20 May 2021

What Are Bulk WhatsApp Messages and How To Use It Effectively

Many businesses use WhatsApp to communicate more personally with their customers. But how do you send messages in bulk to your contacts? Read on to find out how!

Faye Chong

Content Marketing Lead

Reading time: 6 minutes

Gone are the days where people only used WhatsApp just for communication with friends and family. Businesses are now using this popular instant messaging app to connect more personally and directly with their customers.

After all, with over 2 billion active users worldwide and 100 billion messages exchanged every year, WhatsApp is a great way to market your business.

But what if you want to send bulk WhatsApp messages to your customers? Do you have to do it manually? Is there a WhatsApp feature for this?

Well, you’re in luck because this is where WhatsApp’s broadcast feature comes in.

But what exactly is WhatsApp Broadcast and how does it work? 🤔 Continue reading this article as we answer questions you have about broadcasting!

Send more WhatsApp messages in lesser time 💬

Start your 7-day free trial now to start broadcasting messages to your customers on WhatsApp — completely free of charge.

What is WhatsApp Broadcast?

What can I use WhatsApp Broadcast for?

Businesses use the broadcast feature for many different purposes, and here’s our list:

Inform customers of upcoming sales, events, or webinars
Inform customers of store closures
Announce new product launches
Share exclusive discount codes with your list of contacts
Promote a new store opening

And many more!

Limitations of WhatsApp Broadcast

While WhatsApp Broadcast messages sounds like a dream, don’t rejoice just yet! To protect the experience and prevent spam for WhatsApp users, there are certain broadcast limitations put in place.

1. Only contacts who have your number can receive your message

You can’t send WhatsApp broadcast message to contacts who don’t have your contact number. Only those who have added you to their contacts will receive your broadcast message.

This can be a huge hurdle for some businesses because customers rarely save a business’ contact number.

2. There is a maximum number of people you can broadcast to

Okay, let’s say all your customers have your contact number and you’re able to bypass the first WhatsApp business broadcast limit.

Here comes the second one. You can only send a broadcast message to a maximum of 256 recipients in each WhatsApp broadcast list. To broadcast to more than 256 contacts, you need to create another WhatsApp broadcast list.

Imagine having thousands of customers to reach out to, how many lists do you need to create? This just sounds like such a pain! 😩

3. No APIs or integrations

You can’t integrate WhatsApp business with any other apps, which can slow down processes and productivity.

You’d have to manually record customer information and input them into your CRM systems. While that sounds manageable if you’re speaking to 1 or 2 customers, we don’t even want to think about how it’ll go down if you have over 50 chats. *shudders* 😰😰😰

4. Strict template guidelines

WhatsApp message templates are specific message formats that businesses use when sending messages to their customers.

Here are some reasons why your templates may get rejected:

Grammar or spelling errors
The language selected does not match the content of your message template
It is submitted in an incorrect format
Templates are considered promotional
Messages request personal information from customers

And the list goes on…

As you can see, there are several guidelines you have to follow to be able to submit your template for review. This can take anywhere from 1 to 3 business days to get your template approved.

Think about the amount of time wasted! Furthermore, it could be 1 to 3 days wasted if your template doesn’t get approved. 😥

Is there a solution?

With all these Whatsapp business account broadcast limit, is there a way around it?

The answer is, yes of course! 🎉

NovoChat, an omnichannel chat solution for sales communication, bypasses all these limitations. This means that you aren’t restricted by all these rules and can freely broadcast messages!

For example, you can send bulk WhatsApp messages to all your contacts, regardless of whether they’re an existing or new contact. Simply upload a list of contacts, type in a message, and hit send!

You can even send personalized messages to each individual contact number by uploading a CSV. file with different messages tagged to each number.

Additionally, you don’t have to worry about whether your WhatsApp templates have to be pre-approved before being able to send them. 😉

🚨 However, do take note that you should always be ethical and refrain from spamming your customers. This will only reflect badly on your business.

How to send bulk WhatsApp messages using NovoChat

For existing contacts

1. To get started, create an account with NovoChat (for free) and set up your workspace by connecting your WhatsApp Business account. Import contacts to your workspace.

2. After importing all your contacts, navigate to ‘Broadcast’ on the left panel and hit the ‘New Broadcast’ button.

3. Fill in your broadcast name, schedule a time to send it, and the broadcast channel — In this case, select WhatsApp. Select ‘Send to existing recipient’ and type in your message. You can also insert placeholders to make the message more personalized! (If you’re sending to new recipients, jump to the next section).

4. Select from your list of WhatsApp contacts and click on ‘Continue’.

5. Double check to make sure that your messaging and contacts are accurate. Once that’s done, click on ‘Send Now’ to broadcast the message! If you’re not ready, simply click on ‘Save as Draft’ and come back to it later.

And that’s all the steps you need to take for broadcasting messages to your existing contacts!

For new contacts

The whole process is still similar, just that instead of selecting ‘Send to existing recipients’, you select ‘Send to new recipient’.

1. So once you’ve set up your NovoChat account and connected to WhatsApp Business, navigate to the Broadcast page and select ‘New Broadcast’.

2. Fill in the required fields and choose ‘Send to new recipient’.

3. Upload your CSV. file and follow our template of ‘Phone’ ‘Message’.

4. Once you’ve uploaded your CSV., click ‘Proceed’. You’ll see a preview of the messages sent out to the recipients. Double-check and make sure that all the numbers and messages are correct.