WhatsApp Business API for Brand Advocacy: Cultivating a Community of Loyal Brand Ambassadors
Advertisements are everywhere.
From billboards to pop-ups to social media, an average consumer is bombarded with hundreds of advertisements everyday.
Unfortunately, this also means that any brand needs to cut through the noise to eventually be heard by their target audience.
Since traditional channels became a no-go, smart marketers opted for word of mouth recommendations and evangelists to promote the brand.
And they found unique methods to do it.
Instead of seeing WhatsApp solely as a platform for conversations between friends and family; it became a channel to target audience, drive sales, and build brand advocacy.
Today, millions of brands are using WhatsApp to build a personalized connection with consumers; and at scale with access to the WhatsApp Business API.
In this article, we’ll break down how to use WhatsApp Business API for brand advocacy.
What is brand advocacy?
Brand advocacy is when customers who love your product/service share their positive sentiment to their friends, family, and audience.
Brand advocates are loyal evangelists who can amplify your brand’s voice via word of mouth recommendations, which tend to have a far greater ROI than ads. Amplifying this advocacy should be an integral part of your marketing strategy.
But who can be your brand advocate?
• Business partners: Collaborations with other brands for a campaign or product release, is one of the best forms of brand advocacy.
• Influencers: Creators who can create eye-catching content about your brand and share with their audience, which leads to brand visibility.
• Employees: Employee advocacy programs can be a great way to encourage brand advocacy, since they know the ins and outs of your product/service.
• Customers: Recommendations from people who have used your products can mean much more to prospective customers. It can also enable you to reach different segments of the market that you may not know of.
Why is brand advocacy important?
In times when paid promotions are how most brands get their products noticed, here’s how focusing on brand advocacy helps:
1. Improved brand perception
Trust is extremely important in any business. People need to trust your brand & your product/service. When brand loyalists recommend or support your brand, then your reach increases. For instance, everytime someone uses or praises your product, you get access to an untapped market of their family, friends and followers.
2. Focuses on organic growth
Ads are becoming increasingly expensive everyday. The customer acquisition costs are at an all time high, as companies compete over keywords & the same target audience. With brand advocates, you are able to generate organic awareness which leads to more sales and revenue.
3. Media attention and wider reach
Positive conversations around your brand, helps increase your audience reach. This positive influx of content from brand advocates, can be further supplemented with news outlets, social media channels who cover your products/services based on the positive reviews floating around. This boosts your brand’s authenticity and trust in the community.
4. Saves you money
Brand advocacy can save you money. This (almost) free marketing strategy generates positive buzz, gets customers lining up at your door; while increasing the trust and visibility for your brand. Despite what advocacy programs might cost initially to implement, the ROI would be more than worth it.
5. Improved customer retention
Brand advocates not only help bring in new customers, but also inspire themselves to continue using your product/service. They truly believe in your brand, and also increase their customer lifetime value.
6. Valuable feedback and insights
Brand advocates can be your greatest cheerleaders and harshest critics. They can provide valuable feedback which can help improve your offerings. For example – Lego fans can submit ideas for new sets.
How can you use WhatsApp to boost brand advocacy?
Here are some ways in which we recommend brands using WhatsApp to create experiences that lead to advocacy:
1. Keep customers up to date
From product launch and promotions, to offering discounts to milestones, customers should feel they are part of the brand.
Personalized Customer Communication with media rich content on WhatsApp, can help engage customers better.
For example, sharing invoices, digital receipts, delivery timelines, how-to guides, instructions, warranty, etc on WhatsApp post-purchase can help improve the overall purchase experience for customers – turning them into brand advocates.
2. Run a referral campaign
Segment your repeat and loyal customers to create a referral campaign. Use WhatsApp broadcasts to reach out to these customers, requesting referrals in lieu of loyalty points, additional discounts and other benefits for their future purchases.
For example, you can reach out to customers who have subscribed to product bundles for 12 months to refer a customer and unlock 2 months for free.
3. Collect customer feedback
The Net Promoter Score (NPS), is the litmus test for customer loyalty and satisfaction. It helps you understand how likely your customers are to recommend your business to others.
With the help of Automated Workflows on WhatsApp, you can easily collect customer feedback and proactive segment happy, unhappy and neutral buyers.
The good thing is that you can also set up an the workflows to follow up with unhappy customers on WhatsApp. The direct line of communication gives you a chance to resolve issues before they are shared online.
4. Request product reviews and ratings
Similarly, you can use automated workflows on WhatsApp to request product reviews and ratings on purchases. Give customers an easier way to submit their reviews through a two-way conversation on WhatsApp or share a link through a WhatsApp broadcast campaign where they can submit the same.
Similar to feedback, you can always set up a follow-up via workflows with unhappy buyers to understand their concerns and pain points.
5. Run employee newsletters
A study conducted by Hinge Research Institute indicates that employee advocacy can help shorten the sales cycle, attract new customers and recruit faster.
Create a WhatsApp newsletter that can be shared with your own employees. This would contain news, updates, promotions around your brand. Encourage them to share it with their network, to spread the word.
Additionally, tie it to some incentives to drive more participation. Another way to create employee advocacy is by sending out swag and merch to get the word out, for your products/services.
6. Create a community on WhatsApp
WhatsApp communities serve as an excellent tool to engage with your loyal customers. This helps you establish a direct line of communication to share pre-launch products, product information, conduct Q/A sessions and more.
Positive experiences in such communities can make consumers feel more connected with the brand, and encourage advocacy.
7. Use WhatsApp stories
Half a billion WhatsApp accounts use the WhatsApp Status feature every day — and for good reason. It is an excellent feature to increase brand recall, encourage purchase and eventually brand advocacy.
Brands can utilize WhatsApp Stories to reach and engage customers even if they don’t not actively check messages in their inboxes.
From BTS to FOMO building offers to product launches, brands can use WhatsApp Business Stories to great effect for growth.
Conclusion
Finding the right people to advocate for your brand isn’t easy, but it has to be one of the best and reasonable methods to attract new customers.
Building brand advocacy requires timely and contextual engagement, which needs energy, effort and time. But, having the right tools at your disposal helps.
Interakt is a full stack platform to service your customer at every step of the way, to build a community of loyal brand advocates. With features that help you proactively segment, automate follow-ups and almost 70% of conversations, Interakt helps you unlock timeliness for engagement that leads to positive experiences.
