What is a WhatsApp Promotional Message?
As the term is self-explanatory, a WhatsApp promotional message is any message that a company sends to its leads or customers about their products or services, typically by offering discounts, coupons, upsells, or early bird access.
One of DelightChat's customers, a home decor brand, generated ~$15,000 (₹10 lakh) in revenue with a single promotional WhatsApp broadcast to over 10,000 customers in less than 72 hours. Another customer, an 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.
A promotional message can use text, images, video, PDF, or interactive elements like buttons as CTAs.
Here's a real-world example of a WhatsApp promotional message:
It's different from transactional messages that are usually triggered by an event or action that a customer takes, for example, password reset, delivery updates, payment update, and more.
We've shared examples of transactional messages and how to use them in your WhatsApp marketing strategy in this helpful guide.
Here's one example of a shipping update transactional message that was triggered on shipping:
Can You Officially Send Promotional Messages on WhatsApp?
Before September 2021, WhatsApp only allowed transactional messages on WhatsApp so you could update people about shipping, tickets they've raised, any payment issues, reservations or send a welcome message.
WhatsApp is still a personal messaging app & its strength is in numbers. They have 2 billion active users, a presence in 180 countries. They didn't want businesses to spam people with sales (like how it happens on emails now!) & turn them away to another messaging app.
But from September 2021, WhatsApp allowed businesses across all countries to send promotional messages by using a combination of the WhatsApp Business App & WhatsApp Business API.
So the answer is YES. But how?
Don't worry if you are not familiar with how to get access to these & use them to grow your business. DelightChat, a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider, can help you set up everything and run your WhatsApp marketing without any hassle.
Requirements to Fulfill to Send Promotional Messages on WhatsApp
Follow the WhatsApp commerce policy
WhatsApp commerce policy prohibits certain industries from using WhatsApp Business solutions for sending any kind of messages to their customers. You can find a list of such industries on WhatsApp's official page here.
Some industries have certain exceptions as well. For example, the Policy says that Businesses may not transact in the sale of alcohol. But if you are selling Alcohol-related items (glasses, coolers, and wine bottle holders), you can send messages using WhatsApp Business solutions.
Receiver must 'opt-in' to receive your messages
If you don't face the obstacle of being on the list of businesses prohibited from sending WhatsApp promotional messages, you can ask subscribers to consent to receive messages from your brand.
Firstly, it's not legal to send someone a promotional message without an opt-in. And secondly, unsolicited messages will get reported by recipients, and that can lead to your WhatsApp business account getting blocked in the worst cases.
When using a WhatsApp API number, such activity results in the number getting flagged, which would only limit its capabilities but give the brand a chance to improve.
Get the template approved by WhatsApp
WhatsApp checks the texts and media that you send in your promotional message to make sure it's not spammy, illegal, or provocative. Getting approval for each WhatsApp message template you send is a hectic process if you directly contact WhatsApp.
DelightChat helps submit templates for approval and use them to run campaigns. It also provides you with a tool to manage your WhatsApp marketing (chatbots, canned replies, shared inbox, analytics). It takes a maximum of 48 hours to get your templates approved, but most templates get approved within 2 minutes.
Provide a way to unsubscribe or opt-out
if people don't want to receive messages from your brand, don't make it difficult and turn into a negative brand experience. Instead, provide a straightforward and easy way to let them opt out of communication from you.
Here's an example from a famous jewelry brand. Check the highlighted part:
DelightChat makes it extremely easy to add a customer to the opt-out list. Once added, even if you do send a promotional message to that customer, our software will smartly identify and not send the message.
Sending WhatsApp Promotional Messages: The 3 Golden Rules
Rule 1: The message must be expected
When people are opting-in to receive messages from you, make it clear about what type of messages they are going to receive -- offers, launch updates, etc. Let them know via welcome message that they will be receiving messages from you in the future. And give them an easy way to opt-out if they wish.
Rule 2: The message must be timely
The message being timely means that it's not sent too soon for a promo just to drive traffic to the website. Nor should you send messages too often that it feels overwhelming for the subscribers. Use data to find out when your audience is most likely to engage and what is the frequency that they are most comfortable with.
