iAdvize now allows you to initiate a conversation with your audience on WhatsApp. This article presents this feature.

This one is currently in beta, you can contact your usual iAdvize contact to activate it. 

1. Principle

This feature allows you to send messages to your audience on WhatsApp on your own initiative, without your audience having initiated the conversation first. 

The messages are sent automatically, based on a message template you set up in the WhatsApp Business Manager. They can be personalized with customer data from your CRM. 

You can configure a message template to include one or more buttons (Call To Action), to prompt your audience to place an order or reschedule a delivery, for example. 

Your audience can also choose to reply to the message, which will then be treated by your respondents as any other WhatsApp conversation.

2. Benefits

This new feature has many benefits:

• by allowing you to engage with your customers for the first time, it gives you a new point of contact
• by using WhatsApp, the world's most popular messaging application, you get closer to your audience
• compared to a comparable channel such as SMS, WhatsApp is more reliable, with a message delivery rate close to 100%, and allows for more interaction thanks to the integrated buttons in the messages (CTA)
• by writing your own message templates, you can do all this in a way that is consistent with your tone and brand universe
• WhatsApp uses customer data (phone number, name, address, etc.) from your CRM to provide your audience with a personalized conversation experience

3. How it works

• during an interaction with your customers, they give you permission to contact them via WhatsApp
• this consent is collected and added to your customers' profile in your CRM 
• you set up message templates for future engagement campaigns in your brand's WhatsApp Business Manager
• when launching a campaign from the CRM, a signal is sent to iAdvize and transmits the data and phone numbers of the customers and the subject of the messages 
• iAdvize takes care of sending personalized messages (whose content has been previously configured via your WhatsApp Business Manager) to your customers to the transmitted phone numbers
• your customers receive a personalized message from your brand on WhatsApp. They are free to interact with this message by clicking on a button, or by replying to it (the message will then be treated like any other WhatsApp conversation on iAdvize). They can also choose not to be contacted by your brand on this channel if they wish.

Launch your proactive messaging project with WhatsApp following the step by step documentation.