KakaoTalk Biz Board to Be Launched in Q3
Kakao Corp. will officially launch its KakaoTalk Biz Board (TalkBoard), a B2B service based on KakaoTalk, in the third quarter of this year, joining competition with Facebook and Instagram. TalkBoard, which was unveiled in May, is a service that connects KakaoTalk users with companies to allow the users to make reservations, register memberships and purchase goods and services with simple clicks.
Kakao announced its B2B business strategy in a meeting with reporters at the Center Point Building in Jongno-gu, Seoul on June 26. "We have continued to introduce new services to transform KakaoTalk mobile messenger into a business platform," said Lee Jong-won, chief of Kakao’s Business Strategy Team. “We will link the massive traffic and user behavior of KakaoTalk while focusing on strengthening business connectivity.”
TalkBoard is a tool to support customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing such as corporate branding, events and advertisements. It connects users to advertisements, product option selection and payment in KakaoTalk without a separate application or subscription and a complicated payment process. It also supports post-marketing activities after reservations or payments.
In addition, TalkBoard features KakaoSync which helps attract KakaoTalk users as corporate members and Smart Message which helps companies to conduct high-efficiency message marketing activities using artificial intelligence. The company also launched the Chatbox Service that allows users to communicate with companies about orders, reservations, and consultations. KakaoTalk was finding optimal combinations to enable companies to maximize ad effects while minimizing adverse reactions by analyzing the behavioral information of users and feedback on advertisements, Lee explained.
"Due to concern about users’ stopping using KakaoTalk, we carefully selected some users to run ads for them and are carefully narrowing down favorable time zones and pinpointing locations and developing methods," Lee said. “As a result of the operation, we have come to the conclusion that it is possible to attain our sales goal only through a closed beta test."
A standard for advertisers to decide whether to run an ad is usually return on advertising spend (ROAS) of 400 percent. TalkBoard meets the standard. In order to enhance advertising effects, it is essential to collect and analyze thousands of pieces of customer behavior information and provide information that can interest customers.