Understanding the Best WhatsApp Broadcast Frequency

Learn how to find the ideal WhatsApp broadcast message frequency for business.

WhatsApp has become the most popular chat app, with a staggering user base and tons of potential. It is no surprise that businesses are extensively using it to reach their target audiences for marketing, sales and promotions. 

The personal and conversational nature of WhatsApp gives marketers a great opportunity to capture customer attention at any time of the day.

But no matter how huge WhatsApp is getting in the marketing community, it still continues to be used by most people, primarily for personal purposes and only then do they consider it to engage with businesses that they want to purchase from. 

Not many users view WhatsApp beyond being a channel for personal communication.

With such a perception, your marketing potential on the channel gets hampered in a major way. 

The tools and possibilities that the WhatsApp Business API offers cannot be utilized in any way unless you are able to establish your business through the channel in an appealing and engaging way, and reach out to them strategically.

This is the reason why the frequency of WhatsApp broadcast messages to subscribers on the messaging app matters. 

Gaining consent from your WhatsApp broadcast subscribers is one thing, but approaching them and sending promotions requires more consideration than one might think.

There is a fine balance to be achieved here. If you message too much, beyond a certain point, customers will feel bothered and will unsubscribe. If you message too little, you fail to have an impact on your customer and they will most likely forget about your brand. 

Without any messages at all, you will lose a major opportunity to drive sales. 

So then how do you know what the best strategy is to follow? What are some of the WhatsApp broadcast best practices that you need to focus on?

In this blog, we will discuss the ideal frequency for sending WhatsApp broadcast messages. Let us start by understanding what WhatsApp broadcast frequency is.

What is WhatsApp Broadcast Frequency?

Broadcast frequency refers to the number of times you send broadcast messages to someone within a period of time; that is, the frequency of messages that you send to a person. There is a need to find the rightly balanced frequency for your business when sending out broadcast messages so that you continually engage customers without overdoing it and irritating them with repetitive spamming.  

One important thing to keep in mind is that how many messages you can send or how many people you can send them to isn’t what matters for making an impact. When using personal WhatsApp your WhatsApp broadcast limit per list is a maximum of 256 people from your contact list, and there is no limit to broadcast groups that you can create. 

But if you’re making use of a WhatsApp Business API solution provider like QuickReply.ai, you can send WhatsApp broadcasts to more than 10k people as per your campaign requirements. 

But the major factor that determines your broadcast’s effectiveness is knowing what to send and at what frequency, with a special emphasis on quality over quantity.

What is the Ideal WhatsApp Broadcast Frequency?

The task of determining the ideal frequency for sending WhatsApp broadcast messages is tricky and challenging. Bombarding customers with your promotions could annoy them and lose you a prospect while sending messages rarely will result in them simply forgetting about your brand. There is no simple “one size fits all” approach that can be taken here. So, here’s what we recommend.

An ideal strategy would be sending messages at least once every week, with around 4-12 texts per month. It should be noted that certain promotional strategies and your individual campaigns might need higher frequencies of WhatsApp messages.

In general, owing to the conversational nature of WhatsApp, you can actually send at a higher frequency without negatively affecting your business. 

One should understand that there are no rigid rules to be applied here, and the frequency needed may vary from one business to another. The idea here is to send high-value and quality WhatsApp messages, at a frequency that’s okay with the customers.

The frequency can also depend greatly on the target audience you have in mind. 

For example; some age groups might respond well to more frequent broadcast messages while a different age group of customers might be annoyed by this. 

Hence, planning and adapting your broadcast message strategies with customer reception in mind is crucial to see positive results. This is precisely why you need to know how to find the right frequency that works for you and your business.

How to Find the Right Frequency for Your Business

You now know the general rule of thumb when sending WhatsApp broadcasts. 

But how do find the right frequency for WhatsApp broadcast, suitable for your business and the target audience you have in mind? 

Here are some WhatsApp broadcast best practices to consider for sending broadcast messages and promotions: 

Start Slow and Build Up

It requires careful planning to start seeing improvements, so you need to test the waters and plan accordingly when it comes to WhatsApp broadcasts for business. 

Before seeing better returns and conversion rates, you need to find your footing and make sure what model works best for you. But you won’t know that right at the outset. This is why you should start out slow and then build up as you see fit.

Start by sending just one WhatsApp message per week, and monitor the results. Experiment and find the best time of the day or best day of the week to send promotions, analyse adjust accordingly, and see if it works out. 

Engagement can vary on different days of the week depending on the business’s nature. Use your analytics to find the time when your customers are most active in the duration of a week and base your WhatsApp broadcast campaign spending time on that info.

