Barry Group

Barry Group is one of Ireland’s leading retail food and drink wholesalers, distributing products to a customer base of more than 1,500 retailers every week.

As with most wholesalers, keeping their customers informed about deals, new products and critical business updates is a crucial part of driving extra revenue for Barry, so they decided to explore b2b.store’s WhatsApp Business API platform, ProConnect.

The Barry Group team created a WhatsApp channel and added opted-in customers to it, building a strong audience to send our promotional messages.

With a combination of eye-catching imagery, clear copy and simple-to-follow calls to action that succinctly communicated what was on offer (and how to redeem it), the team achieved high engagement – most notably within the first 24 hours of being sent.

Barry Group recorded a 91% open rate for messages overall, with 81% in the first day and 58% within the first hour, numbers that couldn’t be matched by another communications channel.

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Achieving unrivalled engagement with our ProConnect WhatsApp service

open rate for messages within an hour of being sent

average WhatsApp message open rate

open rate for messages within an hour of being sent

How are Barry Group using their WhatsApp channel?

What sort of content is Barry Group sending?

Barry Group mainly sends messages that are promotional sales or announcing the stocking of new or popular products. Sales can include sharing brochures, limited-time monthly deals, or flash sales, with Barry mixing up what they send to keep messaging varied and inspire engagement from their customers.

What type of calls to action does Barry include?

Barry’s main aim in most messages is to convert sales, so calls to action are usually directing customers to its online-ordering portal or to make a phone call to its telesales team. When promoting a range, a ‘browse’ button is added to the bottom of message, alongside the purchasing options. All calls to action are clear and simple, including an instruction as the button.

How does Barry achieve such speedy open rates?

The secret to Barry’s success is clear messaging, so customers can quickly see and understand what’s being sent to them. Messages include visual images and straightforward copy, which spells out the content of the message and any time constraints or deadlines to create urgency to act now. This translates well in a WhatsApp message preview notification that pops up on a customer’s phone and the point they decide to open the message now or swipe it away.