What are WhatsApp Stories & How to Utilize Them for Customer Engagement?

WhatsApp is known for amazing engagement and real-time messaging to stay connected with your customers. Owing to its large and active user base, it has been quite a while since businesses started using WhatsApp for sales engagement. 

Although there are various ways in which you can utilize WhatsApp, ranging from hyper-personalized 1:1 engagement to sending bulk WhatsApp messages, the channel is equipped with modern messaging capabilities.

However, seeing as how popular Status has become for WhatsApp users, businesses also began using it to engage with customers about what is happening in the company to keep them engaged with the brand. 

Having said that, in this guide, I’ll explain what WhatsApp Stories are, the benefits you get by using them, and how to craft eye-catching Stories. So, let’s jump right into it, starting with learning about what WhatsApp Stories are. 

What are WhatsApp Stories?

WhatsApp Stories, otherwise called WhatsApp Status is a functionality of the WhatsApp App that lets you share visuals, content, stickers, or animated GIFs that are visible for 24 hours. This feature is inspired by Instagram or Snapchat Stories where the content disappears after some time. 

The Updates tab in the WhatsApp mobile app features all the Stories your contacts have uploaded from the latest to the oldest order, with the newest one at the beginning. 

If you are a startup or medium-sized business using the WhatsApp Business App for marketing and customer support, then WhatsApp Stories can be a great feature for engaging your audience, even when you are not actually sending marketing messages to interact with them. 

Using WhatsApp Stories, you can share a wide variety of content. For example, you can post a story about a flash sale during a festive season and make it so that the sale ends when the Story disappears. This way, you can compel potential customers to take action without sending explicit marketing messages. 

Some of the important elements of WhatsApp Story

Similar to WhatsApp messaging templates, WhatsApp Stories also includes various key components. Some of these include: 

A sense of urgency

WhatsApp Stories are timed, meaning they are only visible for a short amount of time. This automatically builds a sense of urgency if the story focuses on limited-time marketing. 

Crafting a tailored WhatsApp Story

WhatsApp Stories support a large number of elements, ranging from plain text to highly engaging images. On top of that, you can add emojis, stickers, and hand-drawn designs to make your stories more interesting.

Visibility options

WhatsApp allows you to control who can see your stories by selecting a segment of your audience. You can pick between your entire contact book or a selected group of contacts that can better relate to them. You also get the ability to track who has seen your story, allowing you to stay on top of your efforts. 

Customer interactions

On top of being engaging, WhatsApp Stories are also highly interactive. This means the viewers can send replies to your stories and show their interest by using emojis. Monitoring customer engagement gives you an idea of what is working and what isn’t.

What are the benefits of using WhatsApp stories?

WhatsApp Stories are a great way to engage customers without actually sending messages straight into their inbox. That being said, you need to understand the advantages offered by these stories to help your business skyrocket in terms of customer interactions:

Enhanced engagement

WhatsApp Stories enables you to be straightforward with your audience. Sending company information in real time allows you to build a feeling of FOMO if your story promotes a product for a limited-time sale. You can also take inspiration from the messaging templates of WhatsApp to design your story. 

For example, you can leverage the amazing functionalities like quizzes, queries, and prompt responses to encourage your recipients to interact with your WhatsApp Stories. 

Better in terms of cost

WhatsApp Stories are not marketing messages. Although they can be used to promote your offerings, they are primarily designed to notify what is currently happening with your brand. Pair that with the aspect that it doesn’t cost anything to send stories, making them a cost-efficient way to market your products and services while keeping the WhatsApp marketing cost in control. 

Quick updates

WhatsApp Stories can be sent promptly to your entire customer base. You don’t have to manually select each customer before sending your stories. Also, since the story is visible for 24 hours, you can make you your message is delivered successfully. 

Better reach

Unlike the WhatsApp chats that are gathered in a single UI, WhatsApp Stories can be seen under the Updates section. These stories appear in a chronological order with the latest ones at the top. On top of that, if you are regularly posting stories, you can continuously engage your customers to ensure they are on the same page with your brand. 

Customization options

As I said before, WhatsApp Stories includes various multimedia components. This makes them more engaging compared to plain text. To make them more eye-catching and interactive, you can add images, videos, GIFs, overlays, and emojis.

How to craft your WhatsApp Story?

WhatsApp Stories are inspired by Instagram Stories. What this means is that you need the WhatsApp app to design and post your stories. Below are the step-by-step instructions to achieve that:

Launch the WhatsApp app and navigate to the Status Tab. Once here, click on the Add My Status button. 

After you tap it, the app will open your camera to take a picture/ video or upload one from your Gallery. Once the visuals are loaded, include overlay content, drawings, or emojis to enhance the attractiveness of your stories. You can also attach links to your stories by clicking the link option and filling in the URL in the corresponding field.

After you have completed your WhatsApp Story, tap the Send button to make it live. Now your story can be seen by the chosen customers who have interacted with your brand via the WhatsApp app.

