How To Send WhatsApp Broadcasts (5 Simple Steps)

In this tutorial, I will show you how to broadcast promotional messages on WhatsApp using 100% WhatsApp-approved tools.

But there are some steps that you need to follow to do this without getting banned. That’s exactly what I am going to show you.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in!

What is a WhatsApp Broadcast?

With a WhatsApp Broadcast, a business can send mass messages to (potential) customers. It’s a great tool to send out announcements, promotions or build engagement with your followers.

Here are a few examples of WhatsApp Broadcasts you can use:

• Announce new product collections
• Notify about new sales (for example, a Black Friday Sale)
• Promote new deals (giving away free coupons after someone did an order)

In the rest of this tutorial, I will explain how you can send broadcasts on WhatsApp, in 5 simple steps:

1. Create a Free Manychat Account and Connect It to WhatsApp
2. Verify Your Facebook Business
3. Import WhatsApp Contacts into Manychat
4. Create a WhatsApp Message Template and Write the Message
5. Send the WhatsApp Broadcast with Manychat

Step 1: Create a Free Manychat Account and Connect It to WhatsApp

To get started, the first thing you need to do is create your own Manychat account. Manychat is my preferred platform for creating WhatsApp automations, and I also use it for my own clients.

I use Manychat because:

• Easy-to-use: If you don’t have any experience with WhatsApp automations, you can get started right away
• 100% Meta-Approved: So we can use them without the risk of getting banned
• Cheap: Manychat offers a free plan and its paid plan already starts at $15 per month

To create your free Manychat account, just click the button below (when you click, you get my 100% discount code):

Create Free Manychat Account

Then, click on Get started Free:

Choose for WhatsApp:

And log in with your Facebook account:

Once you are logged in with Facebook, your Manychat account gets automatically created.

Once you have done this, the next step is to buy a phone number and connect Manychat to that phone number.

I explain this step-by-step in my post on Creating a WhatsApp Bot:

Step 2: Verify Your Facebook Business

The second step is to verify your Facebook Business.

Only verified Facebook Businesses can send promotional broadcasts on WhatsApp.

Here’s a step-by-step video on how you can verify your Facebook Business:

Step 3: Import WhatsApp Contacts into Manychat (optional)

The next step is to decide to whom you want to send your WhatsApp broadcast.

If you have used Manychat before, you can just go to Contacts and search for the people you want to send the message to:

And then, you add a tag to everyone you want to send the promotional broadcast to:

If you haven’t used Manychat before and already have some phone numbers you want to send the broadcast to, you can upload these phone numbers into Manychat.

You can just create a simple CSV file, like I did here.

Next, click on Import.

Select the CSV file you want to import and confirm you have permission to add them into Manychat:

And determine how you want to map the fields of your CSV to the fields in Manychat:

So the First Name column in my CSV will be mapped to the First Name field in Manychat.

Manychat will then ask if you want to add a certain tag, so we can add the tag we created before and click on Import:

And now you’ve imported the WhatsApp contacts from your CSV file!

In both cases, you must have permission from the contacts to send them these promotional messages.

So, whether they were already inside your Manychat account or you uploaded the phone numbers from your eCommerce store, you need to have permission.

If you don’t have permission, you might get banned from the WhatsApp platform, so it’s absolutely crucial you have this.

Step 4: Create a WhatsApp Message Template and Write the Message

Now that you have the contacts you want to send a message to, you can determine what message you want to send.

To send this message, we use WhatsApp Message Templates. This is a special type of message inside WhatsApp that we need to use to send these promotional broadcasts.

Here is a detailed tutorial on WhatsApp Message Templates:

But for now, just keep in mind that we need to use these.

In Manychat, go to Settings and click on WhatsApp.

Next, click on Message Templates and add a new one.

So, let’s say, you are an eCommerce company, and you want to send a message to everyone that is a loyal customer.

You want to thank them for being one of your loyal customers and give them a 50% coupon code.

So, the template name will be Coupon Code for loyal customers. The template category is Marketing and the language is English:

Then, determine the contents of the message. You can use a text, image, video, or file in the header.

For now, I will just go with the text. And set it to:

{{first_name}}, here is your gift!

Thank you for being a loyal customer of eCommerceBizz, {{first_name}}! As a gift, we want to give you an exclusive coupon code that gives you 50% off on your next order!

Are you interested?

And we can also add buttons to this message. These can be Regular Buttons or URL buttons.

Regular Buttons trigger other WhatsApp messages. URL buttons directly go to your website.

For now, I will go with the Regular buttons:

Yes, Give Me The Code

No, Not Interested

And once you have done that, you need to click on Send to Review.

This will send the message template to WhatsApp.

Because WhatsApp is strict with these promotional messages, they need to approve your Message Template before you can send it.

So that means that someone from WhatsApp will look at your message and determine if it matches their rules. On average, this takes between 1-2 business days.

Step 5: Send the WhatsApp Broadcast with Manychat

Once you have done this and your Message Template is approved, you can actually send the broadcast inside Manychat.

In Manychat, go to Broadcasting and click on New Broadcast in the top-right corner:

Choose WhatsApp:

And select your WhatsApp Message template as your first message:

Next, connect the first button to another message:

Here is your discount code:

DISCOUNT50

Click on the link below to use it on our website 👇

https://chatimize.com 

And connect the Not Interested button to another message:

Allright, no worries!

So, this will be the content of the broadcast.

And then we can determine our target audience. So here, we can filter on our audience by adding conditions.

And since we added a tag at the beginning of our contacts, we also need to filter on that tag here:

On the right side, you can see what contacts will receive your broadcast.

And then, you can determine whether you want to send it now or if you want to schedule it for the future.

So if you want to schedule it in the future, you can click on the right button or otherwise you can just send it now:

What are the costs of WhatsApp broadcasts?

If you want to send WhatsApp broadcasts by using a tool like Manychat, you need to pay per conversation.

How much you need to pay depends on the country you are in.

For example, in the United States, you need to pay $0,025 per conversation.

And in India, you only pay $0,009 per conversation (less than 1 cent).

If you want to know how much you need to pay in your country, you can find the WhatsApp rates here.

Now It’s Your Turn

And that’s it! That’s how you can send promotional broadcasts on WhatsApp.

Let me ask you a question: How are you going to use this feature?

Please let me know by leaving a comment below!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I send a ManyChat WhatApp broadcast?

You can broadcast WhatsApp messages using Manychat in 3 simple steps:

1. Import WhatsApp contacts to Manychat
2. Create a WhatsApp Message Template
3. Send the WhatsApp automation via the “Broadcasts” feature in Manychat.

What is Manychat used for?

Manychat is a chat automation platform you can use to create automated flows for messages on different apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. I’ve done a detailed Manychat review, so if you want to know more about the platform do check it out.

What is the best tool for WhatApp automation?

The best tool for WhatsApp automation is ManyChat. It comes with a free version and is super easy to use.