As the country prepares for Ramadan, business owners look for ways to keep their operations running smoothly and stay connected with customers. For a lot of businesses, this means using WhatsApp to connect with customers securely, reliably and privately, since this is where the customers are (Over 6 out of 10 (66%) people globally prefer to message a business than email them, according to  Business Messaging Usage Research by Kantar, commissioned by Meta in April 2022).

To keep businesses on track, here are 5  WhatsApp strategies so you can continue doing what matters most: driving sales.

1. Create a great messaging experience for customers

For many small business owners in Nigeria, WhatsApp is their business – their website or virtual store counter to showcase their products, answer customer queries and drive sales. So when customers come, you need to be ready. During Ramadan, that might be as simple as updating your business hours in your business profile in the WhatsApp Business app to let people know you’re open during the month – especially if your operating hours will be different than usual – or even putting up an away message to inform customers when you’re available or when you might be in morning or evening prayer.

2. Makes people feel more connected to a business/brand

Personalized messages to create connection and enhance relevancy of messages, Guide the users through the journey using buttons (quick replies, list, call to action), and Product messages with in-thread cart and product selection. These are several things that businesses can do to build interactive experiences that increase stickiness and quality. If you have special items or deals and promotions during Ramadan, it’s best to highlight that in your catalog so people can easily find what they might want to buy.

3. Attract new customers

The lifeblood of any small business is finding more customers. So once you’ve built a valuable experience for your customers, it’s key to drive more people to your WhatsApp channel. To start, add a QR code to your storefront, website, product packaging, marketing materials or anywhere else where people can easily scan to connect with you on WhatsApp. To find the QR code, go to Business Tools and Short Link. You can even share your QR code with others easily from the app.

4. Drive traffic from social media

A lot of small and medium businesses are also present on Instagram and Facebook. From Business Tools, you can add a WhatsApp button to your Facebook or Instagram account, so when customers click it, it directly  opens a chat on your WhatsApp Business app. That way, customers browsing your business on those platforms can easily start a conversation with you on WhatsApp to ask questions or place an order. To go a step further and find brand new customers, businesses can also create Facebook or Instagram ads that click to open a chat on WhatsApp. These ads are an incredibly effective and powerful way to attract new customers and get them to start messaging with your business.

5. Stay organized

Ramadan can be an extremely busy month for businesses – especially with so much commerce condensed into a few hours of the day. With a potential influx of chats from new customers, it’s essential to keep your business and chats organized. One trick is using catalog Collections to group and organize products into specific categories so it’s simple for customers to browse your offerings. To stay on top of your chats, label specific ones with customizable descriptions to keep track of things like pending payments, new customers and more (the labels are visible only to you and not to customers). As your customer base and chat volume grow, businesses can even graduate from the WhatsApp Business app to the more powerful WhatsApp Business Platform where they can engage with customers at scale.