When you are closing for a holiday, or you want to tell people about an offer, you can send one message to a list of customers instead of opening each chat.

Steps

  1. Go to WhatsApp Inbox.
  2. Start a New broadcast.
  3. Add the people you want to send to. You can pick customers, or type a Phone number with country code for somebody who is not saved.
  4. Press View all recipients to read the list back before you send. Remove takes anyone off it.
  5. Choose the message you want to send.
  6. Send.

Why you have to pick a ready made message

WhatsApp does not let a business send whatever it likes to somebody who has not messaged first. The wording has to be approved by WhatsApp in advance. That is why a broadcast asks you to choose a message rather than type one.

If the message you want does not exist yet, it has to be created and approved first. Approval usually takes a few minutes but can take longer.

After you send

Each person gets it as a normal one to one message. They do not see each other, and there is no group.

Replies come back into your inbox as ordinary conversations, so a broadcast can turn into ten chats. Send it when somebody is around to answer.

Conversations that came from a broadcast are marked, so you can tell them apart in the list.

Before you send to a big list

Send it to yourself first and read it on a phone. Once it has gone out it cannot be pulled back.

Think about the time of day. A message at ten at night reads very differently from the same message at ten in the morning.