Rule 3: The message must be relevant
A relevant message is one that communicates your offer in a simple and clear way to the right audience. For example, a message about the sale of mascara makeup is relevant to the women's audience rather than the men's audience.
How to Write a Good WhatsApp Promotional Message
The principle of inversion says that you can find all the ways to do something incorrectly. And then if you avoid all those ways, you'll have done a good job.
Here are 3 things you should not do in order to make your WhatsApp promotional messages more effective.
1. Don't be boring
Your message shouldn't be a snooze fest. People look at a huge amount of promotional messages every day, right from social media to hoardings on the road. They are no more gasping when someone says 20% sale.
Think about how you can stand out from the crowd. Make your message conversational, keep it to the point, and clarify what action does someone needs to take if they are interested in your offer. Make use of WhatsApp's message formats -- images, videos, PDFs, buttons to make your message interesting.
2. Don't overpromote or overpromise
Keep your message subtle. Don't push your product down's someone throat or promise them the stars and the moon. Over-salesy messages can come off as spammy. Avoid buzzwords such as 100% guarantee, full cashback, free forever.
3. Don't send spam-like content
You might not be a snake oil salesman, but if your message resembles that of con-men or spammers, it won't get approved by WhatsApp. WhatsApp uses algorithms to identify spam messages and its filters have certain judging criteria which you can't evade.
Avoid evoking a false sense of urgency by using words like 'TODAY', 'NOW', 'FAST'. Don't ask for personal details & stay away from using words from the restricted industries.
When you've written your message, think about how would you feel if you received it from some other brand. Would you like it? Would it feel too pushy? What feedback would you send back to make it more interesting? These questions can help you continually refine it.
And remember, you don't have to get perfect the first time. Send messages, take feedback and improve upon them.
4 Use Cases & Examples of WhatsApp Promotional Messages
Now, we aren't going to just sprinkle you with sage advice without sharing concrete examples that can help you craft great promotional messages. To inspire you, here are some great examples that we have collected.
Seasonal & Holiday Offers
You can use WhatsApp promotional messages to send offers, discount,s and coupons. Don't forget to include a CTA to direct people to the offer page. Here's an example of an offer message along with a video and 'Shop Now' CTA:
Games & Challenges
Games & fun challenges are a great way to generate interest in your products without discounting your products. These can also help generate brand awareness & social buzz. Here's an example of such a message with a picture and 'Play Now' CTA:
Abandoned Cart
Abandon cart messages takes advantage of the interest expressed by potential customers in purchasing from you. These can bring a customer who was on the brink of making a payment back to your site.
Here's an example of an abandon cart message sent by a coffee brand (a customer of DelightChat) after we added a coffee kit to our cart and got distracted by squirrels:
Promoting an Upcoming Event
Whether it's your trendy annual party or first conference, promoting the event is important to let people add it to their schedule. You don't want crickets at your event. Here's an example of a WhatsApp message promoting an event:
Send Promotional WhatsApp Messages via DelightChat
You can send promotional messages to a list of contacts using DelightChat. We have a platform to help you craft custom message templates, get them approved in minutes, and then use them for your promotional campaigns.
Once you have your account ready and WhatsApp API access, then just follow these steps.
Step 1: Go to Broadcasts
Once you have your WhatsApp Message Template approved, open the DelightChat app & go to the WhatsApp Marketing > Broadcasts
Step 2: Create a New Broadcast
A new page will ask you to set the name of the campaign, which is for your internal reference only. Then, you will select a template from the dropdown under 'Select Message Template.'
Fill in all the fields such as image, button, etc. that are relevant to your campaign
Step 3: Schedule or Send Your Broadcast
Choose to Send your broadcast immediately or schedule it for a future date and time.
Once a broadcast is published, it goes into our messaging queue and starts getting sent according to schedule.
Really, it's as easy as that!
We've even written a guide on how to send a WhatsApp broadcast in under 2 minutes using our software.
Wrap Up: Sign up for DelightChat today!
Sign up to schedule a personalised demo with our team. We will guide you through the entire process and ensure your brand is set up for success.
