Marketing · Fresh week
🍊 From Monday it is Fresh week: seasonal fruit and vegetables in all our stores.
Yesterday
- ❤️ 186
- 👍 104
Every store its own voice. One direction.
WhatsApp Channels in every store: stores publish with a single message, you stay in charge of rules, content and results.
Mercato Rivabella · Via dei Tigli
Channel · 1,284 followers
Via dei Tigli · bakery
🍞 Fresh out of the oven at the bakery counter: naturally leavened loaves. The first batch is out at 7:30.
8:15
Cerbero ✓ published
- ❤️ 214
- 😋 118
Via dei Tigli · deli
🧀 Our cheese costs less than at the supermarket next door: taste it and see.
Under review · Cerbero checks the channel’s rules before publishing
Reached the followers
Sample data · Photo: “Crispy rurar bread baked on a natural sourdough” by AS Photography from Poland, CC BY 4.0, modified
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A Channel is not a Business account
A WhatsApp Channel is a one-to-many way to talk to the people who follow you. Here, in four rows, is how it differs from WhatsApp Business and from broadcast messages.
| What changes | WhatsApp Channel | WhatsApp Business |
|---|---|---|
| How you talk | One to many: whoever runs the Channel publishes, followers read. | Conversations with individual customers and broadcast messages to contact lists. |
| Followers’ numbers | Followers’ numbers stay hidden from other followers, and from the admin unless they are already in the admin’s contacts. | The business has the numbers of the contacts it writes to. |
| How people join | From a link, a QR code or the Channels directory, without saving a number to their contacts. | For broadcast lists the contact must have saved the business’s number; for messages from the platform, their consent is required. |
| Replies | No chat back: followers react, vote in polls and answer the admin’s questions. | The customer can reply and a conversation opens. |
Without official channels, stores improvise
Opening and running a channel for every store by hand is too much for central marketing. So, where marketing does not reach, individual employees step in: each opens their own channel or group, with the prices and tone they think are right. And whoever coordinates the network sees nothing.
Today
- Channels and groups opened by individual employees
- Prices and tone that differ from one store to the next
- No visibility for marketing on what gets published
With Castalia
- A new official channel for every store, under your direction
- The new official channels take the place of the do-it-yourself ones
- The chain’s rules and tone, applied before anything is published
- You see what goes out and how it performs, store by store
One WhatsApp message, one post on the channel
Write on WhatsApp
Someone authorised sends a WhatsApp message to the number dedicated to publishing.
Cerbero applies the rules
Cerbero checks the message against the chain’s rules, before it reaches the people who follow the channel.
Publishing or review
The post is published on the right channel or goes to review, and whoever wrote it gets the outcome.
Musa inspires and helps create the content, Cerbero decides which messages go through.
Mercato Rivabella · Via dei Tigli
Channel · 1,284 followers
Via dei Tigli · bakery
🍞 Fresh out of the oven at the bakery counter: naturally leavened loaves. The first batch is out at 7:30.
8:15
Cerbero ✓ published
- ❤️ 214
- 😋 118
Sample data
You stay in control
Who can publish, what can go out, on which channels and when: you decide it, and it holds for every store.
Who publishes
- You enable the WhatsApp numbers of those who may publish and assign each of them the channels they look after.
- You suspend or revoke a number when needed; anyone who is not enabled gets a courtesy message.
- The list of publishers can also be managed from a CSV file.
- Three roles on the platform, to keep apart who reads, who moderates and who administers.
What gets published
- You write the rules in natural language, for example “reject content that mentions other chains”, and set them channel by channel.
- You can add a list of words not to use to the rules.
- Cerbero checks the text and the images of publishers’ messages, before they reach the people who follow the channel.
- What does not pass waits in a review queue: a moderator approves and publishes it, or rejects it, and the author gets the outcome.
- A post that is already live can be deleted from the channel.
Where and when
- One channel for each store or department, all run from a single platform.
