApp:
Create, activate, and manage your official WhatsApp Business account.
Connect your WhatsApp business account with the WhatsApp Business API.
Another important step for WhatsApp verified tick is analyzing and delivering valuable data-driven insights.
Step 2. Create a ‘Business Manager’ account
In order to enable the BSP to verify your business with WhatsApp on your behalf, you’ll need to first take care of some points on your end. You need to create a Business Manager account.
A Facebook tool that assists you in organizing and managing your business, Business Manager requires that you first have a Facebookprofile to use your Facebook username and password. This way, the login process is made more secure than simply relying on an email and password.
Getting a Whatsapp business verification badge is not easy, as there are steps you have to follow. Go to the website for Facebook business manager and go to Create Account. It is important that you then enter your name, your business’s name, email address, and other business details. You can only have up to two Business Manager accounts at the same time, so if you need more, ask someone else from your business to create the additional accounts.
Step 3. Give the BSP your Business Manager ID
To proceed with the creation and verification of your WhatsApp business account, your BSP will need your Business Manager ID. This is an important step, This information is available in your Business Manager’s Business Settings → Business Info, under Business Manager Account Name. When you find it, email your Business Manager ID to the BSP in order to get a WhatsApp verified badge.
This is where you’ll find your Business Manager ID
Step 4. Allow the BSP to send messages on your behalf
The fourth step to how to get verified on WhatsApp is once they have your Business Manager ID, the BSP will need your consent to message your customers on your behalf. It will send you a “messaging on behalf of” request via an email and the Business Manager platform. To approve your WhatsApp verified account for business go to Business Settings → Requests.
Approve the “message on behalf of” request
Step 5. Verify your business, policy, and display name
After you’ve approved your BSP’s request, you will need to verify your business’s name and policy in the Business Manager so that WhatsApp can verify that it’s genuine. You can do this in your Business Settings → Security Center, under Verification → Start Verification. This option will be greyed out until you approve your BSP’s “messaging on behalf of” request.
Your display name has to be in line with WhatsApp Commerceand Business policies and needs to follow the guidelines set by the company. Also note that once you’ve registered your business contact name on WhatsApp under the official business account, it is not possible to change it without losing the WhatsApp business verified status.
For a WhatsApp green tick verification, you need to enter your business details, select the business type, and entered your phone number, you’ll receive a verification code (via phone call, text message, or email). Submit it to complete the process and proceed with sending the first message through your BSP.
While you can also do this by building and running your own solution, it isn’t recommended unless you’re well versed in a programming language. Instead, why not take advantage of the existing solutions provided by a platform like WATI?
Not only does WATI take care of creating, verifying, and managing your verified WhatsApp account in tandem with getting your own WhatsApp green tick, but it also provides the perfect environment for your team members to conduct all of the business’s communications with clientsfrom one place.
WATI Dashboard provides a detailed analysis of all of your team’s communications
Thanks to WATI’s Team Inbox and Dashboard, multiple agents can sign in at the same time and respond to customers’ queries, send/receive multimedia, or even set templates for quick replies to the most common questions. Not only does it help you get verified on WhatsApp, but the platform also offers a detailed analysis of all the interactions in the form of pie charts, bar graphs, and bell curves.
The ‘Team Inbox’ is also available on the go in the form of the WATI Business app, which can be very helpful. WATI also features a no-code chatbot builder that verified WhatsApp business accounts can take advantage of. If you’d like to know more, do reach out to the WATI team. Or better yet, sign up on the platform and try out the perks provided by the WhatsApp Business API.
It was recently featured on ProductHunt as the #5 Product of the Day.
WATI is one of the products of Clare.AI, the startup and online tool combining artificial intelligence and machine learning with proprietary natural language processing technology to build high-quality, award-winning customer communication solutions. The company is trusted by multinational enterprises and Fortune 500 companies.
FAQs
How to verify a WhatsApp business account?
Sign up with a business solution provider (BSP).
