Maximizing WhatsApp Engagement Delivery Rates in the Education Industry: Best Practices Using Meritto – Meritto

Overview

WhatsApp has become an essential tool for educational institutions to communicate with students and scale their enrollments throughout the admission journey. However, as Meta continues to evolve its WhatsApp message acceptability algorithms to combat promotional spamming, educational institutions must adapt their WhatsApp engagement strategies to maintain high delivery rates and foster meaningful engagement with prospective students.
Going forward, effective WhatsApp marketing will now require incorporating Echo, Niaa WhatsApp, WhatsApp transactional messages, marketing automation, and well-structured content that fosters bidirectional engagement between students (users) and counselors (WhatsApp Businesses). This contrasts the previously used traditional unidirectional broadcasts, which the Meta has now controlled.
Following best practices is crucial to ensure your messages are effectively delivered and resonate with the right audience. Below is a comprehensive guide on how to maximize WhatsApp engagement delivery rates.

Build a High-Quality Student Opt-In List
Segment Your Audience for Personalization
Use Multiple WABA Numbers for Scaling Limits & Deliverability
Use Interactive WhatsApp templates with rich media visualization to build engagement:
- Visual Effects using Images, Documents or Videos
- Prompt student to respond
- End WhatsApp Message Content to Encourage Engagement
- Enable "Reply with STOP" & Restart functionality of Meritto in all templates
- Broadcast vs Engagement: Evolving the Mindset for Utilizing the WhatsApp Platform
Execute a higher balance of transactional (utility) and engagement (service) vs promotional (marketing) to maintain a healthy ecosystem
Build bidirectional engagements with students:
- Using Echo to answer student queries
- Using Niaa WhatsApp ensures 24*7 engagement
- Using marketing automation for student activity-based real-time engagement
Maintain overall higher message inflow on a WABA Number from students vs overall outflow to students
- Placing the WABA Icon on the Website, Student Application Portal, and Advertisements
- Promoting WABA Number on Emails
Maintain a Green Quality Rating for all WABA Numbers and WhatsApp Templates
Real-Time Student Engagement Using WhatsApp Automation
Optimize Message Timing and Frequency
Vernacular templates in local languages preferred to build engagement
Deploy Integrated Multi-Channel Communication Strategies to Ensure Communication
Significantly Higher Engagement on Verified Leads
Limited Engagement on Unverified Leads, Publisher Leads, and Raw Data: 3 Message/Contact
Use Multiple Batches of Smaller Chunks in Bulk Sent
Continuous WhatsApp Daily Limit Monitoring and Upgrades
Monitor and Adjust Based on Analytics
Stay Compliant with WhatsApp’s Policies and Guidelines

Build a High-Quality Student Opt-In List

Key Importance: Opt-in lists form the foundation of a successful WhatsApp strategy.
Best Practice: Ensure students explicitly opt-in to receive communication via WhatsApp. Please type “Yes, I’m Interested” in case you agree to receive admission update communications from the educational institute on WhatsApp.
How to Achieve: Take regular opt-in consent during initial messages and regular WhatsApp communications.

Stay Compliant with WhatsApp’s Policies and Guidelines

Key Importance: Compliance ensures message delivery and avoids penalties.
Best Practice: Regularly review and follow WhatsApp’s messaging policies.
How to Achieve: Ensure you adhere to guidelines on content, frequency, and opt-in/opt-out mechanisms.

Segment Your Audience for Personalization

Key Importance: Personalized messages boost engagement.
Best Practice: Segment your audience based on factors such as course, location, and student activities using personalization tokens in the Template Manager
How to Achieve: Create tailored messages for different student groups to make the communication more relevant and impactful.

Use Multiple WABA Numbers for Scaling Limits & Deliverability

Key Importance: Multiple numbers help distribute traffic to avoid hitting daily limits and spamming limits.
Best Practice: Use multiple WhatsApp Business numbers to send large volumes of messages.
How to Achieve: Distribute messaging across several numbers to scale communication without compromising deliverability.

Send Higher Engagement of Transactional Utility Messages from the Same WABA Number to the Same Audience

Key Importance: Consistency in communication increases trust and delivery rates.
Best Practice: Send larger transactional messages (e.g., admission status, form status, course status, exam schedules, fee reminders) from the same WABA number to maintain a larger share of transactional engagement as compared to promotional content.
How to Achieve: Assign one number specifically for transactional messages to ensure students recognize the source.

Monitor and Adjust Based on Analytics

Key Importance: Data-driven decisions enhance messaging strategies.
Best Practice: Use analytics to track key performance metrics like WhatsApp delivery rate, open rate, and read rate.
How to Achieve: Analyze performance data regularly and optimize your messaging based on these insights.

