During a recent webinar, Masaafa Massafa, CEO of BusinessChat, provided an overview of the communication channels available for e-commerce companies to engage with customers in Saudi Arabia and rated their effectiveness based on his leadership experience Companies like Unifonic and Huawei.
It also introduced WhatsApp and its essential features as the most effective marketing channel today.
You will discover:
Communication channels in the Saudi market
Why should you use WhatsApp API for your marketing campaigns?
WhatsApp features
WhatsApp prices
-> Click here to start selling on WhatsApp with BusinessChat
Communication channels in the Saudi market
The gentleman. Masaafa emphasized right at the beginning of the webinar that all the statistics and market studies provided the same information about the state of customer service in Saudi Arabia. The biggest problem for ecommerce marketers is that there is no effective communication channel.
First, he noted that email is only useful for B2B communications, while "people tend to ignore personal emails, which are often filled with advertising. "
On the other hand, he pointed out that WhatsApp is a prominent channel in Saudi Arabia; In fact, 90% of people use it. He also said: "Most of us spend at least an hour a day on WhatsApp to connect with family and friends. That’s why the open rate reaches 80%.”
He pointed out that companies suffer from this channel. He explains: “With the WhatsApp Business app, you can only communicate with 256 customers at a time, manually via the broadcast function. Also, you can only contact customers who are registered in your phone book.
It is further explained that some illegal workarounds can enable you to notify more than 3000 people daily. Nevertheless, they will eventually be blocked.
As a business owner, you are forced to use SMS to send out marketing campaigns. In most cases, the opening rates are a maximum of 5%. According to the spokesman, this change comes about because the Saudis receive more than 600,000 messages a year. Therefore, these messages will be ignored, especially those with AD in the sender ID.
Still, as a business owner with 10,000 or more customers, you should use this channel to reach your customers with relevant Ramadan offers and promotions.
Fortunately, according to our spokesperson, there is another alternative. This alternative can guarantee a high ROI.
Why should you use WhatsApp API for your marketing campaigns?
The speaker presented the latest meta product, WhatsApp API or WhatsApp Business Platform. This API enables various functionalities for businesses focusing on marketing capabilities that directly impact sales.
Thanks to this feature, you can send marketing campaigns to your entire customer database, regardless of volume.
To better understand the difference between WhatsApp and SMS, the speaker suggested comparing the two channels to see how WhatsApp can generate higher ROI.
For comparison, let's say you have 100,000 customers and want to send them relevant marketing offers for Ramadan.
First: the text of the campaign will be 165; So SMS splits it into 3 messages but let's take it as one.
Second, the cost is 9,000 SAR for SMS and 15,000 for WhatsApp.
WhatsApp costs more than SMS, but what really matters more than the cost of sending is the cost per visitor, i.e. H. how many people have visited your website or online shop and browsed your products.
(Video) How I get my SMMA clients a 10x ROI without adsOpen rates: 80,000 people on WhatsApp vs. 10,000 on SMS. WhatsApp has a higher open rate of 80% because people spend at least 70 minutes a day on the app connecting with family and friends and only get about 12 marketing messages a year. On the contrary, the opening rate of SMS will not exceed 10% due to the overwhelming number of advertising messages.
Conversion rates: Suppose we send the same campaign on both channels. The result is 16,000 website visitors via WhatsApp with a 20% conversion rate. On the other hand, there are only 1000 visitors on the SMS campaign page with a 10% conversion rate.
To calculate the cost per visitor on WhatsApp, divide the total cost by the number of visitors.
In this case, the result is 93 Hellelah for WhatsApp and 9 SAR for SMS.
Of course, the speaker presents this scenario and results based on five years of experience in administrative functions in companies that send billions of messages a year.
WhatsApp features
marketing campaign
After establishing WhatsApp as the best marketing channel compared to email and SMS, the speaker introduces the right way to market your products to thousands of customers at the same time, which is the WhatsApp business platform.
