Viber Business messages are a powerful marketing tool that allows you to not only attract new customers, but also provide a better customer experience to existing ones. Communicating on a personal level allows for better engagement and moreover, interaction. And it is the interaction with customers that is crucial here. For one, it allows you to learn and adapt based on the feedback you receive, so you can use Viber for Business better and better. But it also makes your customers feel like they are the focus of your attention and that you are fully meeting their needs.
And statistics confirm that customers like communicating via Viber. Of course, this means that it will also bring you the desired results. The key and most importantly measurable features of Viber Business messages are:
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High open rate of your messages (up to 97%),
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Speed of opening delivered messages (within 3 minutes),
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And last but not least, a high conversion rate, which, depending on the type of campaign and audience, can reach values even above 50%.
With a bit of exaggeration, this gives us a snapshot of an almost perfect marketing tool that no successful seller or marketer can afford to miss.
From traditional SMS to Viber Business messages
If you've been limited by the number of characters, the inability to attach an image, QR code, photo or even a promotional flyer when creating a message or campaign, then we have a solution for you. An alternative to the standard SMS message, which doesn't always live up to your expectations of what a campaign could or should look like, is the Viber Business message.
Viber Business messages give you a richer, safer, more personal and ultimately cheaper communication option based on a huge user base of over 1.3 billion users in over 190 countries. If you add a little bit of statistics to that, such as 70+ million interactions every hour, 35+ minutes spent on Viber per day, 30+ messages sent per day per user, then the success of your marketing campaigns is guaranteed.
Verified account in a familiar environment
Have you ever replied to a message where you were not sure if it was a real sender or a crook? Probably not. That cannot happen with Viber. It provides verified business accounts, so it is clear at a glance who is trying to reach them. This way, you can present yourself in the Viber environment and communicate with customers under your business name or your e-commerce website address, add your logo and additional company information. This increases the likelihood of your messages being opened and read and reduces the time your audience engages with your campaign.
Rich content of Viber messages
But let's take a closer look at the benefits Viber for Business brings you. One great feature will be especially appreciated by those of you who like to express themselves extensively. Compared to a regular SMS with just 160 characters, you can send messages of up to 1000 characters with Viber. That's a huge difference that gives you the chance to write a message that encompasses everything important.
And for the more demanding among you for whom even this isn't enough, Viber Business allows you to insert into your message:
- images,
- GIFs,
- emojis,
- interactive buttons,
- dynamically generated QR codes,
- direct links,
- and more.
This enriches the text of your message and makes it more personal, which has a positive effect on the emotions of your customers and makes them much more interested. Deliberately compare how the following examples affect you and ask yourself which of the two messages you would prefer as a customer. I'm probably guessing right when I say you would choose the Viber message on the left, right?
100% delivery of your messages
One of the other invaluable features is the ability to use a backup SMS channel. The big advantage of this solution is that you don't have to worry about whether your customers have Viber installed on their phone or if they are connected to the internet. Simply send your campaign and your message will reach them either through their preferred Viber channel or through a backup SMS. Your message will be delivered to them no matter what and that's what matters.
The only thing that changes is your cost based on the delivery rate of your Viber messages. The more messages from your campaign that are successfully delivered through the Viber channel, the lower your costs will be, as a Viber business message is approximately 50% cheaper than an SMS.
Two-way communication with customers
Do you want effective two-way communication? No problem. Imagine, for example, sending your customer a Viber notification when their shipment has been sent. But the customer's goods arrive in damaged packaging. Instead of having a complicated email correspondence with you, the customer simply sends a photo of the damaged packaging as part of your two-way Viber communication. You can then immediately contact your carrier to ask for an explanation and inform the customer of the resolution of the situation.
Simple and personal. I dare say that this kind of communication is a wish come true for every customer who will surely be happy to come back to you.
All safety guaranteed
GDPR is a frequently discussed topic in the communications industry today. And you may be wondering where Viber stands on security, and whether you can share sensitive information and data within the app with your customers with peace of mind. It's fair to say that Viber takes this topic very seriously. They comply with both GDPR and other regional data privacy laws. What does this mean in practical terms?