Various use cases of leveraging a WhatsApp Story

Till now, we have seen the versatility of WhatsApp Stories. They act as social media updates where you can utilize them for a range of use cases ranging from marketing to company updates. Here are some of the ways to use a WhatsApp Story effectively:

Run promotional campaigns

You can design exclusive offers to update customers about limited-time discounts to encourage quick conversions. Since these stories are only available for 24 hours, they are outstanding for taking advantage of the sales psychology of fear of missing out.

Update customers about new products

You can leverage WhatsApp Stories to inform potential customers about product launches with the help of images or videos, teasing a new look and building hype. 

For instance, if you are an online apparel brand and you want to introduce a new product, craft a WhatsApp Story to let your customers know about it. This story will let potential customers know about your new lineup, grabbing attention and driving sales. 

Content marketing 

WhatsApp is not only a great channel for marketing purposes, but also an outstanding platform for driving traffic using content marketing. Stories let you include links to external webpages such as blog posts, product reviews, or help articles to deliver content that adds value to your customers. You can provide a sneak peek at the article in the story and add a link to let your audience click on it to read the full post. 

Know your customers

WhatsApp Stories are one of the best ways to understand your customers. Using the stories, you can incorporate interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or ask for customer feedback on their experiences they had with your business.

WhatsApp-specific discounts  

WhatsApp Stories are also a great avenue to provide channel-specific offers to drive customers to move to this platform to enjoy personalized discounts. Offering these kinds of offers, allows you to drive traffic toward WhatsApp to further make use of its features to boost your sales. 

For example, a simple story containing a discount code like “WHATSAPP15” lets you WhatsApp users enjoy a 15% off on your products can significantly boost interest in your WhatsApp communication. 

Points to remember when designing your WhatsApp Stories

When creating your WhatsApp Story there are a few things you have to take into account to ensure you maximize the ROI for your efforts. Below are a few of them:

Consistency

WhatsApp Stories differ from traditional marketing messages in the sense that they disappear automatically after a period of time. So for them to work effectively, you need to maintain a level of consistency within your design and posting schedule. 

For example, utilize consistent colors, tones, fonts, and overlays to ensure brand alignment. For the schedule, make sure you have a solid content calendar in place that contains types of content along with the publishing dates for regular posting. 

When deciding on the frequency, you can choose between daily, weekly, or bi-weekly depending on the content type and your business. Sending marketing stories every day might not be a good idea. Mixing and matching your story content can let you drive conversions while enhancing customer engagement at the same time.

Furthermore, monitoring how well your stories are performing also lets you tweak your content to figure out what is working so you can leverage more of that. Utilize the engagement metrics to keep track of how your customers are interacting with your stories to optimize your WhatsApp marketing strategy.

Make them visually appealing

Since WhatsApp Stories lets you add graphics to your status, you need to leverage this feature to create engaging stories to drive customer interactions. However, make sure that you don’t add too many visuals to overly complicate your story. 

Ensure your images and videos are high-res and not pixelated. Also, to maintain a consistent brand identity, you have to use the same colors and visual elements to build brand awareness.

Make your stories trendy

Instead of following the same pattern for designing your stories, you can take inspiration from the latest marketing or sectoral trends within your industry. These tailored stories keep the recipients updated with trending topics and make them interested in your brand. 

Craft interesting narratives

Posting random stories with no structure and hoping to boost customer engagement is not the right approach. In order to make the most of a WhatsApp Story, you need to have a well-structured narrative for your stories. 

Make your stories in such a way that they have a starting and ending. A structured flow will make your stories more relatable. To do that, you can take the help of varying kinds of content by switching between text, images, and videos.

Focus on interaction-backed stories

When posting marketing stories, CTAs can be added so interested customers can click on them to learn more about the products. Moreover, you can add links to webpages, blog posts, or WhatsApp newsletter signups to bring valuable traffic to your website. 

Staying compliant with WhatsApp’s guidelines

WhatsApp messaging guidelines are a set of regulations that are laid down by Meta to make sure businesses don’t spam its users with continuous marketing messages. So in order to stay compliant with GDPR and other privacy laws, it’s essential to obtain clear consent from users before sending them promotional content or adding them to your WhatsApp broadcast list. 

One way to obtain this consent is by offering a straightforward WhatsApp opt-in and opt-out process that makes it easy for recipients to control whether they receive updates. Maintain transparency by clearly explaining what kind of updates or content users can expect when they engage with your WhatsApp Stories.

Make the most of WhatsApp Stories to skyrocket your customer engagement

WhatsApp Stories give you a simple yet powerful way to stay connected with your audience. By sharing regular updates, special offers, or behind-the-scenes content, you can build stronger relationships and keep your brand top of mind. 

These visual posts feel more personal and help create a sense of closeness with your customers. To get the best results, make sure you follow privacy rules, get user consent, and only send relevant updates. 

When used the right way, WhatsApp Stories can turn casual viewers into loyal customers by keeping them engaged and informed in a friendly and direct way.

Zixflow lets you access the WhatsApp Business API to enhance your WhatsApp marketing efforts and engage customers at scale with automated workflows. Sign up for a 7-day free trial to see the solution in action.