Create a ‘Business Manager’ account.
Give the BSP your 16-digit Business Manager ID (BMID).
Allow the BSP to send messages on your behalf.
Verify your business, policy, and display name.
Is WhatsApp business safe?
WhatsApp business is quite safe as WhatsApp messages are encrypted that secure messages before they are sent. When a message is sent to a WhatsApp businessaccount, the message is delivered securely.
How does WhatsApp business work?
WhatsApp Business makes interacting with customers easy by providing tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages.
In the 21st century, staying connected with your friends and families is a necessity and it is not an impossible task as technology has bestowed us with an option to do that. Social media helps us get connected with people, even if they are from the opposite part of the world.
Apart from staying connected, social media also helps us stay up to date, join communities, and share our similar interests with others and also helps people with their business.
One of the most essential and popular social media platforms that help us stay connected with each other is definitely, WhatsApp Messenger. This instant messaging app is owned by Meta and was founded in the year 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum. Today, the instant messaging app is used by over 2 billion people.
Recently, WhatsApp is said to have launched a new feature called WhatsApp Communities. In this article, we will talk about what WhatsApp Communities is and how it is going to help businesses. So, without any further ado, let’s get right into the business.
“WhatsApp’ began as a simple idea: ensuring that anyone could stay in touch with family and friends anywhere on the planet, without costs or gimmicks standing in the way.” -Jan Koum
The first update about the WhatsApp community feature came from WABetainfo in the first week of November 2021. WhatsApp Communities is an upcoming feature by WhatsApp for its users where they can combine different WhatsApp groups into a single one and can be controlled by the admin.
This community will be used to communicate with people from different groups in the same space and they can also share their opinions here about different topics. The feature is said to be available first for iOS users than for android users. WhatsApp has been working on this feature for quite a while, as its competitors like Telegram and Discord already have a similar feature like this called Telegram Channel and Discord Server.
Telegram Channel
What Will WhatsApp Communities Offer?
The WhatsApp Communities introduced by WhatsApp will offer some exciting and necessary features to its users and they are:
One can add multiple WhatsApp Groups with the help of this feature into a larger group known as the Communities.
Just like any other WhatsApp group, Communities also have the option to add descriptions and names of the community.
There is an announcement section that is open for only the admins of the group.
Any kind of message that is photos, videos, voice messages, or files like doc, mp3, and zip can be sent in the community without any restrictions.
As different groups will be present in a single community, it becomes easier to reach a large number of people at once by sending a message in the community.
WhatsApp Communities
How WhatsApp Communities Is Different From Whatsapp Groups?
Some of the differences from regular WhatsApp groups that make WhatsApp Communities unique are:
WhatsApp lets you add only 256 people to a WhatsApp group, while Communities is said to have an option of adding as many groups as they can in the community, their number of individual contacts will be there in the community.
The Communities admin is set to have more power and control over the groups added to the community.
To connect with different groups, now only one message is enough that can be sent to the community and everyone present there from all the groups will receive the message.
The admin has the power to specify who can message in this community.
The icon of the Communities is going to be different. While normal chats and groups have round icons, the community will have a square icon with round edges, this will help the user to differentiate normal chats and groups from the Communities.
WhatsApp is used by businesses to promote their products and services and of course, it also helps in keeping the customers engaged with the brand. With the instant messaging app’s new feature WhatsApp Community that is about to roll in, businesses will also receive some advantages with the help of this community. Those advantages are:
The community is made to put together individuals who have the same interests in a single big group and create a community that will be for their business.
Marketing of the products and services can be done easily as videos or other informative things can be shared there to reach the masses.
The community can be easily managed by the admin; it provides all the similar options to a normal group but also this upgraded feature gives the admin of the community better control.
The best thing about this is that it is free, and marketing your business through this feature will not cost you an extra penny, and you will also be able to reach a large number of people to market your business.