After studying how the customers respond to the one message per week model, you should implement the necessary modifications to improve results. If you are seeing a positive impact on your conversion rates or Return of Investments with this relatively safer model, you can increase the frequency and see how this impacts your business. Keep in mind that the quality of messages greatly influences customer responses. As long as your messages retain good quality, you are bound to see better results and hence free to increase your broadcast frequency.

Segment Your List and Try Different Frequencies

When sending out promotions, you need to ask yourself if you are getting the customers right. Are you employing the most fitting strategies for different customers? 

Segmenting customers from your broadcast list is a very important step in enabling you to identify the best frequencies for your broadcasts. You need a clear picture of how each customer segment will respond to particular strategies. Segmentation will enable you to have a better understanding of each customer segment, which helps with better personalization of your promotions.

Each segment based on age, experience with your brand, interests etc. will respond differently to different frequencies. Loyal customers who have maintained a long business relationship with your brand are more positive towards higher frequencies of WhatsApp broadcast promotions. They might be more eager for your latest promotions and would want to hear from you more frequently.

With newer customers, who have bought only once or are yet to make a purchase, you should rather stick to just one message per week. They are still exploring your brand and considering your products, so any more than 1 promotion per week might annoy them, costing you a potential customer. Such customers may opt-out of your broadcast list if you send them promotions more often than they want, even if the promotions you send might be of high value.

Similarly, you can segment customers based on age groups and other relevant criteria, monitor and analyse the results of your broadcast campaigns on each segment, and then adjust your WhatsApp Broadcast message frequencies accordingly. Try experimenting with different frequencies for different segments until you identify the best models.

 Experiment with Message Types at Different Frequencies

An important factor to keep in mind is that frequencies don’t guarantee similar results over different kinds of content in messages. 

Different message types can fetch different results, so they might perform differently based on the frequency at which you send them. This is why you should experiment with sending various types of messages at various broadcast frequencies and what frequency works for each type.

After a point where one message per week starts showing positive results, try mixing it up as you increase frequency. When going from one message to two messages per week, instead of sending two messages of the same kind, try to send two different kinds of messages to make it seamless and natural. One can be a promotional message for your brand's latest product, while the other can be a weekly newsletter detailing the latest trends in the market.

Or, when you are sending out two messages per week, once in a while, try making one of them a feedback request, letting customers know that their thoughts and opinions are of value to your business. Adding non-promotional content like informative articles, shipping updates, and feedback to the mix of broadcast messages is a strategy that might bring positive results for your brand in the long run.

This way, your broadcasts, while strategically increasing their frequency, remain engaging and don’t look too pushy or get characterized as spam by your customers. You are able to meet customer expectations consistently on a strategic level, without losing the natural flow of it.

Ask Your Customers

Sometimes knowing what the customer wants is a little difficult. Even with active monitoring and experimentation, in some cases, you might still not find the right broadcast frequency on your own. In such instances where you can’t figure it out, you can just reach out to your own customers.

Set up a campaign to ask how frequently they’d like updates on WhatsApp. This way the people themselves can decide on the frequency at which they would like to receive promotions and messages. You could also request feedback on the frequency of your promotional messages, and while you are at it, also ask what sort of promotions and content they expect from us. Here is an example- “Hey Nick! How often would you like for us to reach out to you with updates in a week? 1) Once 2) Twice 3) Thrice”

By asking customers directly, you become aware of the customer's expectations with complete clarity. Since you know precisely what the customer wants and all that’s left to do now is to modify your broadcast campaign accordingly.

Keep Costs in Mind

One of the major reasons behind businesses opting to move to WhatsApp for marketing and promotions is to reduce costs while improving results. But when using it, sometimes WhatsApp Business costs can go up and quickly get out of hand. This is something you need a handle on when planning not just broadcast campaigns but any WhatsApp marketing campaigns really.

When experimenting with various frequencies, keep an eye on your costs. Sending messages at higher frequencies is okay if you see positive results but beyond a certain point, it can cost more than you want to spend, so you have to consider if the bargain is worth it. Running WhatsApp broadcast campaigns but having to spend more on them, defeats the whole purpose. You don’t want to be spending large amounts to receive a lower return on investments. 

Set Up Smart and Timely WhatsApp Broadcasts!

Using WhatsApp for broadcasting opens up a lot of potential, and with the right frequency to be applied for your broadcast marketing, your business is ready to grow. Finding the right formula for your WhatsApp broadcasts and sending them at the right frequency guarantees that your business is consistently reaching customers and maximizing possibilities.

But for effectively carrying this out, you need to leverage segmentation and automation to keep WhatsApp messages contextual, timely and personalized. This can be achieved with WhatsApp Business API.

QuickReply.Ai lets you utilize the WhatsApp Business API to create strategic WhatsApp broadcast campaigns backed up by powerful automation, segment customers and monitor them efficiently.

Sign up for QuickReply.ai!