Supercharge Your WhatsApp Marketing with 4 Super Easy Points!

Whatsapp is the world leader when it comes to communication apps. With over 1 billion users, it is a goldmine of untapped potential. 

As a small or medium business owner, how can you successfully leverage the opportunity presented by this behemoth?

I offer a couple of suggestions -

1) A dedicated business number - Having a distinct number through which you conduct your business dealings make it easier for you to follow through on leads. 

2) A small landing page to showcase all your products in one place -  Most, if not all, WhatsApp groups for SMEs allow you to post links to the group. It would be good practice to post your landing page link and encourage prospective customers to have a look there. A landing page will allow you to add new products to an already existing catalogue. A customer will be able to go through your entire collection in one place at one time, instead of going through only a few photographs at a time. She would also have the ability to bookmark the link to visit later.  Landing pages are easy to create and costs vary from 400-800 a month for most sites. Alternatively, you could hire a web freelancer to do it for you. 

This is what a general customer journey is on whatsapp - 

Without a landing page

This happens to me very often. I see something I like, then life gets in the way, and I am unable to find the post again. 

With a landing page - 

As you can see, landing pages make it easier to retain a customer and/or ensure she returns to your product catalogue, thus increasing the chances of a sale/lead. 

3) A consistent tone - When we think of branding, we think of huge budgets and fancy agencies. But a nano entrepreneur can also have a tone of voice and brand that is associated with their products. The key is to keep it all consistent. The tone of your message and the colours you use in your posts should all follow some pre-decided format. It does not have to be fancy, in fact, the simpler the better. But make sure it is constant and easily associated with your and your products. 

4) Use Hashtags - Most WhatsApp groups have tens if not hundreds of people posting catalogues, products, forwards, updates etc. It is very easy for your post to be drowned out by the sheer volume of other information. One way to stand out is the use of hashtags.

What are hashtags?

These are basically denoted by # symbol and are used extensively on social media. Think of it as a digital filing system that allows you to label any content. Multiple hashtags can be used for a single piece of content. Some examples of hashtags are - #funfriday #nanoentreprenuer #leadgeneration

How would you use this in a WhatsApp group?

Let's imagine you sell leggings out of your home. You are a part of a group in your residential society that features nano and other small scale entrepreneurs. On any given day, there are hundreds of posts from all members showcasing their product? How can you stand out? More importantly, how can a prospective customer find your post through all the other information? 

They do it by finding your hashtags 

In your post creative, if you use hashtags such as #clothes #leggings #fridaydiscount, a buyer has only to search for hashtags that they know you use. Once they do so, all your posts will show up on WhatsApp within the group. It is absolutely imperative that you first curate a list of hashtags that are easily identified with your product and your brand. 

Example - I am part of a group that has over 100 small-time sellers. Their products range from clothes to food, to pet toys to certain services like house cleaning etc. Now let's assume I want to buy clothes, and I decide I want to purchase from a group member, how would I find all those posts that were related to clothes. If I search for clothes in the group search, I find nothing - 

However, if these hashtags #clothes #leggings #redleggings are added to the post, I am able to find them easily. 

Common hashtags to use in groups to label content - 

#clothes

#food

#service

#giftideas

#housecleaning

#educationalcourses

Group Admins can also use these pointers to further encourage their members to boost their member profiles and drive greater engagement across the board. 

For any further queries, you can contact me by email - growthhackingforsmes@gmail.com

 

How to be a good leader during COVID-19

Prasad runs a family-owned business selling paper to SMEss. It's been a rough few months, and his company is slowly returning to normal. But he senses dissension in the air, his employees are less quick to wave hello or send a grin his way. There's a tension in the air that Prasad has only now noticed. He is angry with his employees. Rather than taking the easiest and most expedient action of firing them from their jobs, he adopted to have pay cuts instead of laying off his employees.  And instead of gratitude, they respond with this attitude.  So he decides to be stern - a brook no argument style of authority. He makes it clear to them how lucky they are to still have a job when so many companies have responded to this crisis with layoffs. 

