Event Marketing through Whatsapp  -  Full Guide

Event marketing is a very interesting domain.

All that adrenaline rush from chasing a target ticket sale — its a super exciting and creative process.

In this article today, you will read about marketing your event through Whatsapp.

But before that,

Why Whatsapp?

Messaging has become the most preferred mode of communication in recent times.

And WhatsApp is the largest platform with over 1.5 billion users, of which 500 million of them are daily users.

Its the fastest platform to reach people!

90% of the messages are opened within three seconds.

We keep checking WhatsApp through the day.

An average person opens WhatsApp every one hour.

Thus, it’s definitely a platform to leverage if you are into event marketing.

So, let’s move to the strategies.

Before that, hope you have created Whatsapp business account.

How to create a WhatsApp business account.

1. Defining the target customer.
2. Whatsapp groups.
3. Ping that friend.
4. No forwards use catalog.
5. ‘Whatsapp us’ widget.
6. Whatsapp radio service.
7. Use WhatsApp status.
8. Whatsapp communities.

1. Defining the target customer

This is the first step in any marketing campaign.

Clearly define your target customers — what is their age, where do they live, what is their income range, what jobs do they do, what are their interests, what are their needs, what kind of content do they consume?

“Know your target customers like you know your friends.”

2. Whatsapp Groups

Now, that you know your target audience, target WhatsApp groups they are part of!

Now, how to find these groups?

Let me give you an example,

For the , one of our target audience was trekkers from Bangalore.

So we googled ‘Trekking communities in Bangalore.’

Made a list of the communities and their contact number.

Almost all of them had a WhatsApp group and we pitched them to post about the festival on their groups.

Now, just pitching won’t always work, you also need to give them an incentive for taking that effort for posting in the group.

Thus, we also worked out discount codes for each of the groups we were targeting.

You can also work on an affiliate basis if they are for-profit organizations.

Also, use Facebook group to find those WhatsApp groups!

Almost all of those Facebook groups would have graduated into WhatsApp group.

So, ping the admin of the group and pitch them about the event and see if they are interested.

3. Ping that friend

Know that friend who is like your target audience?

Or a friend of a friend?

Call them up!

And ask them to forward your event content to relevant groups and people.

Forwards work better when there is a personal message included with them.

For example, it could go like -

“Hey, I am attending this event this weekend — who is coming along?”

Or

“Hey, there is this every interesting festival happening this weekend — you guys might find it interesting.”

Don’t just forward, start a conversation with it.

4. Use catalog (Chuck text forwards)

How many of you actually read broadcasted forwards?

Not me!

Just written forward with posters is a very boring and ineffective way to promote your event.

Enter catalog

A very attractive way to market your event with a direct call to action feature!

Let’s look at this example of a bike rally event.

What a viewer sees first is a poster and a caption.

Here, the attractive biker with killer eyes looking directly into the camera really catches the audience's attention.

Now, the customer is curious and taps view.

This shows up the details of the event.

More posters, a writeup, link to the website and the best thing — the ‘message button’, thus making the call to action so hassle-free!

Videos are also a good way to market the event, but lacks the CTA button like the catalogue.

5. ‘Whatsapp us widget.’

Customers may have queries about your event and WhatsApp is the best way to answer them.

Thus, integrate a ‘Whatsapp us’ widget on your ticketing page or the whole of the website.

6. Whatsapp radio service

There are a number of radio services on WhatsApp.

They usually let people know about the happenings in and around a city.

One such service is Comet Broadcast.

7. Use WhatsApp status (Don’t keep messaging them all the time)

Most of the people who have enquired about the event would have saved your number.

So don’t keep spamming them with your event content every time.

Instead, post them as stories.

This way they are reminded of your event from time to time.

8. Whatsapp communities

Create WhatsApp communities for your attendees.

But don’t just create one for the sake of creating it.

It should have a definitive purpose and should add value to the customer.

For, Bloom in Green Transformational festival, we created city-wise groups for the participants.

They used the group to make their travel plans together and also planned meetups in the city before the event.

That said,

Whatsapp marketing can get a little tricky.

Make sure not to invade the privacy of the attendees.

Nobody likes waking up to some forwarded message from an unknown number. (especially women - it's creepy)!

That’s it!

What strategies do you use for Whatsapp marketing, comment below.