Arlen
[00:01:46]
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast. Everyone. I am your host Arlen Robinson. And today we have a very special guest Cesar Martin who is the CEO at Chatwith.io, which helps small companies all over the world to use WhatsApp to get business done. They work with service companies in sectors like education, healthcare, real estate and sectors where you need to chat before closing an appointment, reservation or sale. They currently have more than 500,000 users in their freemium platform and think WhatsApp is the ultimate marketplace for the service category. Welcome to the podcast. Cesar.

Cesar
[00:02:30]
Thank you very much for the time and the opportunity to share our project. So thank you.

Arlen
[00:02:36]
Yes, no problem. It’s a, a pleasure having you on and you know, really excited to talk to you today because when we were talking prior to the, the discussion for today is we’re gonna be talking about the use of WhatsApp and how businesses can use WhatsApp, that application to grow their business and to reach a, a kind of a broader global marketplace. And so WhatsApp is definitely something that’s really growing. It’s grown quite a bit over the past few years. I’m not that familiar with it myself. So I know you’re gonna enlighten us as well as our listeners, but, you know, before we dive deep into WhatsApp and the whole app itself, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and, you know, specifically how, how you got into what you’re doing today?

Cesar
[00:03:21]
Yes. This is the typical story of creating websites for clients. We were working with workers Rual mainly, and the reason we end up doing this mobile was because the email forms were lacking performance. Our client were suffering somehow the spam, the bots that flow your inbox with nonsense emails, forms that you don’t want to receive. Eh, what happens is, eh, we start to add a WhatsApp button to those websites for our clients and the performance change dramatically. There are two reasons, no, the users are in the phone. I mean, users are no longer checking websites with their computers. No, they are using their phones. And when they are checking with the phone, what they want to do is a quick check with, you know, like, are you open? Are you available? How much is it? Do you have this option? Can I talk with you? They want this quick interaction in WhatsApp. There is no span at the moment we can say, and it’s a beautiful channel for those users. So we decide to start working on the, on the product. We create a, a widget and then other options and, and how we end up doing chat with.

Arlen
[00:04:43]
Okay. That’s awesome. Great story. Thank you for sharing that. And your whole transition to creating this app for WhatsApp is kind of a similar story that I have with my company O side affiliate software. We started off kinda way back in the day, we’ve been around for a long time. In the year 2000, we started as a, a full service web development agency, developing custom websites on variety of platforms, PHP, websites, custom e-commerce applications. We did that for several years, and then we got to the point where we kind of saw some needs in the marketplace for some core functionality. And then that’s kind of how our affiliate software was birthed. We had some other solutions at that, but now our affiliate software is our, is our main tool. So kinda similar background where we came from kind of a full service web development background, and then create the creation of an app and then, you know, as a SaaS product. So I’m very familiar with your hope journey that you guys have been through.

Cesar
[00:05:39]
Exactly. I think it’s very important for entrepreneurs is to feel the pain of your customers. I mean, if you really feel the pain and you can find a solution and then create a product or a company after that, that’s a beautiful thing.

Arlen
[00:05:54]
Yeah. Yes, definitely. For sure. Well, great. Cesar. Well, thank you for sharing. All of that, where I wanna start off with is for our listeners that may not be familiar with WhatsApp, even though it is pretty hot, it’s still, you know, certain areas people may not have used it or not too familiar with it. Why don’t you invite us on exactly what the tool is? How does it work?

Cesar
[00:06:15]
WhatsApp is the messaging platform super basic in terms of functionality. I mean, it’s like mainly send a message to someone in with your phone. That’s it, it’s not like a wi chat wi chat is the Chinese person, and it’s a super app. You can do everything with wi chat, but WhatsApp is still a very easy to use messaging platform. Gotcha. The reason is super popular outside. The us is because the SMS was very expensive. Everywhere else in the us is true. That is being free almost forever, but outside the us was very expensive to say and SMS. So WhatsApp being free, become tsunami for everyone. Everyone was very happy to use, like free SMS with a simple app. So Europe is very big with WhatsApp, India, Asia, Africa, south America. Those are countries where you can reach 80, 90% tion in total. You have something like 2 billion users. OK. Wow. So it’s a nice marketplace. I will think it’s worth considering the channel because you have a ton of users. I mean, for B2C brands, I will say it’s something you need and see there, work here and on.

