What is a WhatsApp Broadcast?
WhatsApp Broadcast is a feature that allows you to send a message, image, video or other media to several contacts at once. Unlike WhatsApp groups, a broadcast message will appear as a private message from you in your chat with them. Any replies will also come in these individual chats and cannot be seen by others on the list.
How to Send a WhatsApp Broadcast?
Using the WhatsApp Broadcast feature is simple and straightforward.
- The first step is to create a list of contacts to whom you want to send the message.
- Then, click on the three dots on the top right corner in WhatsApp and select 'New Broadcast.'
- Finally, select the contacts you want to add & your broadcast list will be ready.
To broadcast a message to everyone on the list, go to the chat window of the list and type your message.
As you can see below, it will appear as a private message in the individual chats you have with the recipients.
6 Reasons You Should Use WhatsApp Broadcast For Your Business
There are plenty of reasons why WhatsApp Broadcast is a great channel to for your business, whether that's better deliverability and read rates than other channels like email, or that it enables personal 1-1 conversations with customers when they reply to your broadcast.
Here are 6 top reasons for you to consider using WhatsApp Broadcasts:
Reason 1
Using WhatsApp Broadcast can save your wrist from falling off because of typing the same message again and again in individual chats. You can type once & send it to all. It's a perfect way to announce a sale to your customers or update them about re-stocked items.
Reason 2
"But can't I create groups and send messages to everyone at once?" asked Sam, our intern. Well, broadcasts are better. Broadcast messages are like a bcc on an email. You don't have to worry about contacts in the list seeing someone else’s contact information or replies. Those stay private.
Reason 3
With broadcast, your one-time message can automatically turn into a conversation because the platform has a high open-rate, is easy to use, and is popular with every generation. Their numbers (2Billion users & presence in 100+ countries (source)) prove that.
Reason 4
There's no spam folder, unlike emails! Isn't that sweet music to ears? In WhatsApp Broadcast, no algorithm will send you to a spam folder. 100% deliverability is unheard of in the case of emails, even if you are not a Nigerian prince offering his chest of treasure.
Reason 5
It's free to use. No monthly fee or billing based on the number of subscribers in your list. It can be a good starting point to test out your communication strategy & offers before you invest in emails or ads.
Reason 6
You can use labels to create multiple broadcast lists according to customers' interests, preferences, or past purchasing behavior. This will help you send targeted messages and build an engaged audience.
Read more: 10+ WhatsApp Promotional Message Examples to help grow your brand's sales.
WhatsApp Broadcast Limit While Using Business App
4 Limitations of Sending Broadcast Using WhatsApp Business App
WhatsApp Broadcast isn't without its limitations, especially when using the Business app. Here are 4 main limitations of using the WhatsApp Business app for broadcasts that you should know about:
Limitation 1
Recipients must save your number for you to be able to send them a message. It's not enough to have someone's number in your broadcast list. Worse, you won't even know if someone hasn't saved your number. Ouch!
Limitation 2
One list can only have 256 members. The moment you hit 256 unique contacts on your broadcast list, you'll have to create a new one. If you have 1000 contacts, you will need 4 lists. If you have 50,000 contacts … well, do the math and imagine the hassle of managing all these lists.
Limitation 3
There's no contact export functionality. If you have contacts saved in excel or collected from your Shopify store, you will have to add each number to WhatsApp manually. Do you have gallons of patience to do that?
Limitation 4
There's no analytics or reports. You don't get data on how many messages were sent, read, opened, or replied to. It stops you from objectively concluding whether WhatsApp as a communication channel works for your business or not.
Learn more about the limitations and differences between the WhatsApp Business app vs WhatsApp API.
How to Send WhatsApp Broadcast to 100,000 Customers a Day
...and overcome other limitations posed by the WhatsApp Mobile app.
WhatsApp launched the WhatsApp Business API in 2018 to help businesses communicate with customers at scale.
To use WhatsApp API, businesses need to get their number verified through WhatsApp Business Solution Partners(BSP) & use a platform to access all the features that WhatsApp provides.
DelightChat is one such partner & platform provider.
Here's how DelightChat helps you upload contacts, schedule/send a broadcast to them and track the campaign results in a few easy steps.