WhatsApp has conquered the entire world since 2009. It is the most used instant messaging app in the world. WhatsApp has always helped small businesses with marketing and other stuff with its features. Now with the new feature called Community, it is only going to get bigger for businesses.
FAQs
What is WhatsApp communities?
Whatsapp communities is an upcoming community feature by WhatsApp that will let you connect with different WhatsApp groups and will give more power to the admin.
When will WhatsApp communities launch?
There is no release date announced yet as the feature is still under development and will launch on iOS first and then on Android.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Gallabox.
Digital technologies have revamped business processes, culture, and customer experience across verticals.To be competitive and profitable in a growing digital environment, end to end transformation is necessary for every business, be it a SME or the big giants.
Gallabox is an easy-to-use, no-code conversational growth engine on WhatsApp for SMBs.
Gallabox helps businesses increase sales and streamline all customer interactions. By deploying intuitive workflows, the tool puts an end to mediocre and broken conversations.
Gallabox helps companies run their business on WhatsApp empowering them to market, sell, and support better — via a communication channel that feels robust to the core. Whatsapp is becoming India’s favourite super app and that has left room for a plethora of opportunities in the fast growing super app genre.
In terms of vision, Gallabox believes that all organisations – small, medium, and large need a powerful messaging platform like WhatsApp to manage their inbound and outbound customer conversations. Thus, Gallabox is proving to be a key player in providing customised business solutions over WhatsApp.
Gallabox – Industry
Gallabox focuses upon three major problems:
1. There are about 50 Billion WhatsApp messages that get sent and received every day, but unfortunately, businesses struggle to manage their customer interactions on WhatsApp at scale.
2. Businesses are still sending around 1.3 billion SMS Per day whereas their customers have already moved to WhatsApp
3. Businesses find it very hard to build their workflows on WhatsApp, integrating their existing databases with APIs require coding knowledge.
In terms of the industry size, they see a huge opportunity in the related circles. There are 500 million users that use WhatsApp, and at least 95% of this demographic opens the app once in a day. From this we can infer that WhatsApp has swiftly become apart of their daily lives. Among 500 million users of WhatsApp in India, there are at least 20 million WhatsApp business users. Assuming that about one-third of these businesses require a more sophisticated solution, where they are able to leverage the possibilities of WhatsApp makes this opportunity worth $4 billion per year.
The second opportunity is that the SMS market globally has reported revenues of $90 billion dollars. According to a recent study about 40 million SMS’s get sent per month and the estimation is that there are a hundred thousand businesses in India sending SMS till date. SMS is really analogue in nature and it really doesn’t allow for any kind of interactivity. So, Gallabox took this as an opportunity.
The two large opportunities for Gallabox are:
To move businesses that are already on WhatsApp business to offering them a more sophisticated solution that can help them leverage the possibilities of this super app: better team collaboration via a shared team inbox, streamlining marketing efforts through broadcast campaigns, simplified support with chatbots and easy integrations to build better workflows.
To move companies that are sending SMS today onto the WhatsApp messaging platform thereby empowering them to increase sales and support efforts to scale their business.
For the last three years, Gallabox’s founders have been observing and working very closely with the WhatsApp team, they recognized the kind of feature functionality that is possible. In the market today, there are some companies that are building their product to use WhatsApp as a messaging channel but over the next couple of years, Gallabox predicts that WhatsApp could transform into an end-to-end business platform where customers can literally do everything from discovery of products, to purchasing, and accessing required support. Gallabox at this position is being able to leverage this opportunity ahead of us.
Gallabox – Founders & Team
Gallabox Founders – Yogesh Narayanan, Karthik Jagannathan, and Yathindhar Panchanathan
Karthik Jagannathan, Yogesh Narayanan, and Yathindhar Panchanathan are the founders of Gallabox. Karthik is the CEO of Gallabox, Yogesh serves as CTO, and Yathindhar serves as CPO at Gallabox.
