The Complete Guide to WhatsApp Lead Generation 2024

Anna, an investment banker in her late 20s, is looking for the perfect pantsuit for an upcoming business trip. Her weekdays are hectic, and her weekends are lazy. She hardly has time to browse through different online stores, let alone visit brick-and-mortar stores. Though she has shortlisted a few Amazon pantsuits, none are exactly in the color or pattern she wants. 

If you were to sell a product to Anna, how would you? 

Here’s what Gallabox’s customers would do: send a personalized product catalog of pantsuits based on Anna’s preferences and opt for a channel that doesn’t require additional browsing efforts––WhatsApp. 

With a global user base nearing 3 billion, WhatsApp remains the go-to app for small businesses to reach their target audiences directly. For businesses, WhatsApp is a convenient and easy-to-access channel where potential customers are usually more active than on emails or texts. That’s precisely why WhatsApp lead generation is something all businesses should explore. 

If you want to generate leads using WhatsApp, settle in! This article will explain why and how WhatsApp for Business can be your #1 lead generation channel.

What is WhatsApp Lead Generation?

Lead generation is identifying a prospect or a group of prospects interested in buying a product or service and reaching them through different strategies and channels to convert them into paid customers. 

WhatsApp lead generation is when you use WhatsApp to identify, motivate, and convert potential buyers into paid buyers. 

If done right with the correct tools and strategies, WhatsApp lead generation has immense potential to nurture and convert your leads. Qatar Insurance Company, a key player in the insurance industry, had difficulty generating leads with legacy tools because it didn’t have a structured system to manage these leads and their source chats. 

Qatar Insurance Company opted for Gallabox’s WhatsApp Chat Flows and Click-to WhatsApp Ads solutions to build their target users' interests, resulting in a 102% increase in lead generation. 

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Benefits of WhatsApp Lead Generation 

WhatsApp’s worldwide reach is the biggest reason behind its impressive lead generation capabilities. 

Hellmann, a mayonnaise brand, used WhatsApp as the primary channel to increase awareness of mayonnaise as a cooking ingredient beyond sandwich-making in Brazil. The WHATSCOOK campaign became a huge success in Brazil and Latin America (LATAM)––reaching over 4 million people within 10 days of launch. The brand earned a total of $150,000 through this campaign. 

The idea was simple. Create a personalized WhatsApp chatbot that connects home chefs to real chefs through a 1:1 chat. The expert chef would teach the home chef to cook something out-of-the-box with regular ingredients available at home.

Notice in the below image how the expert chef asks the home chef to send a picture of the items in their refrigerator for deciding the menu: 

 The combination of WhatsApp and an appropriate lead generation strategy is powerful. Here are the benefits of lead generation through WhatsApp: 

• WhatsApp is a global favorite app. Similarweb analyzed Android app data from 100 countries and found that WhatsApp ranked as the number 1 messaging app in 63 countries as of 2023.
• WhatsApp has an open rate of over 90% in most countries. While emails and SMSes have high open rates, some associated challenges exist. For example, users tend to send promotional/sales-y emails to the Spam folder or archive them. Similarly, bulk text messages are spam; users don’t read or delete them immediately. WhatsApp has overcome these challenges through verified accounts and end-to-end encryption. The trust factor is very high with WhatsApp. 
• WhatsApp’s personalized commerce features make it a customer favorite. From sending customized product catalogs and interactive messages to using WhatsApp Pay as a secured payment method, WhatsApp has everything businesses need to create an end-to-end purchase experience. 

6 WhatsApp Lead Generation Strategies for Businesses 

By now, you are probably convinced about the potential of WhatsApp as a lead generation channel. But how do you get started? 

Here are  some tried and tested WhatsApp lead generation strategies: 

1) Attract new customers with click-to-WhatsApp ads 

Click-to-WhatsApp ads (CTWA) are advertisements a brand places on Meta-owned platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. They direct users to a chat on WhatsApp with the company's account. Potential customers can use these to interact with a company or brand and inquire more about their services or products.

As they click on these Meta ads, they are redirected to a WhatsApp chat window with your brand, where you can initiate conversations regarding a product or service. 

The image above shows how the user can directly contact the brand’s WhatsApp chatbot without browsing through many products. With CTWA ads, you only add those leads to your WhatsApp broadcast list who have shown interest in learning more about a product/service. This is a rather simple and non-intrusive way to add prospects to your lead pipeline, which not only improves user experience but also increases conversion potential.