Arlen
[00:07:41]
Okay, great. Well, yeah, 2 billion is not small. That’s nothing to sneeze that for sure. Yeah. I didn’t really realize how, how big of a market it is. And it makes sense what you said as far as the, the SMS being costly. Other places overseas, I guess, here in the us, we kind of take it for granted where SMSs has been, has been free. You know, these days, most mobile phone plans these days for as long as I can remember have come with kind of unlimited text messaging. And it’s usually, so it’s usually not an issue to be able to send and receive text messages. We don’t even think about it. I mean, there was a point maybe I think maybe 15 or so years ago when there was, you know, costs for, you know, sending messages, you kind of had to buy chunks at a time and associate those with your plan. And you’re like, if you hit your limit, you would get overage fees, but yeah, those days are long over. So I, I, I can see how other markets needed another type of solution for the communication outside of SMS. So definitely, definitely makes sense. Now, in your opinion, why, why do you really see this whole WhatsApp as the ultimate market place for, you know, specifically service based businesses and you know, how would a, a typical service based business utilize it?

Cesar
[00:08:53]
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. And, and I think it’s part of why we are working on this product. No, we think there are two marketplaces. No, you can use Amazon. If you sell a point a products like shoes, boxes, beds, something that is easy to understand, little configuration and you have a brand behind it. That market Amazon is the perfect marketplace for that. If you are selling a service and that means hours by demand, knowledge, consultancy, advice, raw materials, you know, things that are complex, you need some Interac with the vendor within WhatsApp is the ultimate a marketplace for those guys. I mean, we see amazing things in our panels, like a fruit and vegetable. You can see amazing deal going through WhatsApp, raw material education auto cosmetic beauty is, is huge. Real estate is huge. Those are services categories. Nowhere you need to talk with someone. Those categories are never going to end up in Amazon. There is no fit for those. So you are going to need something where you can chat with your customer real time. Personalized, not a formal as email, because I mean, we see male as a legacy product. Not for, especially for young people and older people. I mean, people over, over 50, I will say they are out of email. No. And the millennials, they don’t understand the, the subject. No, they,

Cesar
[01:10:35]
I mean, that is structured is like, you know, 19 hundreds, not like you’re Mr. No, I mean, now you need to quickly get to the point. Can you help me? Yes. When we can meet, can we make an appointment? Can we do a booking? Can you pay me? That is happening real time in a chat conversation in WhatsApp for those markets? No. And that’s the reason we are focused on services because we think it is a huge opportunity. And we are focused on the small segment of the market. I mean, we try to work with the small companies because for big companies, there are other solutions like Intercom and this where you can chat, but it’s a more structure and incorporate, let’s say tools or something like,

Arlen
[01:11:22]
Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that. That actually kind of brought up my next question that I was thinking about as far as, when you’re looking at WhatsApp compared to some of these other solutions. Cause you know, these days there’s a ton of these chat tools, you know, and of clearly we even have the Facebook messenger. You have, like you said, Intercom, and then just like a million other chat tools that you can easily throw in your site to be able to facilitate that conversation. What’s the kind of, I guess you could say the value proposition for, with WhatsApp as opposed to some of these other tools. Why, why would one go with a WhatsApp?

Cesar
[01:11:57]
Yeah. That’s another super good question. And the reason we choose to work with WhatsApp or around WhatsApp, the main reason is one is the user. The moment the user jumps to WhatsApp is a real user. I mean, in a website you don’t know who is the other person. And if you request email name, et cetera, upfront people sometimes, you know, lie cheat. They give you fake information. So it’s not a very nice press channel to get, especially B2C. No, we are thinking always B2C. You need to get the real user. No, the faster, the better, no, you need to get the real number, the real person. And that is with one click in WhatsApp, not the moment they user jumps to WhatsApp, you have their phone number, their name, you know, more inform and it’s real information. No. The second is security. WhatsApp is a fantastic tool.

Cesar
[01:12:51]
Web web is a web chat times. You cannot add attachments. You cannot add files. You cannot add a photo. You cannot add a video. It’s because security, no, because you can hack the platform. No, with WhatsApp, all that is covered. So the same security is fantastic. And at the end of the day is what I said, no, you have the real contact. So in the first small, the user jumps to WhatsApp, you have the contact so you can follow on, do call backs. You can call the guy after the chat, you have the person in your phone. So that’s really valuable.

