WhatsApp has definitely changed the way smartphones are meant for. It had already become the most inexpensive means of global communication. In addition to the free text messages, WhatsApp comes with free voice calling. Both being encrypted and highly secure, it had become the de-facto communication system over mobile smartphones, at least when texting comes in the scene. Almost every smartphone comes pre-bundled with WhatsApp. No wonder it has become an unrivaled messaging system.

It would be hard for you to accept the fact that a whopping 64 billion messages are sent (and received) through WhatsApp every day. Hard to imagine what these numbers are?

Just consider the total world population? Including that of China & India in the front line, it is just 7.4 billion people! Think of a count close to 9 times the total world population is texted every single day in WhatsApp!

Or think about the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. It is estimated that at least a 100 billion stars are present in our galaxy. (The Sun we know is the only star of our solar system, and we have 100 billion other stars!) So roughly, a count equal to 64% of the total number of stars in our galaxy is texted every 24 hours in WhatsApp. That’s unbelievable.

Or to give you a more vibrant picture, consider this. The budget to construct the tallest building of the world Burj Khalifa is 1.5 billion USD. The luxury sports car Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, which only multi-millionaires could afford costs $4.5 million USD.  And that’s one of the most expensive cars in the world today.

With 64 billion in dollars, you could build 42 Burj Khalifas! And can buy a mind-boggling 1422 Lamborghini Veneno Roadsters!!!

Hope you can now visualize how big is 64 billion. So if such a tremendous crowd – beyond anyone’s imagination – are hanging around WhatsApp, why not make it useful for promoting your business. Probably you might have heard this: “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.” If ‘small’ opportunities can open big doors, what about a ‘big’ opportunity? And that too, as big as a platform where 64 billion texts are sent on a day?

If you know the art of selling, WhatsApp paves you a way to meet-in unlimited potential leads. Since WhatsApp messages have become so personal and so close to one’s heart, connecting with people over WhatsApp is next only to meeting them in person. Often at times, it’s better than that.

Here’s how you can tap the potential of WhatsApp for your business.

• First get your business contact number in WhatsApp, create a company profile with your logo and a status reflecting your goals. Maybe you can mark your slogan here if you have one.
• Keeping this WhatsApp business number all across your business like the website, business cards, posters etc. would bring in hot leads already enquiring. Organize those people in groups and promote your offers.
• Groups are excellent means to communicate and market your business. Write short Ad Copies (in a way suitable for WhatsApp) and keep them updated with your current offers and the best deals running on.
• The vital thing when it comes to marketing is never doing hard selling. Nobody likes to ‘get sold’. Just give them pure value, not compel them to click on your buy buttons all the time. (although occasionally you can do that)
• Always do the soft selling, which is focussing only on the relationship building aspect of sales. If you have made people looking for your messages/offers eagerly, you have already won the game. Sales will come in inevitably.
• In case you don’t want to hang your clients as a group, you can broadcast messages in a 1-1 fashion which is more personal. This is a kind of Newsletter service for the mobile platform. The only glitch is that the other person should have stored your WhatsApp number in his phone book. Else this is not going to work.
• Scheduling Live answering sessions will bring in much participation. People always love getting attention. If you announce a live session where your group can ask any questions for an hour, most will hang in and give some serious involvement. That way you can clarify all questions people have about your business. You might get abundant chances to soft sell your product/services here. LOL!
• Get more interaction by conducting polls or pulling your client base for an interesting survey. That would bring them more close to your business. You might get a lot of ideas to drive your business engine in the right direction.
• Never add everybody for the sake of showing up a massive group. Add only those red-hot leads, who are after your products or services. Only that makes your WhatsApp campaigns immensely successful ones.

Okay, hope you would gear up and implement at least few of the strategies listed here. We would love to hear from you too. Please feel free to join the discussion via our comments section below. Share your WhatsApp marketing experience.