However, you cannot use the WhatsApp API without a chat management platform. You need to hire web developers to build a platform or buy an entire platform. The second option saves you hassle and money.
The speaker introduced BusinessChat as the first platform in Saudi Arabia since 2020 and official partner of Meta. The company now serves more than 300 companies in Saudi Arabia, including Dkhil Oud, Tamimi Fabrics, Aljazira stores, etc.
This platform allows you to send unlimited marketing campaigns to your customer database regardless of volume. You can also add multimedia messages.
How do I send a marketing campaign from the BusinessChat platform?
You can follow Mr. Masaafa as he guides him step by step through sending a BusinessChat platform marketing campaign.
Track campaign performance
The BusinessChat platform can help you keep track of your marketing campaigns. The speaker said that when you select a marketing message template, the platform automatically generates UTMs so you can track the number of website visitors and conversions for that particular campaign.
To ensure your customers' convenience comes first, all marketing message templates include an opt-out path if customers no longer wish to receive messages. This will prevent your number from being blocked.
The speaker also introduced the reporting function. Thanks to the reports, you can track and understand the performance of your campaign. For example, you can know how many people received the campaign and how many opened it, which reaches 90% with a clean database.
Finally, you can track the number of people who have visited your website based on your Google Analytics campaign and purchase behavior.
Other properties
The BusinessChat platform has many other functions, according to the speaker. For example, it integrates with your online store to facilitate sending notifications such as cart abandonment and order status.
It also offers a chatbot and a shared inbox for better customer service, especially since the shared inbox allows all the numbers on your team to work together seamlessly.
However, the business chat chatbot makes it clear that the speaker is not your average chatbot that you may be familiar with. Rather, it was specifically designed for ecommerce businesses.
WhatsApp costs
After explaining the key features of the WhatsApp API and the BusinessChat platform, the speaker will explain WhatsApp pricing. He divides them into two sections: The first section is about BusinessChat pricing. There is a fixed monthly payment of 399 SAR and a consumption-based payment of 4 hellals per call.
There is an activation cost of 500 SAR because, as he explains, activating your WhatsApp API account takes time and effort.
The second section refers to the cost of WhatsApp, which is 12 hellala per conversation. Again, you pay Meta directly, just like you pay for Instagram and Facebook ads.
If you want to better understand WhatsApp pricing, you can contact BusinessChat team who will be happy to help you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Finally, the speaker answered some questions from the attendees, which he said were reasonably expected.
Do you provide a database?
"BusinessChat does not provide a customer database as this is not in line with either the company's or WhatsApp's policies," the spokesman said. It's better to build a real database to ensure the success of your campaigns. The customer base carries the measure of success for the business or store.
Can the WhatsApp API be used directly without an intermediary platform?
The gentleman. Masaafa says that using the WhatsApp API directly without an intermediary platform "is not possible because the WhatsApp API is a collection of code". So you have two options, either you subscribe to a platform or you hire software engineers and build a platform which is expensive and complicated and will have many problems and need constant modification. Therefore, it is not recommended as it is an inconvenient solution and can be more expensive than subscribing to a pre-built platform.
The speaker will introduce the example of BusinessChat employing more than 50 clients to offer the platform with all the benefits that the client needs, mainly with high quality and affordable prices.
How do I get the green stamp?
(Video) MSBC Digital Marketing Strategy Series (2/3) - Introduction to Email and SMS Marketing
The gentleman. Masaafa says: “During our work with many companies on this topic and a significant proportion of them have earned the badge, I would like to share two important things with you. First, WhatsApp has the sole power to decide whether it deserves the badge. We can help with this with your request, advice and support, but the final decision rests with WhatsApp. Second, WhatsApp only wants to give the badge to reputable companies based on some details that determine the size of the company and whether it is a company trades recognized But more importantly, you must have a WhatsApp Business API account and have a large number of conversations.