Arlen
[01:13:28]
That makes a lot of sense. Cause I know with a lot of these other tools, it requires you to, you know, you put in the name, you put in the email address. And in these days, a lot of people don’t wanna give away their email. They get tons of spam. A lot of people just put garbage information. They might not even put their real name cuz you know, they just wanna ask a quick question and then your support people or your salespeople on the other end, you still have to respond to it. They still take time. And then it becomes kind of, of a unfortunately after the conversation, you’re kind of lost there. It’s like a useless lead there because you don’t have the valid info. And I see with what WhatsApp I can imagine since you, they, I guess there’s a verification. Once you get the app and then create your profile it’s it has to be a real number I would imagine. Correct.

Cesar
[01:14:13]
And it’s the same. I think Intercom, you know, these web chats are very good for B2B corporate or big companies. Excellent. But B2C services, I think the way to go is with WhatsApp, I think is more efficient.

Arlen
[01:14:29]
Gotcha. You just kind of spoke about how a company would use it with regards to inbound marketing. You get some that comes to the site, they have some questions, they jump on the WhatsApp, communicate with them. You immediately get their information, their number, you can follow up with them after that. What are some other ways? Some actually what are some ways that it could be utilized this whole WhatsApp marketplace? How could it be used for just straight out outbound marketing, kind of reaching people that are within this, you know, 2 billion person network, I guess you could say, how would you utilize it that way?

Cesar
[01:15:03]
Yeah, correct. I mean the opportunity out there is huge. So you need to be very precise on your target. Know. I mean, when you have 2 billion users, you need to be really precise and like really focused on who you want to work with. And one tool that we love is WhatsApp groups, WhatsApp groups are fantastic, like forums to discuss topics. You can find ton of WhatsApp groups out there and you can just get into the group and start the conversation. We have groups where we have a waiting list to get into the group. Not because the, the quality is so good and the users we have is so good in terms of doing transactions or sharing real knowledge that we have waiting lists. Not because the groups are limited to 256 users. So it’s not like a huge group of users, but if you narrow to quality users, you’re going to have a nice, a nice group.

Cesar
[01:16:04]
So WhatsApp groups is one tool. Another is sending out a messages to your users. I mean, if you have a database with our tool, you can upload your contacts and you can send messages to those users, what you need to do. I mean, and you know, mailing list, mail team, you are happy. If you get 15% open rate, we accept that as something good or normal, but you can achieve 80 90 with a WhatsApp campaign, you know, because yeah, because a channel is not saturated. And if you do things right, like a welcome message, like, Hey, we are going to use this channel to talk with you. We want to share with you some information. And after that you start building you, your relation with your customers. That’s something you can do completely from our platform. And that’s it is, is, you know, recover contact with your customers. No, that’s, that’s what, you know, what you can do with WhatsApp.

Arlen
[01:17:02]
That’s very interesting. Now, as far as the outbound, let’s say you, you kind of described an outbound messaging campaign. Are you able to just message anyone? Or how does that work? How do you obtain this? And do you have to have authorization? Is it like opting in or how does it work?

Cesar
[01:17:19]
Well, all based on the location of the company and customers, you can have different TPR policies or data privacy policies. So all depends of, of your location, customer list, et cetera. If the customer has, you know, opt in for communications with you, you can start a WhatsApp. The same quality is very important. So you need to reach customers who know you. If you have a ton of spam or blocks from the users, WhatsApp can eliminate your numbers. So that’s something that you need to be very careful. And we always try to emphasize that aspect with our customers, not like do not send a spam. Does it make sense? No one is happy with spam. So build every, you know, build something that makes sense and the customer will be happy.

Arlen
[01:18:13]
So I see. So it is similar to email in the sense that you can mail out. But if you do get too many blocks in this case, then that can be a detriment to you. You can be canceled from the whole platform. If you get a certain amount. I see. So I see you, you have, have to be careful. You can’t just kind of go in there and say, oh wow. You know, I’ve got 2 billion people to my disposal. I’m just gonna go to town with this. It’s not that easy. I see.

Cesar
[01:18:39]
Yeah. Another option that we see more often is to use the WhatsApp button in your campaigns. You can use that in, you know, YouTube, Google ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads. I mean, you can use that everywhere. I see you think it’s a good option. Maybe it’s too, it’s a bit uncontrolled. The flow you are going to get, like you can get with see campaigns with 2000 customers going to your landing page or WhatsApp number or whatever. So you need to be really careful or you need to have the agents to manage the flow. No, that’s everything up to, up to the company, but it’s something you can do very nicely.

