Introducing automation and utility conversations in WhatsApp marketing

Introducing automation and utility conversations in WhatsApp marketing

We’re excited to announce the addition of two new features to our WhatsApp integration: Automation and Utility conversations. These enhancements will allow you to streamline your marketing efforts and engage with your customers more effectively by automating messages and providing essential information seamlessly.

WhatsApp marketing has become a prominent player in many marketing strategies, having demonstrated a 44.5% uptick in customers engagement. You can enhance your customer journey using WhatsApp automations to deliver personalized messages at the perfect moments and generate meaningful engagement with your contacts.

Enhanced engagement through journeys

Zoho Marketing Automation's journey builder takes WhatsApp engagement a step further by enabling you to create automated workflows that initiate conversations based on specific customer actions and ensure you trigger various types of interactions throughout the customer journey. The result is a seamless, personalized experience that delivers the right message at the right time.


Benefits for marketers:

  • Holistic customer engagement: Combine marketing efforts with essential service updates for a well-rounded customer experience.

  • Improved customer satisfaction: Foster trust and loyalty by ensuring customers have the information they need, when they need it.

  • Streamlined workflows: Automate routine tasks and free up valuable time for strategic marketing initiatives.

 

A quick walkthrough 

Trigger 

Similar to an email campaign trigger, if a contact from a WhatsApp campaign meets certain criteria, they will be added to a journey. Only actions can be added as criteria for journey enrollment, however. This restriction ensures that only specific customer behaviors—such as responding to messages or clicking links—qualify them as contacts worthy of inclusion. By focusing on these actions, we can enhance engagement and tailor our communications to those who show genuine interest.


Process 

Once a contact is added to a journey, you can define a Process > WhatsApp activity to categorize and send  based on user's activity. In this case, you can choose from multiple activities to associate with a WhatsApp message for greater flexibility and customization in your messaging strategy. 

You can use a single WhatsApp activity component to trigger specific actions based on user interactions. For example, if a user clicks on a specific link in a WhatsApp message, they may automatically move to a different lead stage. Alternatively, if a user responds with a specific keyword, you can automatically send a different WhatsApp message. These use cases highlight how you can engage with users effectively through WhatsApp activities.


 

Action 

You can use this action to send a WhatsApp message to all qualified contacts associated with the journey. By delivering personalized messages to contacts associated with a specific journey, you can achieve more targeted and relevant communication. Additionally, creating and sending purchase confirmation and transactional messages, collectively known as Utility Conversations, allows users to automate personalized marketing campaigns based on user behavior.

 

 


 

Utility Conversations

We've also added a new feature: utility conversations. Previously, Zoho Marketing Automation only supported promotional messages, offers, and updates. Now, with utility conversations, you can deliver essential, purchase-related information directly through WhatsApp.

This enables you to:

  • Provide timely updates: Send order confirmations and other critical information directly to customers to ensure they stay informed throughout the journey.

  • Streamline transactions: Use automated payment reminders and transactional messages to simplify the buying process and reduce friction.

  • Gather valuable feedback: Easily collect customer feedback through surveys to foster continuous improvement and increase customer satisfaction.



Note: Utility conversations have a distinct pricing structure compared to marketing conversations. You can visit our pricing page to calculate these costs accurately. Additionally, utility conversations will be included only in Professional and Enterprise plans.

 


 

With this update, we expect our users to get more out of Zoho Marketing Automation and enhance their brands' reputations with timely campaigns. We're always here to help marketers at every step in their marketing endeavor with Zoho Marketing Automation. Please reach out to us at support@zohomarketingautomation.com. We'll be more than happy to provide assistance!


    • Sticky Posts

    • Marketer’s Space - Automating CRM Actions with Journeys – Part 2

      Hello marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer’s Space. In our previous post, we explored how CRM actions in Journeys help marketing and sales teams work together by nurturing CRM leads and pushing only engaged prospects back to sales. If you

    • Introducing automation and utility conversations in WhatsApp marketing

      We’re excited to announce the addition of two new features to our WhatsApp integration: Automation and Utility conversations. These enhancements will allow you to streamline your marketing efforts and engage with your customers more effectively by automating

    • Tip of the week 02 - The art of 'seeing' your leads

      What's the last page that your lead visited before signing up for your brand? What was the page that first convinced your lead to explore more about you? Where are your leads coming in from? Well, these are some perennial questions today's marketers live upon. And, knowing the answers to these questions is crucial, considering the vitality of leads in every business. In the journey of finding lead opportunities, it's important to understand that every detail about a lead is useful. While the channels

    • Zoho Marketing Automation Update: Topics, Contacts, and List Management

      At Zoho Marketing Automation, our highest priority is making it easier for you to use our product to accomplish your business goals. With that in mind, we are updating three of our pivotal features: Topic, Contacts, and List Management.   These existing

