WhatsApp Lead Generation Strategies For Your Shopify Store

‍Learn how to generate organic leads on WhatsApp

Are you a digital marketer? If yes, you know that currently, WhatsApp is one of the most important channels for eCommerce stores. 

Worldwide, 500 million businesses use WhatsApp for marketing and promotions. But you’d be surprised to learn that few of these businesses use it for lead generation.

Yes, WhatsApp can be used for lead generation—and that too, without spamming. You can not only run marketing and promotional campaigns, but you can also generate organic leads via WhatsApp. But it would help if you had a good WhatsApp leads strategy in place.

Let’s dig into WhatsApp lead generation strategies to help you grow your revenue.

How to generate organic leads on WhatsApp?

Add a WhatsApp live chat widget on your website

You might have a traditional live chat on your website and wonder why to replace it with WhatsApp. But you must, because integrating WhatsApp chat into your eCommerce website has many benefits. 

For example, the traditional live chat feature works only when customers are on your website. Once they leave your website, they cannot continue chatting with you. But when you use WhatsApp live chat, you can carry on your conversation anytime---hours or even days later.

You can have the chatbot icon on all the pages of your website.

Here’s an example:

Promote subscription via WhatsApp chat

If your eCommerce store has a subscription option, promote it via WhatsApp chat. Have the WhatsApp chat icon in the place where you request customers to enter their email id or phone number during the sign up process. 

This way, when you initiate the conversation via WhatsApp, you can have better chances of following up with your leads and motivating them to sign up. 

Moreover, you can have one-on-one interaction with the new subscriber, making them feel more comfortable. This helps in building long-term customer relationships. 

Besides that, as subscribers usually have a long-term engagement with brands, you can continue interacting with them over WhatsApp, as it is one of the most used and preferred channels for today’s customers. 

Add the WhatsApp chatbot link to emails

Another WhatsApp lead generation tactic to create opportunities to generate leads is to add the WhatsApp chat link in your email signature. For example, include the WhatsApp chat link in all your emails --- promotional and customer support emails, among others.

Customers on your email list interested in quick interactions can easily click the WhatsApp link and start chatting with you.  

For example, if you’re running a marketing email campaign to promote a new product and a customer wants to know more about the product, they can easily and quickly do so by clicking the WhatsApp link.

For example, similar to this:

Share the WhatsApp bot link in social media ads

There are more than 4.55 billion social media users worldwide. And if you’re a brand with a solid marketing set up, you definitely have a presence on social media. So why not leverage your social media following to boost lead generation via WhatsApp?

• You can add the WhatsApp link to your social media ads
• You can run dedicated campaigns to promote your WhatsApp link via social media ads
• Run contest ads and add the WhatsApp link

Use WhatsApp QR code to generate leads

WhatsApp QR codes can make lead generation easy. Moreover, it adds a fun element---it gets customers to capture the code to reveal a surprise. 

There are different ways you can use WhatsApp QR codes. Here are some:

• Add the QR code to your promotional and marketing messages on different channels such as email, social media, etc.
• The QR code should take the customer directly to your WhatsApp chat
• Send the QR code to customers who reach out to you with queries
• Have the QR code on your products or packaging

Send reminder triggers via WhatsApp

It's common for shoppers to leave conversations over live chat mid-way. It is the brand's task to drop a message to pick up the conversation again. And this is where WhatsApp helps.

With WhatsApp, you can send multiple messages as reminders and triggers to re-engage customers. And pick up the conversation from where it was left. Then, you can motivate customers to take favorable action. This is an effective way to generate leads.

Create a strategy to generate new chats via the website

Many eCommerce brands use WhatsApp for purposes such as customer service, marketing campaigns, etc. But there’s more you can do with WhatsApp. And for that, you’d have to create different strategies to use WhatsApp chats via your website.

Here are some strategies to initiate new WhatsApp chats via your website:

• Use WhatsApp live chat instead of regular chat
• Include a WhatsApp chat option on all the product pages so shoppers can chat with you when they have queries
• Initiate real-time chats to offer shopping assistance to customers based on customer behavior

Create a strategy to generate new chats via social media

Another way to generate WhatsApp leads is to integrate your chat link across your social media platforms and within the different campaigns. 

This strategy can work particularly well for products or services requiring interaction with shoppers to explain the product/service.  

For example, eCommerce brands that sell custom made products or require consultation before making a sell to meet a consumer need might find it particularly helpful for WhatsApp lead generation.

Here are some ideas you could try:  

• When posting, include your WhatsApp chat link in the caption
• Include the WhatsApp chat link in your social media ‘bio’ and ‘about’ section
• Create campaigns to let followers know you’re available on WhatsApp chat

Create a strategy to generate new chats via paid ads

One more strategy to generate leads is via Click-to-WhatsApp ads. This strategy, too, works specifically well for for businesses that are selling products or services which require interaction between the brand and the customer.