Arlen
[01:19:23]
So if you to kind of go to that example, if you’re using the WhatsApp button in the bottom of your emails, also, maybe in your, your Google ad campaigns, that’s of course giving you more exposure, giving people another channel to communicate with your company. When they’re clicking on that, are they kind of opting into receiving messaging from you or that’s not even necessary. They can just straight communicate. There’s no really opt in process.

Cesar
[01:19:48]
If you want to do it, you can do it. I mean, this is the same it based on your policy or leg legislation. I mean, if you need to do that, you can add a first message, like welcome. We are going to save your information in our database. So please accept that to continue this conversation. This is all based on your legislation. Cetera, we see a bit of everything, but

Arlen
[02:20:16]
That makes sense. So it’s not really a restriction within the app. It just depends on your local rules and laws with regards to contacting people. If they’re requiring that, you know, you have the prior authorization, get them to opt in, then you may have to do that. Otherwise you can just straight communicate with them. If they click on that button and they start communicating with them, technically you can keep it going. You could send them a WhatsApp. Maybe your staff talks to ’em right when they click that button. But then maybe a week later you could go ahead and send them an announcement and say, okay, we’re offering it discount for, you know, a holiday discount, whatever it is. And there’s no restrictions on doing something like that.

Cesar
[02:20:55]
Yeah. That’s completely normal. That’s what our clients have doing.

Arlen
[02:20:59]
Gotcha. Gotcha. Now with WhatsApp, I know everything is kind of revolved around this, the mobile mobile app, the mobile te is there a web interface for communication as well? Or is everything straight through mobile devices?

Cesar
[02:21:15]
Yeah, I mean the 2 billion users, 98% are in the, in the mobile app, but you know, for companies or agents or call centers, you can have desktop application. So you can have a more integrated application that also connects with your CRM, IPS, you name it. No, I mean, that’s something that also is happening. The, I mean there are more enterprise solutions. We work with a company called rocket set. That is, is very nice and they have a open, an open source solution. And also there are other companies like for example, is very well known. Call is very well known. There are a few companies who give you, you know, like this enterprise interface, no, like you can add or your agents, you can add teams or, you know, et cetera. So you can manage the inflow of customers with WhatsApp, with a team that connects in one number and everything is synchronized. So I mean, those are things you can do the same. No, the higher you go into the segment, the price there, everything becomes, you know, like solutions can be end up in net house per month, 5,000 per month. Things like that.

Arlen
[02:22:32]
That makes a lot of sense. I get that from the users’ perspective, most users are gonna be communicating if I’m a consumer just using the mobile app. And then from the businesses side, they’re gonna have more of these enterprise tools where they’re their agents. Aren’t, you know, they’re not all using the, the cell phones, they have the web interface. So I see that makes a lot of sense with regards to that. Now you, you, as we get ready to wrap things up, you did kind of mention some of those companies that are using the app and kind of how their perspective is from the enterprise side and how they’re communicating it with it. But if you don’t mind sharing some examples of some other businesses that you may be familiar with that are using what’s happen in general to kind of grow their business, foster more engagement with their customers and kinda what specific things have they done with regards to maybe different campaigns or things like that.

Cesar
[02:23:21]
I mean, we have a more than half a million companies using our solution. So we have a good number of use cases all over the, the world. I mean like companies everywhere and we are always super happy to see like real examples, not like how small companies can succeed in the channel. No education is a beautiful channel education. Like everything, universities, academies, individual teachers. Those guys have a super nice opportunity in WhatsApp because your customer is already a WhatsApp user. So education fantastic. Everything about training, coaching advice can be sports trainer, a mentor, a coach to do whatever the saying. These guys have a fantastic opportunity in WhatsApp. No, because you need this relation. That is not a, a point and click. No, I need to talk with you. I need to be with you to stay in touch. And that’s something that WhatsApp is going to help you a lot.