    • Important: Zoho MarketingHub is now Zoho Marketing Automation

      Hello Everyone,   We hope you all are doing well. We'd like to notify you that we have rebranded Zoho MarketingHub to Zoho Marketing Automation. We'll discontinue using the term "MarketingHub" from May 26, 2021. However, there will be no changes in the

      • Recent Topics

      • Zoho CRM in Microsoft Power Automate Custom Connector

        Hi everyone, I’m building a Power Automate flow that integrates Microsoft Bookings with Zoho CRM. The goal is to automatically create a meeting (event) in Zoho CRM whenever a new appointment is booked via Microsoft Bookings. To achieve this, I created

      • Spell check sucks

        Come on guys, it's 2024 and your spell check is completely retarded. You gotta fix it.

      • How to include total km for multiple trips in expense report.

        Whenever I create a mileage report it only shows the total dollar amount to be reimbursed. The mileage for each individual trip is included but I also need to see the total distance for all trips in a report? How do I do this?

      • Outgoing blocked: Unusual activity detected.

        I just made payment for my Zohomail Today and have been debited so i will like to be Unblocked because this is what it says (Outgoing blocked: Unusual activity detected) Thank you i await your swift responses

      • Zoho One Login Issue - Unable to receive OTP

        Hi Support Team, I am experiencing a unique login issue with Zoho One. I am attempting to log in from India using Zoho Login credentials provided by a USA-based client. Their Zoho account is hosted on a US data center. After entering the username and

      • Question Regarding Managing Sale Items in Zoho Books

        Good day, I was wondering about something. Right now, Zoho Books doesn’t seem to have a way to flag certain items as being on sale. For example, if I want a list of specific items to be on sale from October 1 to October 12, the user would have to export

      • In the Zoho Creator Customer Payment form i Have customer field on select of the field Data want to fetch from the invoice from based on the customer name In the Customer Payment form i Have subf

        In the Zoho Creator Customer Payment form i Have customer field on select of the field Data want to fetch from the invoice from based on the customer name In the Customer Payment form i Have subform update Invoice , there i have date field,Invoice number

      • Problem of Import Client Users From CRM and or Expense

        I am premium plan user on Projects. I have about 500 customers on Expense and CRM that integrated with each other. According to at below link, I am trying to import clients from CRM, system not allowed to select any customer. If I import from Expense,

      • Unable to see free plan option

        Hello Zoho Support Team, I hope you are doing well. I am trying to sign up for Zoho Mail, but I am unable to see the option for the free plan. Could you please guide me on how I can access or activate the free plan? Thank you for your assistance.

      • unblock my zoho mail account. outlines@zoho.com

        please unblock my zoho mail account, outlines@zoho.com

      • domain not verified error

        Hi when i try to upload a video from zoho creator widget to zoho work drive iam getting domain not verified error.I don't know what to do .In zoho api console this is my home page url https://creatorapp.zoho.com/ and this is my redirect url:www.google.com.Iam

      • equest to Disassociate Bigin from Zoho One and Migrate to Standalone (Upgrade to Bigin Premier – 3 Seats, Annual)

        Dear Zoho One Support Team, I’m writing to request your assistance to disassociate (remove) the Bigin application from our Zoho One organization while preserving all existing Bigin data. After the disconnection is successfully completed, we intend to

      • SMTP email sending problem

        Hello, I've sent emails before, but you haven't responded. Please respond. My work is being disrupted. I can't send emails via SMTP. Initially, there were no problems, but now I'm constantly receiving 550 bounce errors. I can't use the service I paid

      • billing

        hi, I am being billed $12/year, and I can't remember why. My User ID is 691273115 Thanks for your help, --Kitty Pearl

      • How to add receipts

        How to add receipts

      • Unable to enable tax checkboxes

        Hi Zoho Commerce Support, I'm writing to report an issue I'm having with the tax settings in my Zoho Commerce store. I've created several tax rates under Settings > Taxes, but all of them appear with the checkbox disabled. When I try to enable a checkbox,

      • Does Zoho Learn integrate with Zoho Connect,People,Workdrive,Project,Desk?

        Can we propose Zoho LEarn as a centralised Knowledge Portal tool that can get synched with the other Zoho products and serve as a central Knowledge repository?

      • Zoho Commerce - Enable Company Name and Tax Number collection for B2B orders in Global Edition

        Please enable Company Name and Tax Details option on checkout settings in Zoho Commerce Global Edition. It is still important to collect Company Name and Tax Number for B2B sales in many countries. My business is based in Ireland (in the EU) and I have

      • ZohoSign and ZohoBooks Integration/Workflow

        Hello All, We utilize ZohoSign for signatures on tax eFiles. We utilize Dynamic KBA. Additionally, we use ZohoBooks for invoicing for these services. Is there a way to accomplish the following: Send a copy of the Tax Return, Invoice and eFiles in one

      • Manage monthly tasks with projectsf

        Hi All I run a finance and operations team where we need both teams to complete monthly tasks to ensure we hit our deadlines. Can Zoho projects be used for this. There many finance focused tools but we have Zoho one so want to explore Thanks Will

      • Zoho Suite is very slow

        Since today Zoho is incredibly slow over all applications! What's going on?