Obviously, this is a hypothetical situation, but you would be surprised to know how prevalent this kind of authority is.  How leaders across the board choose to be autocratic instead of empathetic. This follows the incorrect line of thinking - give them a hand and they will take your whole arm. 

In these times, when everything around us is changing rapidly, not to mention the pandemic, the onslaught of technology that makes a lot of jobs obsolete, the high turnover of good employees - it is imperative that the leaders of our companies be a good leaders

A good leader is an empathetic leader. And in these trying times, what employees need more than anything is an empathetic leader. We all are familiar with the saying - Trust is earned, it cannot be bought.  And so leaders should aim to engender that kind of trust in their employees - not hate, not indifference, and definitely not disrespect.

A lot of leaders I meet during the course of my work say things like - 

• I don't need to be liked by my employees. 
• I don't need their trust.
• I'm okay if they aren't respectful to me behind my back. 

It would be well placed for these directors and leaders to remember that study after study has shown that people work well under those who they trust. It is a common human experience - if we enjoy working with certain people or under certain people, we are more likely to perform better, go that extra mile,  work that extra hour - all metrics that, in the end, allow a company to perform better. 

A lot of upper management is likely to dismiss these suggestions or findings, after all, it is difficult to change the way we perceive the world. To those of us who want to be better leaders, here are some pointers - 

• To be empathetic and understanding
• To not dismiss concerns 
• To be more transparent about pay cuts
• To be free with praise and appreciation towards employees who are coming to work and who are giving their very best during this time. 
• To go out of their way to make employees feel at ease 
• To bring in sanitization methods and other actions so employees feel safe

Out of all of these, the most important point should be COMMUNICATION. 

Communicate with your employees, they are, after all, the reason your company works smoothly. 

Include them in as many decisions as you can, especially ones that involve their well being - let them know how long these pay cuts will last, how fast they can expect to resume normal working hours/days, and any and all such decisions. 

Here is a small pdf document I created for starting the conversation with your employees.  

For any further queries, you can contact me by email - growthhackingforsmes@gmail.com

Diving in - What you should know before starting to market your product/company ?

You have finally taken the plunge and hired a marketing agency for your business. Or better yet, you hired a person to handle your marketing efforts in-house. 

It is of vital importance you ask yourself what you hope to achieve by doing this. Some of your answers could be -

• We understand the importance of marketing our service/product and don't want our lack of expertise to hinder our growth.
• Handling this process ourselves as a business owner has become unmanageable. 
• We want to have grown by X at the end of the month/year/decade.

Your answer could be any of these or a mixture of all of these or none of these.  What is imperative is that you take the time to fully understand why you are on this road. 

Once you do that, it becomes easier to measure how effective or ineffective you were in achieving your goals. 

Side note - I don't particularly like to use success vs failure analogy, because even failures teach us something. I prefer to use effective vs ineffective to convey that we have or haven't achieved the goal we set our sights on.

It is equally important to have SMART goals. You can talk to your marketing agency or marketing in-charge and come up with these. Remember, 

S - specific, 

M - measurable

A - achievable

R - realistic

T - timely

An example of a SMART goal would be 

We want to increase our FB followers by 5% by the end of the month. 

This goal is - 

specific - increase FB followers by 5%, 

measurable - since we can see a change in followers on the FB platform, 

achievable, realistic and 

has a definitive time frame attached to it. 

The marketing agency or your in-house guy should be able to help you set up these goals. And get clarity on how to go about achieving them. 

Communication is the third and final point to keep in mind when starting your marketing endeavors. Be sure to communicate with your agency, your employees, and everyone that has a stake in this. Be sure to have the hard conversations with whoever you need to - about what you want and what you wish to accomplish; be it sales, leads, a new website, or all of those things. 

For any further queries, you can contact me by email - growthhackingforsmes@gmail.com