Cesar
[02:24:29]
Another segment we love is auto everything. Garage parts dealers. That’s a fantastic segment. And that segment is mainly WhatsApp. No, the guys selling things, they don’t go to the computer. No, they, they are in the field and they need to do everything on the phone. And, you know, WhatsApp is the channel for them. And finally, there is a segment that is also very good is real estate, not real estate the same. We love it. We see amazing WhatsApp profiles of realtors doing beautiful profiles. You full catalogs inside WhatsApp to get everything done there. And the same, these guys, what they do all day. Talk with someone, no, they chat with someone who is looking to rent to buy, to share, do whatever. So in all these segments, we are seeing amazing things. Being done. People is super at the moment. They have the tools. There is plenty of opportunities to move from physical to digital, with WhatsApp, and we can help you all over the place.

Arlen
[02:25:37]
Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Thank you for sharing those use cases in those different types of companies. Yeah. I can definitely see how the real estate would, would be really big on that. Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna have to look. I, I kind of stay up on all things real estate here in the Orlando, Florida area myself, but I’m just trying to think. I don’t know if I’ve seen, maybe it’s just, I hadn’t noticed, but I hadn’t seen too many realtors on this and with the profiles, but then again, I’m not, well after this conversation, I’m definitely gonna be all in, on WhatsApp. But prior to this, I hadn’t been too much in it, so I can definitely see how that could be very useful for, you know, realtors because it’s that communication. And then people are out looking at houses, things like that. And they want to be able to reach some and ask questions, things like that. Chat, you know, the WhatsApp becomes a great ability for them to do that. Especially they don’t necessarily have that person’s, you know, phone number right away. And they just want to quickly dialogue with them.

Cesar
[02:26:35]
Exactly. That’s a use case.

Arlen
[02:26:37]
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. All right. Well that’s good stuff. Cesar, I definitely learned a lot, like I said, after this conversation, I’m gonna be all in, I’m grabbing my cell phone now and I’m about to install the WhatsApp application myself and kind of figure out how it can be a benefit to our business. For sure. And I’m definitely talked to some of our team members, cause actually I think there’s some, we have members all over the, the world now, and I know some of our other team members, our own WhatsApp, so I’m gonna have to kind of pick rain a little bit about it, how we can implement some of its tools in a functionality to reach and, and engage with more customers or potential customers on our end. So, so yeah. Thank you for sharing. And lastly, before we let you go, as my listeners always know, I’d like to switch things up and ask one kind of final, fun fact questions. If you don’t mind sharing one, closing fun about yourself that you think our, our audience would be interested to know.

Cesar
[02:27:28]
Well, honestly there is no much, well I have two kids. I run a marathon once that was my achievement. And what I really like doing is this I’m happy every day because I do what I really like and enjoy helping all these businesses all over the world. And, and we are super happy, you know, and grateful about the thing we are building. And you know, it’s not like we see, well sometimes we see crazy stuff, but it’s more about people really looking for basic things. No like love, no, we see a to, I mean, dating, we didn’t talk about dating, but that’s the unicorn. I mean, oh, if we nailed that one, this will become a unicorn. No, but dating is a huge category, you know? And, and you, as you can imagine in WhatsApp, you can see plenty of profiles looking for love. So

Arlen
[02:28:25]
Right. I can imagine I, I had thought about that, but yeah, definitely. Now I see that’s a perfect platform for that.

Cesar
[02:28:31]
Yeah. We see, you know, very nice people all over the world trying to, you know, just making a living, reaching customers, selling what they really love and like, and, and we are super happy doing this and we super happy to share our project with you and to get more people on board. That will be fantastic.

Arlen
[02:28:52]
Okay. That’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that state, sir. I appreciate that. Also. Thank you for joining us lastly, before we let you go, if any of our listeners wanna reach out to you and get a hold of you, pick your brain anymore about WhatsApp and how it can help their business, what’s the best way for them to reach you

Cesar
[02:29:09]
WhatsApp. Of course. And we will share a link if it’s okay with you that where people can just click and go to my WhatsApp and we can chat there. That’s the way to go. If not the website is chat with do IO.

Arlen
[02:29:23]
Okay. Gotcha. Chat with that. IO. We great. Say side. Thank you. We’ll have that link in the show notes as well as on our website transcript. And we’ll try to add a button for the WhatsApp as well, so people can, can click on that and communicate with you directly for sure. Well, awesome. Cesar. Well, it’s definitely been a pleasure talking to you. I appreciate you coming on and yes. Thank you for joining us today on the e-commerce marketing podcast.

Cesar
[02:29:47]
Thank you byebye.

speaker 1
[02:29:50]
Thank you for listening to the e-commerce marketing podcast. 

Podcast Guest Info

Cesar Martin
CEO at Chatwith.io