A common denominator among the three co-founders has been that they have worked at Sulekha for almost A decade together starting from 2007/2008. All three of them have worked in different roles. It gave an in-depth view of how SMBs and midsize businesses were digitizing the marketing operations, trying to acquire leads from the internet and that was another generation where they saw the SMBs up-close.
Yogesh has 13 + of experience in full life cycle software development for consumer internet, digital marketplaces and products. Just after Sulekha, he spent three years building the fintech Marketplace at Cred Avenue. Yogesh is a largely self-taught self-made engineering person who has a fantastic balance between Engineering Technology Outlook as well as a business Outlook. He is able to toggle between the two.
Yathindhar has 17 plus years of experience managing the SMB facing product while at Sulekha, where he also managed the entire value delivery piece so they were collecting money from SMBs which means delivering value back to them in some form. Yathindhar built entire infrastructure to be able to track that and he has also spent a significant part of his career on digital marketing. Just before Sulekha, he was with Xerago, a digital marketing company that manages large clients and after Sulekha, Yatin spent a couple of years at Matrimony where he helped build wedding services Marketplace.
Karthik has 20 plus years of experience in marketing sales and overall P&L management. He has a strong India SMB focus and mid-market customer expertise. He started his career in advertising and then he spent a good part of his career at Sify between 2000 and 2005. Then after that, he worked at Tata Teleservices in telecom sales for a couple of years after which he was at Sulekha for a little over a decade, where he was part of the original founding team that built this Sulekha local services business and subsequently, Karthik spent a couple of years at Matrimony where he was the business head for the wedding service marketplace business.
They came from a very strong consumer internet background and were very interested to see how businesses can be helped using technology. This was their core focus as they dabbled in multiple Ideas.
Towards the end of 2019 is when the three of them decided that they want to start something of their own and noticed a commonality of thoughts. One was the burning desire to be on their own and found a company. Second, was their passion to genuinely help businesses using technology. Third, they felt that an era of digitisation is coming up and they should be ready for it and contribute in some form to the digital transformation. After 6 months of brainstorming they incorporated the company in June 2020.
Yathindhar manages the product design and the digital marketing piece. Yogesh takes care of the entire Technology architecture, the Visioning as well as the actual building of the product and deployment.
Karthik takes care of overall distribution which is the sales marketing piece and fundraising activities. The company currently has 24 employees and is actively growing.
Gallabox Team
The culture of the company is of shared ownership. The early team members bring a larger dose of passion into the team and new team members are equally amazing with the ability to quickly understand the business, understand the customer and being able to deploy it in the market.
Their core values are that of focusing on the customer first. They believe that they exist to grow their customers business. They like to raise the standard. The team is always curious to know more and hungry to improve its best performance. They work fast to completion. They think simple is beautiful. Simple is the most sophisticated thing that you can ever ask for. So Gallabox team work hard to make products simple and light to use.
They nurture talent, embrace the diversity of ideas and team members respect & rely on each other. They place integrity on a very high pedestal because integrity is about doing the right thing even when nobody’s watching. Each of the founders owns the cost and takes accountability for decisions & actions.
They have a lot of fun at work. They have a Badminton Court next door. So, they go out there and play once a week at least. They also have a Gallabox Shuttles League (GSL). They arrange and play tournaments. They believe that Sports brings people together and it’s a great team-building exercise even if that goal is not team building it inadvertently happens.
Their hiring funda is that they want to have people who want to build something. They want to build a product, they want to build on an idea, want to build on the career, want to build on the conviction. They look for builders. They do not look for managers. They look for team players who can take something up, own it and go about building it.
Gallabox – Idea & Startup Story
With the rapid digitization that we came to see through the last decade businesses started to rely on the Meta, Facebook, Alphabet, and Google ecosystem to attract users. They became the discovery engines to aid businesses in showcasing their product offerings and increase revenues by doing so. A key take back from this new workflow was that customer satisfaction was of utmost importance.
