Open communication, heartfelt rewards, and perfect timing: win customers over with WhatsApp this Valentine’s Day

It’s no secret that Valentine’s Day presents a huge commercial opportunity, and many businesses are ramping up to position themselves for the uptake in generous spending that the love economy ensures. 

With customers and businesses alike enjoying the sentimentality of the holiday, it’s the perfect time to embrace the season and show your disengaged and less active customers a little more love via a top-tier re-engagement campaign.

Make customers fall in love with your brand

Let’s go back to basics and explore what makes for excellent customer service, as well as some WhatsApp messaging strategies that you could use to ensure your campaigns resonate this season.  

Offer a heartfelt message

Steal attention from your competitors by leveraging the rich messaging capabilities of WhatsApp. While SMS isn’t an inherently rich channel, it’s possible to offer this experience through links to landing pages. For example, send a text message that includes a link of an rich, branded SMS landing page. That can help you regain interest.

You could put together a personalised landing page that explores gifting ideas for Valentine’s Day a week before and target the last-minute shoppers. Similarly, you could break this down into more niche suggestions with compelling messaging that encourages early bird shoppers to make the most of your pre-Valentine’s sale to maximise your conversion rate. 

Get personal 

Remember that your customers want to be known as more to you than just an order ID number. 

Whilst you’re still in the planning stage, take the time to deep dive into your CRM system and segment your audience into groups by demographics or behavioural trends. This will allow you to create tailor-made messaging for each group to appear as if you’re talking directly to one customer and not taking the generic bulk approach. 

For a top re-engagement campaign, we recommend targeting the one-time transaction group, and sending WhatsApp alerts to create a timely element that encourages a new purchase with an exclusive discount or free delivery code. 

If we compare the figures for email open rates sitting as low as 21% and up to 500,000 letters going missing every week in the UK, WhatsApp is an ideal way to ensure that opted-in customers (no matter how active) are always likely to see any comms and updates from you. 

WhatsApp Business Platform’s integrated delivery and read notifications can also come in handy when it comes to reviewing your campaign performance as you can view which messages have been received and engaged with.

In the short term, this strategy works to boost conversion rates, but there’s a long-term game in mind too. You’re showing customers that you’ve noticed them. Sometimes it’s the small gestures and personal touches that mean the most when building relationships.

Be there when customers need it most

One of the best ways to stand out from the competition is by refining your customer support strategy. This can be as simple as making sure that you’ve got the means to offer customer support around the clock as the longer customers are made to wait, the more frustrated they will feel.

Our recent study, found that consumers are becoming increasingly impatient, with 81% expecting a response from businesses within 24 hours and a further 20% willing to wait less than an hour. 

A huge upside of WhatsApp is the ability to connect with customers instantaneously. Instead of being forced to wait in a long queue, they can send a direct message and raise a query on the go. 

It’s also worth looking into your out-of-hours support – resources such as automated messaging workflows and chatbots can help save resources and give time back to your customer support teams to focus on more complex cases.

Have perfect timing 

Every classic rom-com evidences the importance of perfect timing when it comes to relationships. It’s the age-long question of how businesses can meet customers in the right place at the right time and I’d even narrow this further by saying the right channels too. 

With WhatsApp taking over as the UK’s most popular messaging platform, chances are that if you’re looking for a way to meet more customers, you’ll probably find them here. Plus, 80% of messages are seen within five minutes which highlights just how engaged consumers are on this platform.

The opportunity is ripe for a stand-out Valentine’s campaign where all customers, from new to existing, active to inactive will sit up and take notice of your brand. 

The last piece of the puzzle is figuring out when the best time is to reach customers for a healthy conversion rate. According to our research, the answer differed slightly depending on the industry. For retail, it was found that Monday and Tuesday ever so slightly stole the edge for the best customer engagement from campaigns sent on those days. 

According to Google Trends, traffic has already started to show a peak for Valentine’s Day related search terms, so now is the perfect time to start promoting any seasonal offers, products, or events.

Make WhatsApp your Valentine 

So in short, when it comes to customer engagement, the quality of your service and timely communications work hand in hand. Leveraging WhatsApp’s rich messaging capabilities not only sets you apart from competitors but also allows you to offer a more engaging and personalised experience for your customers. 

Understanding your customers as individuals and tailoring your mobile messaging campaigns to reflect this is one definitive way that you can boost brand loyalty and conversion rates this season. 

Moreover, utilising WhatsApp for customer engagement proves to be a strategic move, especially when compared to traditional channels like email. The platform’s high engagement rate, instant connectivity, and integrated delivery notifications ensure that your messages are not only seen but also interacted with. This not only boosts short-term conversion rates but also lays the foundation for long-term relationship building.