Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) companies that sell their products/services directly to their clients have grown exponentially in the last couple of years, especially during the global pandemic. As an eCommerce business, you probably are already making use of multiple channels to proactively communicate with your customers.
Most brands are also moving towards integrating WhatsApp in their communication channels. Now that the WhatsApp Business API is available, why is it that you should bother about adding another channel to the mix?
Conversational commerce is the next big driver of growth and D2C brands get to gain the most from this. In this blog, we’ll present you with the ultimate D2C WhatsApp Business guide.
Why should D2C brands use WhatsApp Business API?
Customer experience is growing to be one of the most crucial factor for any D2C brand. Today’s digital shopper expects convenience and immediacy like never before.
Customers are going to keep asking you questions pre-purchase, during purchase and even post-purchase. You need to be able to cater to the huge amount of queries flowing in – effectively and instantaneously.
As a D2C business, you should move your customer support to WhatsApp mainly because you can be there during –
• Pre-purchase
Share information with customers who want to learn more about your product or services. Let your customers easily reach out to you and clear all their queries before making a purchase.
For instance, if you are a skincare brand, you can help the customer pick the most-fitting morning and night time skincare routines for them. This also stands as a great opportunity to upsell.
• Purchase
Enable customers to choose items for purchase and send customers purchase updates. You can send across the exact status of their order and other key information, like date of delivery, for instance.
You can also send across well-strategized notifications like that of abandoned cart reminders, additionally time-sensitive discounts, first-time shopper offers and so on.
• Post-purchase
Provide customers post-purchase support for a product or service offered by your D2C brand.
As a D2C business, what your consumers think of you should be an absolute priority. Only if they had a positive experience will they reach out to re-purchase or recommend your products/services to friends and family. You can use WhatsApp to collect feedback, testimonials and reviews from your customers easily.
Benefits of WhatsApp Business API for D2C brands
The clear benefits include of using WhatsApp marketing include:
• Low friction for user adoption
Over 400 million consumers spend over 4hr/day on WhatsApp. That’s a huge bracket to tap into. This also means most of your brand notifications will be viewed by the consumers.
Here are some more numbers for you to crunch on –
• WhatsApp has over two billion active monthly users.
• WhatsApp daily user count is over half a billion.
• WhatsApp is accessible in over 180 countries.
• 54% of millennials and 36% of baby boomers use WhatsApp daily.
• People spent a total of 15 billion minutes on WhatsApp calls each day, during the initial phase of the global pandemic.
• Interactive element
Recent introduction of buttons in chat, catalogs and quick replies.
Transform WhatsApp into a sales channel by helping customers discover & purchase products right within the app itself using catalogs.
You can save and reuse WhatsApp Business message templates easily. This means you can easily answer FAQs in no time!
Get all the WhatsApp marketing templates you need here.
• Reduce time to market
Chat interface doesn’t need any design or setup. All you need to do is create a company profile that lets you display information including your company name, address, business description, email address, website, business hours and also a catalog. And you’re set to go!
• Eliminate the middlemen
Implement a D2C strategy directly and avoid intermediate commissions.
• Personalize experience
One-to-one chat takes personalization to a whole new level.
• Seamless integrations
Promote & sell your products by engaging customers on WhatsApp with powerful integrations that lets you leverage the most of the WhatsApp Business API.
• Automation
Engage with your customers at every stage of their buying journey, with Interakt’s powerful notifications engine:
• Trigger automatic WhatsApp messages when your customer takes an action (or doesn’t!)
• Use rich media templates (images, videos, PDFs) with interactive elements like CTA/Quick Reply Buttons
• The end-to-end encryption promotes trust
Internet users, especially online shoppers are becoming a lot more careful about sharing information via digital channels.
WhatsApp offers encryption and its users are aware of the same, making it a much more reliable platform for them to interact with your business without any hesitation.
Conclusion
When it comes to convenience, efficiency and customer preference – WhatsApp Business is your ultimate solution, especially when it comes to D2C businesses. Thus, now is the time to get started with WhatsApp marketing!
Scale your business growth using Interakt’s WhatsApp Business API Solutions. A business that has a WhatsApp Business account can use it – to enhance their sales and business communications at scale.
Sign up for Interakt today and get access to WhatsApp Business API! At Interakt, we also let you get started for free with a 14-day free trial program.
