Introduction

It is estimated that there are about 9 billion people on the planet, of which 2 billion use WhatsApp. This presents a very huge lead generation opportunity for businesses as a preferred social network for 15.8% of people worldwide. WhatsApp is much more than just a messaging app in this digital era. Due to WhatsApp’s immense appeal and vast user base, enterprising people have come up with creative methods to use the platform for commercial endeavors.

WhatsApp, which emerged less than 10 years ago as a group messaging service intended to connect family and friends, soon became a much more efficient solution and marketing tool for doing business. WhatsApp for business is gaining popularity and a lot of entrepreneurs use WhatsApp to generate revenue. Recently, WhatsApp updates have surprised its users, including those who use it as a platform for doing business. WhatsApp is becoming an increasingly popular platform in business. Many companies use it to communicate with their customers and respond to their questions in real-time.

New trends in using WhatsApp for Business.

WhatsApp currently has two business offerings: the WhatsApp Business App and the WhatsApp Business API or platform. 

The WhatsApp Business App, is a free mobile app available to all businesses everywhere. As of January 2024, almost 90 million small- to medium-sized businesses use the Business App. According to WhatsApp, more than 175 million people every day message a WhatsApp Business account.

The WhatsApp Business API or platform, on the other hand is for medium and large businesses to send and receive messages at scale, programmatically. WhatsApp Business Platform enables businesses to manage high volumes of conversations on WhatsApp to strengthen purchase consideration and deepen customer relationships. The business API was released to a limited number of businesses in 2020, and they primarily use the API to send customer-service related messages.

Some of the new trends in using WhatsApp for Business includes:

1. Marketing and Sales

Businesses are using WhatsApp Business to market their products and services to current and potential customers. They can share information about products, images, and videos through WhatsApp to encourage customers to make a purchase.

2. E-commerce Integration

Third-party app developers are beginning to integrate e-commerce functionalities into WhatsApp, allowing customers to place orders and pay using local currency. Businesses can create product catalogs and listings, manage inventory, carry out customer analysis, and sell products directly within the application. Customers could browse and buy products without leaving the WhatsApp app by using integrated in-app shopping features.

3. Analysis and Information

WhatsApp Business now allows third-party in-app integration features for businesses to detail information and analysis about their customers. This includes information about demographics, purchasing habits, and customer preferences, which businesses could use to improve their products and services.

4. Appointment Scheduling

Many businesses are using WhatsApp to schedule appointments with their customers. They can send reminders and confirmations to customers through WhatsApp, which helps reduce no-shows and improve customer satisfaction.

5. Personalized Communication

This type of communication enables a deeper level of personal connection in the relationship. Businesses can send personalized messages, greetings, and even birthday wishes to customers through WhatsApp, which helps build strong relationships with them.

6. Virtual Events

With the increase in remote meetings, small businesses are using WhatsApp to communicate with participants and share information about events. WhatsApp is also being used to provide technical assistance.

7. Group Chats

Group chats on WhatsApp are becoming more popular for businesses. In this way, they can easily communicate with their employees, share important updates, and even work together on projects.

However, there are three (3) important trends we want to highlight for business relevance: conversational commerce, marketing, and E-commerce.

Conversational Commerce

With conversational commerce, businesses can now communicate with clients through automated messaging, digitize their sales processes, and usher in a new era of innovation. These days, businesses and service providers utilize messaging applications more and more to handle client interactions, place orders, and complete transactions. Conversational commerce offers new avenues for interaction and improves the bond with your clients.

The effectiveness and widespread usage of instant messaging, which creates a connection between businesses, brands, and customers without requiring the installation or training of a new platform, contribute to the success of conversational commerce. Ordering no longer requires waiting for an email or being put on hold. WhatsApp allows marketers to employ intelligent chats and automation to their advantage. Using WhatsApp as a management, communication, and sales channel helps to streamline the sales process and establish a reliable connection with users.

It makes it possible for you to have friendly, approachable, and conversational interactions with your clients. The app’s features that automate, sort, and let you reply to messages fast are all intended to help you interact with clients and promote your goods and services.

Some of the conversational features available with WhatsApp include:

• Proactive messaging. Create proactive message templates using the WhatsApp API that target customers who have opted to receive updates related to an order, appointment, service request, or payments.
• Automated message flows. With the WhatsApp API, you can create a custom message flow of any size (including an entire conversation). Some ways you can use it: Create auto-replies to FAQs, list customer service hours, or set up any response that will reduce customer wait time.

E-commerce

Today, e-commerce is powered by a massive ecosystem of technologies and digital platforms from website builders to payment gateways to social media sales channels. It continues to grow, with global e-commerce sales projected to reach $8 trillion and account for 23.6% of all retail sales by 2026. It’s no wonder that new technology emerges every day, enabling businesses and creators to sell more product to customer online. Businesses can manage inventory, develop product catalogs and listings, analyze client data, and conduct direct product sales with the WhatsApp. Customers might use integrated in-app shopping features to browse and purchase things without ever leaving the WhatsApp app.