With tools like Gallabox, setting up a WhatsApp click-to-ad campaign is fairly simple. All you have to do is: 

• Set up a WhatsApp chatbot using Gallabox’s no-code platform that handles multiple conversations at once. 
• Display product catalogs and lists of services within WhatsApp to engage customers and reduce drop-offs.  
• Generate faster payment links and collect payments within WhatsApp so that customers won't need to leave the app even once, making it a smooth experience for you and the users. 

2) Bring leads from other channels to WhatsApp by adding chat buttons

If you decide to use WhatsApp as your lead generation channel, you must go all in and make it clear across all platforms - be it your official website, email signature, or social media handles.

Here’s how WhatsApp chat widget work: 

• Adding a WhatsApp button to your website works like a chatbot but is more convenient. Unlike web chatbots that typically provide generic responses, WhatsApp chatbots provide personalized responses. WhatsApp is generally considered to be a trustworthy platform. Additionally, the channel’s end-to-end encryption feature ensures the privacy of a prospect’s personal data. 
• Adding WhatsApp buttons to your email signatures gives users a direct channel to interact with your brand or particular team members, such as the marketing executive, customer support manager, and sales executive. 
• Embed WhatsApp links to your social media profiles so that whenever a lead has a query about your brand or wants to book a demo, they can do it through WhatsApp and avoid the back-and-forth of navigating through the website. 

3) Streamline business-customer chats with WhatsApp Flows

WhatsApp Flows help you generate customized WhatsApp forms that can be integrated within your WhatsApp chatbots, APIs, and drip marketing. This means easy customer segmentation and collecting high-intent lead data for future campaigns.  

With this feature, you can have a dependable assistant on WhatsApp collect information from customers or respond to their queries 24X7. This helps in driving better customer/user engagement, as well as boosting efficiency.

4) Acquire new customers using WhatsApp QR Codes  

How do you use WhatsApp to generate leads in offline events? All you need is a free WhatsApp QR Code generator. 

You can create compelling, personalized QR Codes and use them in offline events and trade shows. The goal is simple––a prospect interested in your product/service scans the QR Code and starts interacting with your WhatsApp Bot. 

Creating a WhatsApp QR Code is simple. You must provide your contact number and a customized message to generate the code. 

5) Leverage the power of conversational commerce 

Conversational commerce is all about engaging prospects through real-time conversations. It helps brands generate personalized, real-time responses for leads, answer their complex queries, and form strong connections through their favorite apps. 

For example, suppose you are selling educational courses to students. Your target audience includes students and their parents. Before purchasing a new course, prospects are bound to have queries related to the price of the course, modules covered, schedule, certification details, and so on.

By leveraging conversational commerce, brands can set these responses on auto-pilot so that the prospects get their answers without human intervention.  This way, the leads are instantly engaged, and their chances of getting qualified increase. 

With WhatsApp Business APIs, businesses can easily set up automated conversation flows with predefined rules. It further integrates with your existing tech stack, including Zoho CRM, Facebook, WooCommerce, Shopify, Google Sheets, and Razorpay, to capture, track, and manage your leads in a single place. 

6) Use WhatsApp Broadcasts to segment potential leads 

WhatsApp Broadcasts are a safer way to engage with leads. This is mainly because leads join a brand’s broadcast channel by filling out an opt-in form indicating their genuine interest and consent to hearing from your brand. With appropriate lead nurturing strategies, converting these leads can be simple. 

With a WhatsApp API solution, you can do much more with Broadcasts than just posting content in different channels. 

​​Here’s how pairing a WhatsApp Business API and Broadcasts in your lead generation strategy can pay off: 

• Segment your WhatsApp contacts into smaller groups based on their characteristics and plan tailored messages for each group to increase conversion potential. 
• Set up automated responses to engage prospects during lead conversion phases and route the right prospects to the right teams within your personalized lead flow. For example, a prospect willing to know more about the product gets routed directly to the demo team.  
• Keep an eye on critical WhatsApp marketing metrics, such as message open rates, replies, and broadcast metrics, and make your decisions accordingly. For example, if a lead opened a message but didn’t respond, the next step could be to send them a personalized discount to increase the conversion probability. 

How to manage WhatsApp leads for different industries

Let us dive deeper to find out how different industries are using WhatsApp as a lead-generation tool: 

Education

• Answer routine student queries and doubts instantly without overwhelming your customer support executives. 
• Create engaging content to instantly provide information like course fees and module details without any delays. 
• Automate the end-to-end admission process by clarifying doubts, helping in course selection, collecting course fees, and sharing the required materials. 
• Create personalized bots for different use cases, such as a study abroad bot that specifically answers questions about foreign universities and programs.