Step 1: Create New Broadcast in DelightChat
Login to your DelightChat account.
Go to WhatsApp Marketing > Broadcast.
In the top right corner, click on the 'Create New Broadcast' button.
Step 2: Upload Customer Contacts, Select Message Template
Fill in the details one by one. Check the preview box to see how the message will look in the recipient's chat.
Any variables will be resolved to corresponding data once it is sent out.
Step 3: Schedule or Send Broadcast
Send the message immediately or choose a time in the future when you would like the message to be sent.
Once you are done, hit the 'Publish Broadcast' button.
Your message will be sent to the list of contacts you uploaded at the time you selected.
Step 4: Track Results and ROI
DelightChat automatically tracks 2 goals through our integration with Shopify:
- Orders placed
- Order value
This is done by matching a customer's phone number who successfully received a broadcast to the phone number in a new order placed in your store.
Apart from that, you get detailed information on which phone numbers successfully received the WhatsApp Broadcast, which ones read the message and more.
You can find a more detailed, step-by-step guide to sending WhatsApp Brodacasts using DelightChat here.
ROI of WhatsApp Campaigns vs SMS, Email
If you are evaluating between SMS, Email & WhatsApp, here's a table to help you make an informed decision:
To back up the facts & data with real results, we contacted some of the brands that are using DelightChat to run WhatsApp Broadcasts.
Here are some brag-worthy results:
- A home decor brand generated ~$15,000 (₹10 lakh) in revenue with a single broadcast to over 10,000 customers in less than 72 hours.
- An apparel brand A/B tested by sending sales emails to 1K contacts & sales messages via WhatsApp Broadcast to another 1K contacts. Revenue generated through WhatsApp was 7.1x higher compared to emails!
- Another ecommerce brand generated revenue that was 26x of the cost of running the campaign. The best part? It happened within 24 hours of sending the message.
There's strong evidence of how WhatsApp, with its superior open and read rates and direct communication between brand-customer is making impressive ROI and sales easy to achieve.
Check out these cool & creative WhatsApp marketing campaigns run by real brands to engage thousands of customers.
Advantages of Sending WhatsApp Broadcast Using Official API
There are several advantages to sending Broadcasts using Official WhatsApp API, made possible using WhatsApp broadcast software like DelightChat.
1- Contacts didn't save your number? You can still send a broadcast
This advantage is a major one when using WhatsApp API. All you need to broadcast your message is your audience's contact number and a valid consent (also called opt-in) from them that they want to receive messages from your brand.
2- Send messages to unlimited contacts
When using the official WhatsApp Business API, you can send messages to a maximum of 1000 recipients a day. The messaging limit does NOT limit the number of messages your business can send, just the number of users you are trying to message.
A WhatsApp account must be in a higher messaging tier to broadcast to more people. To get there, you have to send twice the number of messages permitted in the current tier in the next 7 days.
E.g., send messages to 2K users within 7 days after sending to 1K users for the first time. If you are not marked spam, you will move to the next tier and will be able to send messages to 10K users and so on.
3- Worried about the number getting banned? Don't worry
You do not have to worry about the number being banned as it will be integrated with the business API. That provides an additional layer of authenticity, and messages are not considered spam unless recipients report heavily.
We've helped many brands set up WhatsApp marketing using API and haven't seen any numbers getting blocked.
4- Create multiple simultaneous logins
With WhatsApp API, there is no limit on how many users can login and manage the same WhatsApp number, made possible using software like DelightChat's WhatsApp Shared Inbox. This helps distribute tickets, campaigns, and broadcasts among different team members.
5- Personalize your messages at scale
You can use Variables to personalize messages without typing out personal information for each of your recipients. A variable is a text field in a WhatsApp template that is automatically filled with the corresponding data. For example, you can use Hi {{First name}} and send to 100 customers, everyone will get the greeting with their name.
6- Schedule messages to not miss running any campaigns
You don’t want to discover on Saturday that you totally forgot to send out that important message about the weekend sale. That’s why scheduling is more reliable than saving your messages as drafts and ‘remembering’ to send them later.
That's not possible with just the WhatsApp business app or personal account. You need WhatsApp API & a platform like DelightChat to do that.