Marketing

In this digital age, WhatsApp has become more than just a messaging platform. With its widespread popularity and global user base, entrepreneurial individuals have found innovative ways to leverage WhatsApp’s capabilities for marketing ventures. WhatsApp Marketing is gaining popularity and a lot of entrepreneurs use WhatsApp as a sales funnel. WhatsApp has many variations but the WhatsApp Business is of great importance for brands today. WhatsApp Business is designed specifically for marketing; it possesses a feature that helps you as a business owner. With WhatsApp Business you can easily set up an e-commerce store, auto-responses, manage your customers and so on.

Some of the marketing features relevant to brands include:

• Broadcast list

• Group

• Status

• DM (direct messaging)

• Channel and TV

1. Broadcast list

A feature used to send multiple-person messages at a goal instead of sending individual messages which would be very stressful especially if you have a lot of saved contacts. WhatsApp Broadcast Lists allow you to send messages to multiple contacts simultaneously without creating a group chat. Use broadcast lists to send teasers, updates, and exclusive content to your subscribers, fostering a more personalized connection with your audience.

How to Create and send Broadcast messages on WhatsApp?

To create a broadcast list, open WhatsApp and go to the ‘Chats’ tab. Tap on the menu (three dots on the top right corner) and select ‘New broadcast’. Choose the contacts you want to add to your broadcast list and hit ‘Create’. This will enable you to send messages to multiple contacts as if they were individual chats.

Note:

• WhatsApp imposes a limit on the number of contacts you can send a broadcast message to. Currently, you can include up to 256 contacts in a single broadcast list,
• Your broadcast messages will only be delivered to contacts who have saved your phone number in their address book.
• You can create as many broadcast lists as you like.

2. Group Chats

A group is a community of persons on WhatsApp created for a specific goal. You can create a group chat and use it as your presell retention and follow-up.

You can drive traffic to your DM for a particular product or set of products, have prospects save your contact, and also save their own. You can add them to a group or grant them access to the link to join the group.

3. Status Update

This is a post option where you can upload a series of posts in the form of text, video, or images only available for 24 hours viewer-ship to saved contact. This is one of the best content marketing tools on WhatsApp 80% of sales are initiated from status so don’t joke with status.

Note:

• The maximum duration for status updates is 30 seconds.
• WhatsApp supports 3GP and mpeg4 video formats.

How to share WhatsApp status to other apps

4. DM (direct message)

This is the DM to DM encrypted chat actually where the final sales closing occurs. How fast you make sales depends on a variety of factors like the size of your audience, closing skills, and lead quality.

5. WhatsApp Channel

WhatsApp Channels serve as a one-way broadcasting tool, enabling administrators to send various types of content such as text messages, photos, videos, stickers, and polls. Users can join WhatsApp Channels by clicking on invitation links shared in chats, emails, or posted online.

WhatsApp Channels comes with a 30-day content expiry policy. The platform will store channel history on its servers for up to 30 days, after which the content will automatically disappear.

6. WhatsApp TV

One most emerging trends is the creation of WhatsApp TV channels, is a concept that allows marketers to showcase engaging videos and monetize their efforts. WhatsApp TV, also known as WhatsApp Status TV, is a channel that shares curated video content through WhatsApp’s Status feature. Instead of text-based updates, WhatsApp Status TV channels entertain their audience with short videos, slideshows, or presentations. As these videos disappear after 24 hours, you need to consistently produce fresh, engaging content to keep your audience hooked.

Conclusion

In the future, WhatsApp for businesses is expected to incorporate new functionalities and integrate with other business tools as technology continues to evolve. However, it’s a fact that businesses are already utilizing these platforms for e-commerce practices, customer service, and marketing.

Bonus tips

How to format your WhatsApp messages

Italic	To italicize your message, place an underscore on both sides of the text: _text_
Bold	To bold your message, place an asterisk on both sides of the text: *text*
Strikethrough	To strikethrough your message, place a tilde on both sides of the text: ~text~
Monospace	To monospace your message, place three backticks on both sides of the text: “`text“`
Bulleted list	To add a bulleted list to your message, place an asterisk or hyphen and a space before each word or sentence: * text * text Or – text – text
Numbered list	To add a numbered list to your message, place a number, period, and space before each line of text: 1. text 2. text
Quote	To add a quote to your message, place an angle bracket and space before the text: > text
Inline code	To add inline code to your message, place a backtick on both sides of the message: `text`
Alternatively, you can use shortcuts. Tap and hold the text you’ve entered in the text field, then choose Bold, Italic, or . Tap  to choose Strikethrough or Monospace.
Using your wa.me link Use a wa.me link to drive traffic to your WhatsApp Business. It’s a simple URL you can place anywhere that includes your country code and phone number, like so: https://wa.me/country code + phone number   Another wa.me link you can create is the ?text= variable type. This lets you add a snippet of text that will appear for your clients once they click the URL. For example, adding ?text=Hi! How are you? will show the message “Hi! How are you?”  To create this link, you’ll need to convert it to the following string.  https://wa.me/ country code + phone number?text=Hi! How are you? and paste it into your browser. The browser will automatically convert the URL so you can use it for different call-to-action (CTA) buttons.