Unlike some other chat apps, Viber can't read or access your conversations with customers. This is all thanks to the use of end-to-end encryption. In other words, neither Viber nor any third party can use the data you share with customers in any way, even for targeted ads. That's pretty refreshing these days.
Not only is your communication protected by encryption by default, but once delivered, nothing you share is stored on Viber's servers. Sent business messages reach the recipient as an encrypted code. If the recipient's phone is turned off or has no internet connection, then your message will wait patiently on Viber's servers for a limited time (don't worry, it's safe and encrypted here too) before it's received or deleted.
New feature: Video messages
Viber isn't resting on its laurels, but is constantly evolving its app so you can communicate with your customers in a more effective and engaging way. The latest hot news is that you will soon be able to send video files within the Viber Business channel. With video messages, you can engage your audience with engaging and useful content that will allow you to showcase your products, services or upcoming events even better. Just imagine how many lines of text you would need to describe something that only requires one short, to-the-point video. So get excited, this new feature will be available to you in the second half of December. The maximum video size will be 200 MB and the available formats will be 3gp, m4v, mov and mp4.
Joining Viber for Business and BulkGate together
If you have made it this far, it's obvious that you're excited about Viber for Business with all its features. And that's not really that surprising. Compared to SMS and other chat apps, it has several advantages. But there is one more thing you need to do in order to use this service. And that is to register with BulkGate, as an official business partner of Viber, and ask for your verified business account. You can't ask for one directly on Viber. Just a technical note, the name of your business account (text sender) can contain a maximum of 11 characters, and both numbers and upper and lower case letters can be used.
Let me briefly show you how easy it can be to create, send and manage your Viber campaigns directly on our portal. I won't go into detail. You can find the details on our help center, or in another blog post.
Creating and sending campaigns
Creating a Viber campaign is very straightforward. In just a few steps, you can go from selecting your contacts to sending your campaign. If you want, you can activate SMS backup within the campaign and automatically forward undelivered Viber messages through the SMS channel.
When writing the text of your campaign, you can add variable values such as addressing the customer to make your message more personal and catch the recipient's eye, add an image, emojis, links, an interactive button, and more. The advantage of BulkGate is that you can define the text of the Viber message and the text of the backup SMS message separately. You won't end up forwarding an undelivered 1000 character Viber message via SMS, which would make your campaign much more expensive.
Cost estimate
As I have previously outlined, Viber Business messages are significantly cheaper than traditional SMS messages. In the Czech Republic, it's about 60% cheaper (but check our price list to see for yourself). But some of your customers don't use Viber yet, or won't be connected to the internet when you send them a message. In that case, how much will your campaign cost? It's good to have at least an estimate, and BulkGate can give you one.
In the campaign overview, you can change the percentage estimate of how many customers in a given country are using Viber based on your assumptions. This will allow you to visualize the potential cost of your campaign, which can be very useful when you don't have enough credit, for example. I will just point out here that these costs are really purely hypothetical and are based on your prediction. Until you know the exact number of active Viber users this value is only an estimate.
Overview and statistics of Viber campaigns
In order to evaluate a campaign, it is of course important to collect as much data as possible. This is because data can help you to see what impact your campaign has had on your customers and whether it has met expectations, or whether you need to change anything in the future. BulkGate's analytics, which are available for every campaign you send (whether you're sending through APIs or integrations), can help you answer these questions and many more with simple graphs and numbers.
Among other things, you can see how many of your Viber messages were sent (received), delivered and read by your recipients overall. This will ensure that you are always in the loop and informed about the status of your campaign. But among other things, you'll also see your total campaign cost, delivery rate, unsubscribe rate, and lots of other information in the analytics. Last but not least, from here you can directly communicate and answer your customers' questions and needs. Everything is in one clear place.
Viber Business messages are the next generation communication and marketing channel. Like SMS, they can be used in just about any industry you can think of - from shop owners, e-shops, courier service providers to financial institutions, insurance companies, doctors, and pharmacies. There are no limits.
Thanks to them, you will be able to present your products and services much better, communicate with your customers in their preferred environment, and save a lot of costs. They can also serve to make employees or citizens more aware of important events and happenings in the community, of which there were many during the pandemic.
Interested in Viber for Business? Come try it out with us :-)