Brands needed a platform that is readily available to be of service, personalized, and easy to access for users and team members. When Gallabox’s founders started to ideate on the best possible solution for digitising businesses, they realized that at least eight out of ten companies had the components to put together a better workflow but they did not have a platform to bring it all together. Either they were having a CRM or they were getting a CRM done, or they had integration partners that were aiding the workflow but, they weren’t able to unify all these processes into one singular flow.
Apart from partnering platforms/services, businesses were ready to improve their customer services at scale. This meant for most of them that an increase in resources was the best possible solution. The founders of Gallabox wanted to change this thought, they truly saw potential in this grey area. This was how Gallabox was founded.
They brainstormed the best solution for any small to medium size business – a single collaborative platform that allows for engaging interactions with customers, predefined or custom integration workflows, no-code conversational bot flows to services customers 24×7, an easy to use tool to launch marketing campaigns at scale and, a shared inbox for teams to better communicate without having to switch between channels.
Gallabox – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Gallabox was named after the cash register – Galla Petti. The Galla Petti symbolises healthy business.
They focus on minimising marketing wastage, improving efficiencies in marketing as well as in sales effort and customer support efforts and focusing on enabling winning conversations with prospects and existing customers. Gallabox is building a product to streamline and reduce the multiple efforts of sales, support and marketing teams.
The three large touchpoints of the customer are – Discovery, purchase, and support. Gallabox helps businesses to manage these customer conversations across 3 milestones. The goal is to provide their clients/customers with a tool that works like a charm, is simple to use and feature rich to scale their business operations.
The Gallabox logo has two perspectives. One perspective is, it is supposed to be a box, a cube and therefore drawing parallel to the brand name. The other perspective is that of the blue arrow that is pointing towards the right side. It symbolises the rising graph of a business. The focus is to enable their clients’ business to improve. This Arrow symbolises what Gallabox wishes to provide to their clients business.
Gallabox – Products & Services
Companies want to be able to deliver a great experience to the customers across three milestones – Discovery, purchase, support and of course, there are multiple in between. In pursuit of these goals, most of them have a website, some of them have a mobile app and which is where their products, services and their profile and their reason to believe – all of these things really are sitting out there.
Several of them also have CRM which is a repository of customer information. Often, CRM is integrated with the website so therefore there is a way in which the discovery, purchase, and support functionalities could be delivered to a certain threshold level of quality but unfortunately, their customers are sitting on WhatsApp and the island is not connected to any of these. So what WhatsApp is allowed to do and what Gallabox is building on – is being able to connect the website, mobile app, and the CRM with WhatsApp and be able to offer an end to end business solution for clients.
Through Discovery, Purchase, and Support, Gallabox offers a set of features or a way in which teams can collaborate with each other, with the multi-agent team inbox, clients can run marketing campaigns with the WhatsApp broadcast feature, they can run automation capabilities with a chatbot and start a conversation with the prospect or with the existing customers and then hands off to an agent at some point of time. Gallabox can integrate nicely with that including CRM and payment systems and so on. Gallabox is working on building the E-Commerce engine and the business app templates.
The entire journey is multiple touchpoints with the customer, from the time the prospective walks in – to the time the prospect is converted to a customer, customer conversation leads to the engagement and then some kind of support to the customer request. Gallabox really offers all of these features covering the touchpoints of the customers.
It’s not easy to be able to imagine this kind of ambit. Gallabox wants to make it as easy as building a templated website. There are several tools available now on the internet you know if you have a couple of hours, people sit down and create a good looking website for yourself. They are developing the capabilities to be able to do that on WhatsApp. Gallabox builds plug-n-play tools supporting hundreds of workflows.
Let’s take an example – A travel portal integrates with Facebook & Razorpay’s payments gateway or an Edtech company integrates with Stanley to generate leads. The integration will help them send message notifications through a bot on WhatsApp or they can send automated reminders to the users on Whatsapp. They are building a library of industry-specific templates and workflows. They have already built more than 250 such workflows. Working with more clients will help the company gain more experience and expertise.