It can help you directly interact with customers and understand their needs, thus, shortening the sales cycle. For example, if you are a skincare brand, you can offer a free consultation or product recommendation session in your ads, using automations to ask for specific answers around the consumer's concerns and then using WhatsApp commerce to get them to buy the items from your brand.

Here are a few tips for WhatsApp lead generation via paid ads:

• Include a call-to-action in the paid ad to drive customers to start a chat
• Take shoppers directly to your WhatsApp chat via the link in the ad
• Run paid ads on the web and social media
• Conduct A/B testing of the ads
• Analyze and optimize your WhatsApp paid ad campaigns

Run WhatsApp abandoned cart recovery campaigns

Many customers leave their carts and your website without making purchases. And you have to find ways to bring them back to the store or complete that purchase. 

That's where cart recovery campaigns come in. You might be running these campaigns on channels such as email, SMS, web push notification, etc. Why not use WhatsApp to recover lost sales? It's an effective WhatsApp lead generation strategy.

Here’s how you can do it:

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• Create a series of cart recovery campaigns. For example, send messages as soon as shoppers leave your site and follow-up messages a couple of days after
• Include an image of the product in your WhatsApp cart recovery message
• Add a ‘complete order’ button call-to-action in the message

Here’s an example:

Run pre-order campaigns via WhatsApp chat

Suppose you’re launching a new product or service on your Shopify store. To assess customer response, you decide to initiate a pre-order campaign—so customers can place orders before the product launches.

Here’s how you can use WhatsApp for a pre-order campaign:

• You can make WhatsApp the only channel through which shoppers can place orders. You can make WhatsApp the only channel through which shoppers can place orders. For example, add CTA buttons such as click to pre-order or click to know more about the product
• Once customers click the link, they should be directed to your WhatsApp chat
• Customers can ask questions, learn more about the product/service, and you can motivate them to pre-order 
• This two-way conversational strategy can help you nurture leads in a more effective way

Use WhatsApp for out-of-stock product campaigns

Another excellent opportunity for eCommerce stores to generate WhatsApp leads is out-of-stock products. 

When your products run out, you should automate the ‘notify me’ CTA button, which should link to your WhatsApp chat. 

This way, customers can sign up for back-in-stock notifications via WhatsApp. Moreover, since it's an instant and fast platform, customers won't miss the notifications and will purchase the product via WhatsApp.  

Some tips for WhatsApp back-in-stock campaigns:

• Automate the ‘notify me’ button for all the products
• Link the ‘notify me’ button to your WhatsApp chat
• Automate responses to customer messages on your WhatsApp chat
• Send back-in-stock notifications on WhatsApp
• Include a product image in the notification

Upsell and cross-sell via WhatsApp chat

Sales professionals drive 30% of their revenue by upselling and cross-selling. And while most brands use channels such as email and SMS for these sales strategies, you could include WhatsApp in your upselling and cross-selling strategy.

Here's how using WhatsApp can benefit you. For example, say you want to upsell to a customer browsing a product on your site. If they are existing customers, you can send them a WhatsApp message with the product image, details, and product page link while they are on your website. 

Send first-time shoppers a pop-up notification requesting them to join you on WhatsApp live chat so you can help them shop better.

Similarly, you can cross-sell via WhatsApp once a purchase is made. You can encourage customers to opt-in for WhatsApp chat by offering them a discount on the next purchase. Then, send them cross-selling messages of products that are relevant to them to boost WhatsApp leads.

Send reorder messages via WhatsApp live chat

You could set up automated reorder WhatsApp messages depending on your products and services. For example, there might be products and services that customers repeatedly buy from your website. 

One way to increase repeat sales is by sending customers reminders to encourage them to reorder. And this is where your WhatsApp lead generation strategy comes in.

• Send reminders to customers on WhatsApp
• Request customers to sign-up for WhatsApp reminders
• Use customer order data to send timely and relevant reminders
• Combine other lead generation strategies, such as discounts, deals, bundles, cross-sell, etc., with reordering

Ready to generate WhatsApp leads for your Shopify store?

Now you know how much more you can do with WhatsApp to generate leads. Of course, you may not generate leads at the first go, but what you do is establish a 1:1 relationship with customers.

Over time, capturing intent, generating leads, and closing sales become much easier—all on WhatsApp.

And to follow the above strategies, you must have a WhatsApp lead manager. Meet QuichkReply.ai — the best WhatsApp chatbot for Shopify stores. 

To understand how QuickReply.ai can support you in WhatsApp lead generation, install QuickReply.ai on your Shopify store.

To know more, book a demo of QuickReply.ai.