      • How can I track which zoho users are actively using Zoho CRM

        I have several licenses of Zoho CRM. We now need to add a new user. I could purchase a new license, but before I do, I would like to see if any of our existing users are not actively using the license assigned to them. How can I determine the activity

      • Is anyone else having trouble saving a custom image in their email signature, or is it just me?

        When I try to save the image I get an error that says "Operation Failed" I opened a support ticket two weeks ago and received a response that it would be debugged, but it still isn’t working

      • Combine and hide invoice lines

        In quickbooks we are able to create a invoice line that combines and hides invoices lines below. eg. Brochure design         $1000 (total of lines below, the client can see this line) Graphic Design           $600 (hidden but entered to reporting and

      • Transaction Locking with the dynamic date

        Is it possible to dynamically update dates on transaction locking. We want to lock transaction x days from today

      • Zoho Devops

        We have a Zoho one account which we have integrated with an SAS educational product, sold on a subscription model, using webhooks and API calls. We make some use of custom fields and cross module lookups and relationships. We utilize CRM, Books and billing

      • Fuel up your sales with the Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration

        Hi everyone! We’re happy to bring you the all-new Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration. With this, every prospect from your website instantly becomes a contact in Bigin, complete with transcripts and follow-up tasks, so you never lose a lead again. Let's

      • Introducing AI-powered Assessments & Zoho's native LLM, Zia

        We’ve shipped a cleaner, faster way to create assessments in Zoho Recruit. 🚀 Instead of manually building question banks or copying old templates, you can now generate ready-to-use assessments in just a few clicks, all tailored to the role you’re hiring

      • Ability to Reset Visitor Fields During an Active Chat Flow

        Hello Zoho SalesIQ Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to propose a feature enhancement to Zoho SalesIQ regarding the management of visitor fields within Zobot flows. Use Case: Our bot asks the visitor to provide information about a 3rd person

      • External ID in Zoho CRM

        Hello everyone! We know that Zoho CRM allows you to integrate third-party apps and manipulate data through APIs. While you integrate a third-party application, you may want to store the third-party reference IDs in Zoho CRM's records. To meet this need

      • Some emails are not being delivered

        I have this problem where some of my mail just seems to disappear. When I send it, it appears as sent with no mention of any problem, but my recipient never gets it, not even in the Spam folder. Same for receiving, I have a secondary e-mail address, and

      • New in Zoho Chat : Search for contacts, files, links & conversations with the all new powerful 'Smart Search' bar.

        With the newly revamped 'Smart Search' bar in Zoho Chat, we have made your search for contacts, chats, files and links super quick and easy using Search Quantifiers.   Search for a contact or specific conversations using quantifiers, such as, from: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations received from a specific user. to: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations sent to a specific user. in: #channel_name - to find a particular instance in a channel. in: #chat_name - to find

      • Template modifiactions

        Hello, I am struggling with the templates in ZOHO Books. Especially with the placement of some items, like company address, ship to, bill to etc.  For example: One item I like from template X (placement of ship to and bill to next to each other in the

      • Aggregating the First Value in the Group By of a dataset

        Hi I am trying to get the following Aggregate Formula to work in my chart, but cannot seem to get the right format. I have a series of data that I am running an include_groupby and want to SUM only a column in the first row of each group. So for example.

      • Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One

        Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture

      • Track Zoho Campaign and Workflow sales impact

        I am attempting to measure the performance of our marketing workflows and campaigns by comparing the date each campaign was sent to a contact with the purchase date of the contact. For example, if Contact A was sent Email A on 9/1 and made a purchase

      • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

        It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?

      • What is a line break code for zoho?

        Hi, I am archiving data by adding values from a single line field from one form to a multi-line field in another form. So I need a code/function that starts a new line on that multi-line field so it does not just keep adding it on the same line. Example, doing something like this means that it will be on a same line. archive.field1 = archive.field1 + input.Field1 I need a code so the input.Field1 can just start on the next line. Instead of "value 1, 2,3,4,5" It will be: "1 2 3 4 etc.".  something

      • Automatic Project Owner change

        Is there a way to change Project Owner automatically once a specific Milestone in a project is marked as completed. Different Teams are working on projects in our Org, they have their own Milestones to complete and so we transfer the project from team

      • Button to add product to cart

        Is there a way to have a button on a page, that when clicked, will add Qty 1 of a product to the cart?

      • Next Page