A client can come in, filter by industry and pick the workflow that they want and start deploying. So, Gallabox is really building a do-it-yourself toolkit for companies to build their business app on WhatsApp. However, the founders are also Cognizant of the fact that India and several other emerging economies are where the do it yourself phenomenon may not be as prevalent and therefore there is a dependence on developers to build software products.
So, for instance, Shopify has a fairly robust do-it-yourself toolkit for people to be able to create a website but , businesses still depend on developers to be able to build the shopping website and so is the case with Magento, woo commerce, Wix, and several others. There is a huge ecosystem of developers offering such services to clients. What Gallabox is doing is it is building a product initially which is a do-it-yourself toolkit for companies and, it is also building a platform that necessarily is a developer tool for them to build a WhatsApp business app.
Gallabox – Revenue & Business Model
Gallabox is a product, therefore, it’s on the subscription business model. Customers can pay on a monthly/annual basis. They have very comfortable pricing starting from 2500 rupees or even lower depending on prepaid going up to 9000 Rupees.
They have experimented with what clients really require and therefore based on that they have treetop rising over the last six months. The core philosophy behind the pricing is it ought to be a small ratio of a benefit that the client accrues by using Gallabox. As they focus on improving the quality of customer conversation with that two benefits accruing to their client – one is it can increase the sales and or it can reduce their support cost, which means there is an ROI by using Gallabox.
Gallabox aims to get a small percentage of the lift or on the cost savings that they are able to enable for their clients. This way they have figured out a pricing model. Gallabox pricing includes the cost of the business, WhatsApp business API and all the other related costs.
Their focus is not on profitability at a unit level but to ensure that they get the pricing right and should be fair on both parties and should ensure that it is easy for customers to adopt Gallabox and help scale the customer acquisition engine.
Gallabox – Customer Acquisition
Gallabox can be used by anyone without any coding knowledge. Most of the businesses in India does not prefer DIY and instead hire individuals like freelancers or outsource to small companies.
However, very interestingly, Gallabox is enquired by these freelancers and companies who ask them how they can use Gallabox to make their work easier for integration. Gallabox has got a great connection with the developers’ community and this is how they acquired most of their initial customers.
Gallabox – Funding
The founders bootstrapped the startup since its inception while the MVP was being built. In April 2021, Gallabox raised a pre-seed capital of Rs. 3 Crore from angel investors by issuing CCPS.They began deploying this capital from June 2021 to augment the team and acquire customers using a variety of GTM tools.
Gaurav Kumar (Founder, CredAvenue), Pramod Kumar(Cofounder, Wealth Advisors India), Kapil Ramamurthy (Cofounder, Spark Capital), Swaroop Reddy (Founder, SeedTime Ventures), and Kris Karaikudi (Global Data Strategy Lead Slalam, US) are Prominent angel investors of Gallabox. They are also the advisors for the company.
Gallabox has Received TANSEED GRANT from Govt. of Tamil Nadu and CM MK Stalin.
Gallabox received the TANSEED grant funding of Rs 5 lakhs from Hon’ble Chief Minister MK Stalin on the 23rd of December, 2021. Gallabox was one of the 19 startups from across the state that was selected in the second edition of the Tamil Nadu startup Seed Grant Fund. The Grant is for a total of Rs 10 lakhs per winner, the first tranche of which is Rs 5 lakhs.
Gallabox – Future Plans
Customers make great efforts to discover and interact with a brand or business. In these countless interactions — lie opportunities for you to make the right impression. These touch-points where customers and your teams meet are sacred for a business. Gallabox powers these connections to make them more impactful.
FAQs
When was Gallabox founded?
Gallabox was founded in June 2020.
Who is the founder of Gallabox?
Karthik Jagannathan, Yogesh Narayanan, and Yathindhar Panchanathan are the cofounders of Gallabox.
What is Gallabox pricing?
Gallabox pricing ranges from 2000 – 9000 depending upon the client requirements.
