WhatsApp has announced that they will be charging businesses for sending messages to their customers about events, promotions, offers, appointment reminders and event tickets.
Is it limited in any way?
Yes a little, it will not be a broadcast marketing tool like SMS as Businesses will still only be able to message people who contacted them first and then the company can reply with appointment reminders or event tickets to the customer. You will not be able to use WhatsApp to send a bulk promotion to all your customers.
How much is it going to cost?
The company has said that they will be charging a fixed rate for confirmed delivery, ranging from 0.5 cents to 9 cents (USD) per message depending on the country. But saucy compared to SMS so we’ll see whether that is the confirmed price once everything goes live. WhatsApp acknowledged that it is charging a premium compared to SMS rates.
What are Sendmode doing?
We have already begun designing a product which will integrate with the WhatsApp Business API and offer our customers this as a channel for their marketing. We will let you know as soon as it is ready to go.
When will It be available?
We are working with the WhatsApp team at the minute to get this up and running and as soon as they are happy that the API is stable, we’ll be adding it to our services. At the moment we are estimating early October for this to be ready.
About Sendmode SMS Marketing
Sendmode has been in the Bulk Text and SMS Marketing industry for almost 10 years and serves over 30,000 customers worldwide. Bulk SMS is proven to be one of the most effective direct marketing techniques available to all businesses. With open rates of 98%, your messages are guaranteed to be delivered and read by your customers. We can help you build your opt-in customer database with easy to implement techniques and then provide advice on content, timing, and frequency of your bulk SMS opt-in marketing campaigns. If you would like to try SMS for the first time (or maybe switch from your current provider) please click the link below, check out our extremely low prices and then click ‘Try for Free’.
John