Use Interactive Message Templates with Rich Media

Key Importance: Rich media improves engagement and makes content more interactive.
Best Practice: Create templates with good-quality images, videos, documents, and interactive templates like quick replies and buttons.
How to Achieve: Leverage WhatsApp’s interactive templates and media capabilities to create dynamic and engaging content.

Real-Time Student Engagement Using WhatsApp Automations

Key Importance: Marketing automation ensures timely and relevant communication.
Best Practice: Automate messages based on student activity, such as registration confirmation or exam reminders.
How to Achieve: Set up automated workflows to engage students with real-time, relevant content based on their interactions.

Optimize Message Timing and Frequency

Key Importance: Proper timing and frequency ensure messages are received and acted upon.
Best Practice: Send messages at times when students are most likely to engage (e.g., avoid weekends or late-night hours).
How to Achieve: Analyze student behavior and optimize message timing. Avoid sending too many messages to prevent opt-outs.

Maintain a Healthy Sender Reputation

Key Importance: A strong sender reputation improves message deliverability.
Best Practice: Send relevant and engaging messages and avoid sending unsolicited content.
How to Achieve: Regularly clean your contact list and remove inactive or invalid numbers to maintain a positive sender reputation.

Deploy Integrated Multi-Channel Communication Strategies

Key Importance: Reaching students across multiple channels on all student touchpoints increases engagement.
Best Practice: Integrate WhatsApp with other communication channels such as Email, SMS, Telephony, and social media.
How to Achieve: Send follow-up messages via email or SMS after WhatsApp communication to reinforce key messages and ensure maximum reach.

Significantly Higher Engagement on Verified Leads

Key Importance: Verified leads are more likely to engage with your messages.
Best Practice: Focus on engaging students who have explicitly opted in or are verified.
How to Achieve: Prioritize communication with verified leads for better delivery rates and higher engagement.

Limited Cautious Engagement on Unverified Leads, Publisher Leads, and Raw Data

Key Importance: Very high messaging to unverified leads, publisher leads, and raw data may lead to poor engagement and spam reports.
Best Practice: Send only a maximum of 3 messages per contact with a gap of at least 2 days for every message to build engagement with unverified leads, publisher leads, and raw data and ask for proper consent for future communications.
How to Achieve: Engage high with leads who have opted in through trusted channels, and use caution when messaging unverified, raw data, or publisher-sourced leads.

Use Multiple Batches of Smaller Chunks in Bulk Sent

Key Importance: Sending larger sizes of bulk messages all at once can lead to message filtering by Meta. Example: 1 Lakh message in one go.
Best Practice: Break your message lists into smaller, manageable batches to avoid overwhelming recipients or triggering spam filters. Example: Maximum 25,000 messages in one go and a gap of two hours for the next chunk.
How to Achieve: Distribute messaging over time and in smaller segments to enhance deliverability.

Enable "Reply with STOP" & Restart Functionality of Meritto

Key Importance: Providing an opt-out option ensures compliance and prevents spam reports.
Best Practice: Always include a "Reply with STOP and RESTART" functionality built by Meritto in your WhatsApp templates.
How to Achieve: Allow recipients to easily opt out of further communication and restart the messaging process if they wish to re-engage. This will keep the delivery rate intact and no report as spam by students to Meta.

Continuous WhatsApp Daily Limit Monitoring and Upgrades

Key Importance: Monitoring your daily message limits helps prevent disruptions.
Best Practice: Regularly track your message limits and request account upgrades as needed.
How to Achieve: Monitor your account’s messaging thresholds and request upgrades to send larger volumes without hitting daily caps.

End WhatsApp Message Content to Encourage Engagement

Key Importance: Effective questions and CTAs at the end of the message drive higher engagement and responses from students.
Best Practice: End messages with clear calls-to-action (CTAs), such as asking students to click a link, reply, or register for an event.
How to Achieve: Use direct CTAs that prompt students to take action, increasing the chances of engagement and message success.

Conclusion

To maximize WhatsApp engagement delivery rates in the education sector, institutions must combine strategic planning, personalized messaging, communication automation, integrated multi-channel engagement, and the advanced features of Meritto’s WhatsApp Business API. By implementing these best practices—from building a high-quality opt-in list to leveraging data analytics and automation—educational institutions can enhance message delivery, increase student interaction, boost enrollments, and improve post-enrollment retention. Following these practices will help ensure your messages are delivered effectively, comply with WhatsApp's guidelines, and achieve the desired outcomes in your student communication efforts.
For further support or clarification, please reach out to your Meritto Customer Success Manager. Happy Enrollments!