Two to three decades ago, advertising in television was the best medium to reach umpteen numbers of viewers to market certain product and services. Now the trends are changing with the advancement in technology. Another factor accelerating this digital trend is the increase in the number of people who are hooked to their smartphones, messaging apps and social media sites.
Let’s take a look at the top 5 messaging apps that could be used to promote your business.
WhatsApp:
WhatsApp is no doubt the leading messenger application worldwide. It is rare to find a smartphone user who hasn’t installed WhatsApp on his mobile phone.
A study by Statista says that WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messaging apps worldwide as of January 2017 with currently more than 900 million monthly active users followed by Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Line.
The evolution of WhatsApp has replaced the once popular text messaging service SMS among the masses. It has evolved drastically since 2009 by adding features like calling, video calling etc. in its new version. Many businesses be it a startup or an established one, have taken WhatsApp to its marketing advantage by creating groups and sending the group invite link to clients.
The news for marketers is that, WhatsApp has several features to its advantage like cross platform compatibility, Creating Broadcast Lists, Group chat facility etc. that will aid you to reach a number of audience through marketing.
Facebook Messenger:
This is another popular messenger used by so many people of all ages. Over 1.2 billion people use Facebook so this is another lucrative platform for marketers when it comes to lead generation. Facebook ad’s called destination ad’s which on clicking leads the user to the messenger can be set up.
Chatfuel is another application that lets you build a Facebook bot to suit your business needs.
Stats say that 53%of people are more likely to shop with a business they can message directly. And when it comes to customer service, 56% of people would rather message than call the customer service and wait for ten minutes by selecting various options to talk to a representative.
WeChat, though an unfamiliar household name is China’s version of WhatsApp. WeChat has 1.1 billion registered accounts and 938 million monthly active users according to a recent report. WeChat has become a part of the parcel in China by letting its users do daily tasks like hiring a cab, managing credit card bills, news updates and much more all from within the main app. Cool isn’t it?
WeChat has an added advantage to capture the Chinese crowd Since Facebook is blocked in China. You can use WeChat for location based marketing if you plan to market in the regions like United States, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, South Africa, Taiwan, and Thailand.
Many businesses communicate with consumers and share discount coupons on WeChat to attract them to their stores.
Line:
Line which is owned by South Korean search portal Naver Corp has 218 million monthly users mostly from Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia. It gained its popularity for its use of stickers and stories about the characters they feature. It is predicted by MobileMarketing magazine that Line will be used by 50.2m people in Japan in 2017, which equates to 92.8 percent of the country’s mobile messaging app.
Businesses can create accounts for a fee in Line and send information and free promotional stickers to subscribed users. Line offers various facilities like special discount coupons from brands, make group calls up to 200 members, book a taxi, shop online, follow your favorite brand and artists etc. There are famous brands like Pepsi who made use of line stickers for marketing by creating happy emoji’s who drink Pepsi.
Line offers a LINE Store Page that lets users create their own stickers which in turn will facilitate the exposure of new businesses and the LINE Store Chat allows businesses and consumers to engage in mutual communication. It allows sellers to send messages and coupons to customers encouraging them to visit again.
These days you can get millions of mobile app development companies who can design and develop messaging app for you as per your need & budget.
Slack
Slack is an internal communication and collaboration tool that is known for its convenience and organizing ability. There are several marketing, sales, and tech-based tools that have built-in integrations to work within Slack. Trello, DrumUp, Get Response, GrowthBot etc. are some of the noteworthy tools in this list. Slack is excellent when it comes to content delivery too. If users subscribe to your page in the slack channel, then your content will be broadcasted in their slack profile.
These 5 messengers can reach different regions in order to help expand your reach around the world. You could choose which messenger app is the best for you based on the location of the market you aim to capture.