7- Get Green Tick Verified
Green Tick verification informs customers receiving your broadcasts that you are a trusted brand, verified by WhatsApp themselves.
DelightChat helps you get green tick verified by submitting a free application to Meta on your brand's behalf. Learn more about Green Tick Verification here.
8- Use data to optimize your strategy
If you use DelightChat or similar platforms to execute your broadcast, you will get data about:
- Messages successfully sent, delivered, read
- Orders placed
- Value of orders, directly matched with your Shopify store data via the integration
This data will reveal information about your audience that can help you create effective campaigns.
This data will be available for download and further analysis. You can see phone numbers where the message got delivered or failed, or phone numbers associated with successfully placed orders.
4 Examples of WhatsApp Broadcast Messages For Ecommerce
Here are some message templates to use directly or take inspiration from to create your customized broadcast.
Broadcast messages for sales
Example 1
“Hi, there! Next week, we have a 15% discount on all types of bags. Let me know if you’d like to get early access 24 hours before the sale opens to the public by replying 'Yes' to this message.
Example 2
“Hi, there! The granola bars you love so much are back in stock in limited quantity. Order within the next 24 hours to get a 10% discount.
Broadcast messages for customer support
“Hi. We are currently experiencing technical issues with the payment system. Please use 'Pay later' or 'Cash on delivery' to make any immediate purchase. We will let you know when the issue is fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience!”
Broadcast messages for general updates
“Hello fam! Exciting news. Today we opened a brand new salon in Indiranagar. We are open for a capacity of 100 appointments today. Let me know if I can book an appointment for you.”
FAQs about WhatsApp Broadcasts
Is there a risk of my WhatsApp number getting banned?
A regular WhatsApp number used with the Business app gets banned if too many outbound messages are sent from it.
However, WhatsApp API numbers don’t get banned easily. Your number's quality rating may go down because of frequent broadcasts. But that gives you the opportunity to fix it and take it back up to a higher-quality rating.
How to export all my contacts in WhatsApp Broadcast?
In DelightChat, you can simply upload a CSV containing your customer's phone numbers. Your CSV should contain a minimum of two columns -- country code & phone number. If numbers are not in the right format, here's a step-by-step process explained with screenshots.
Can I send promotional messages via WhatsApp Broadcast?
Yes. The recent policy changes by WhatsApp make it possible to send promotional messages. The first step is always to create a new WhatsApp message template. Earlier, templates of promotional nature used to get rejected, but nowadays, they get easily approved.
How many contacts can be added to WhatsApp Broadcast?
Siple answer is unlimited. But to start with, you can send messages to a maximum of 1000 recipients a day. The messaging limit does NOT limit the number of messages your business can send, just the number of users you are trying to message.
To broadcast to more people, a WhatsApp account must be in a higher Messaging Tier. To get there, you have to send twice the number of messages permitted in the current tier in the next 7 days. After crossing tier 3, you can send messages to unlimited users.
What are different phone number statuses in WhatsApp Broadcast?
A phone number status can be Connected, Restricted, or Flagged. A phone number that can send broadcasts without restrictions is in Connected status.
When a phone number sends too many low-quality messages & people mark it spam, it lowers the quality and moves the phone number into Restricted status.
While Restricted, a phone number will not be able to send broadcasts to any new contacts. If the Quality Rating drops too low, the phone number will be marked as Flagged. It won’t be able to send any broadcasts in this status.
How can I get started with WhatsApp Broadcast if I don't have an API right now?
You can get WhatsApp Business API from DelightChat.
Signup today and schedule a demo, and our team can help you get started right away!
Wrap Up: Use DelightChat for Sending WhatsApp Broadcasts
Data, revenue numbers & current consumer behaviors point towards the success of WhatsApp Broadcasts. It's time to get a piece of that cake.
But you might be hesitant to get started because it's a fairly new & evolving technology. Or you are struggling to use WhatsApp at scale. Or it might be the case that you are not happy with the tools that you currently use to handle WhatsApp.
If you identify with any of the situations above, connect with DelightChat. Signup today and schedule a demo with our team. We will guide you on how you can get started with sending WhatsApp Broadcasts right away.