WhatsApp chatbots in education can reduce up to 60% of human intervention. 

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Real Estate 

• Automate responses to greet potential buyers, share property details, and request callbacks. Add high-intent leads to your CRM for future follow-ups. 
• Show rich media of properties for sale or rent to prospective buyers/tenants, which saves time for all the stakeholders involved and helps in better decision-making.
• Manage conversations among sellers, buyers, and agents to reduce confusion. Enable multiple agents to take over conversations to ensure no conversion loss. 
• Segment buyers based on interest levels or budget and run behavior-focused campaigns with a real estate chatbot to recommend new property launches and other promotional plans based on broadcast analytics. 

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Healthcare

• Follow up with patients after they are discharged from the hospital to share essential care information and notify them about upcoming medical consultations using healthcare chatbots.
• Set reminders for doctor appointments for each patient, be it physical or remote consultations. 
• Enable one-click access to past medical records for both patients and doctors without privacy concerns, as WhatsApp is HIPAA compliant, and sensitive data records are safe. 
• Share prescriptions/ diagnostic reports and/or direct to (online) pharmacies over chat so the patients don’t have to visit the hospital in person to collect them. 

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Travel

• Send automated travel updates and reminders related to ticket booking, flight timings, and hotel bookings to travelers for a personalized experience. 
• Send seasonal, one-time, personalized offers to increase sales. 
• Create customized travel itineraries for customers to engage them and collect travel-related documents such as passports and visas for verification. 

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Best Practices of WhatsApp Lead Generation

Below are some of the WhatsApp lead generation best practices to get effective results from your campaigns: 

Always use opt-in forms to seek permission: It is essential to use opt-in forms to seek prospects’ permissions before adding them to your contact list. If you message prospects outside your contact list, WhatsApp may block your business account for violating privacy rules. 

Give as much importance to lead nurturing as you give to lead generation: Qualifying leads at the first attempt may not always be possible. In such cases, focus on nurturing these prospects. Send free resources and valuable information to engage them. You could also schedule free consultations to help potential leads address their pain points. When they show interest, you can further convert them into customers. 

Add a human touch to your campaigns: Use a combination of chatbots and humans (varying their functionality based on the situation/marketing goals) for your WhatsApp lead generation campaigns. For example, you could route  complex queries  to human agents or ensure consultation requests  land up with the sales teams To create perfectly balanced lead generation campaigns for achieving high conversion rates

WhatsApp Lead Generation Rules: Do’s and Don’ts 

Every company leveraging the ultimate tool of WhatsApp lead generation should keep in mind the following: 

✅ Dos 

• Personalize your WhatsApp messages 
• Build your contact list responsibly through opt-ins 
• Use buttons/CTAs in your WhatsApp messages 
• Make campaign decisions based on real-time data

❌ Don’ts

• Don’t send unsolicited bulk messages 
• Don’t target customers outside of your contact list 
• Don’t attach malicious media files to your messages 
• Don’t ignore customer feedback 
• Don’t violate WhatsApp’s Terms of Service 

Conclusion

Running a successful WhatsApp lead-generation campaign is simple if you follow the right approach and use the correct tools. They require innovation, technology, and strategy. If a brand sets realistic goals, uses the right WhatsApp business marketing software, and takes an innovative approach to lead generation, it will pay rich dividends. 

On that note, when selecting a WhatsApp marketing tool to generate leads, nothing beats Gallabox's versatility, ease of use, and pricing. 

Gallabox offers distinct lead generation features like: 

• A powerful WhatsApp API 
• Automated WhatsApp workflows 
• Robust WhatsApp Chatbot 
• And more!

Want to explore it firsthand?

FAQs 

What is a WhatsApp lead?

A WhatsApp lead is a potential customer who has shown interest in a product or service through interactions on the WhatsApp platform, such as engaging with a chatbot or responding to a broadcast message.

How do I generate leads on WhatsApp? 

To generate leads on WhatsApp, use click-to-WhatsApp ads, create engaging content and status updates, add WhatsApp CTAs across platforms, use QR codes, leverage conversational commerce, and utilize WhatsApp Broadcasts for segmentation.

How do you manage WhatsApp leads? 

Manage WhatsApp leads using a WhatsApp API solution like Gallabox to automate conversations, segment contacts, set up personalized flows, track metrics, and integrate with your existing tech stack/CRM.