- You write a post and publish it on several channels in one go.
- You schedule the day and time it goes out, as in an editorial calendar.
- You upload images from your computer and see a faithful preview of the post, as it will look in the WhatsApp channel.
The numbers of the people who follow the channel stay hidden from other followers, and from administrators unless they already have them in their contacts.
Request a demoInsights, store by store
Castalia gathers the growth and engagement of every channel: you look at one store at a time or at the whole network, and compare what central marketing publishes with what the stores publish.
Channel insights
Last quarter · Sample data
Followers over time
1,284+362 in the quarter
Mercato Rivabella · Via dei Tigli
Reactions by emoji
3,152 reactions
Reactions by publisher
Central against stores
- Via dei Tigli2,048 · 65%
- Central1,104 · 35%
Best content
- 🍞 Fresh out of the oven at the bakery counter: naturally leavened loaves.Via dei Tigli332 reactions
- 🍊 From Monday it is Fresh week: seasonal fruit and vegetables in all our stores.Central290 reactions
- 🧀 Saturday: tasting of small-producer cheeses at the deli counter.Via dei Tigli248 reactions
Followers over time
5,293+1,140 in the quarter
Mercato Rivabella
Reactions by emoji
13,850 reactions
Reactions by publisher
Central against stores
- Stores8,713 · 63%
- Central5,137 · 37%
Best content
- 🍊 From Monday it is Fresh week: seasonal fruit and vegetables in all our stores.Central1,536 reactions
- 🍞 Fresh out of the oven at the bakery counter: naturally leavened loaves.Via dei Tigli332 reactions
- 🥐 Wholemeal honey croissants, just out of the oven.Corso Europa301 reactions
Channel ranking
| Channel | Followers | Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Corso Europa | 1,512 | +298 |
| Via dei Tigli | 1,284 | +362 |
| Via delle Rose | 986 | +154 |
| Piazza del Sole | 871 | +207 |
| Largo Fontana | 640 | +119 |
Bring customers to the store channel
Every channel has its own QR code and its own link: put them up in the store and shoppers can follow the channel without searching for it.
QR code
Print it and put it where customers stop: at the checkout, on the shelves, on the flyer. They scan it with their phone.
Channel link
The same invitation as a link: use it in messages, on social media, in the newsletter and on the chain’s website.
Before you request a demo
The questions we hear most often. If yours is missing, write it in the form.
Do I need an app?
No. Publishers use WhatsApp as they always do: they send a message to the dedicated number. You work from the Castalia console, in the browser.
Will the stores really use it?
For people in the store it is the everyday gesture: a WhatsApp message. There is nothing to install or to learn, and you decide who can publish and on which channels.
Stores have already opened channels: what do we do with them?
They are replaced with official channels. Castalia manages new channels for the chain, one per store, under your control; channels opened by individual employees do not enter the platform. To follow the official channel, the QR code or the link is all it takes.
What happens if Cerbero gets it wrong?
What does not pass waits in a review queue, where a moderator approves and publishes it, or rejects it. If a post that is already live is not right, you delete it from the channel.
What about the privacy of people who follow the channel?
Followers’ phone numbers stay hidden from other followers, and from administrators unless they already have them in their contacts. Profile name and photo follow each person’s privacy settings.
How do we get started with Castalia?
We take care of it: we set up the platform and ask you for a number to dedicate to publishing.
Which AI models does Castalia use?
You can choose among the main generative AI models.
More questions? Let’s talk in a demo.
Request a demoRequest a demo
Leave us your details: we will write to show you Castalia or to send you the information you need.
What happens next
We write to you
We read your request and reply to the address you left, to set up the demo.
You see Castalia
A demo on sample data: a channel, the Cerbero rules, the review queue and the insights.
We talk about your case
How many stores you have, which channels you need and which rules you want to give publishers.
Request received. We will write to you soon.
Request received. We will write to you soon.
Prefer to write? Our address is touchbase@market3rs.com.