Back to blog
What sets WhatsApp newsletters apart from other digital send-outs is that they're far more conversational in tone. They also offer a clear alternative to traditional email marketing, which, when done poorly, can often be very wordy and dull by comparison. Given that you can use pictures and video messages, WhatsApp allows for a more original, eye-catching, and direct marketing style that gets straight to what you're trying to convey.
Explaining the Demand for Conversational Marketing
In an age of mass social media and instant communication, some forms of marketing that were once an innovative means of spreading your company's message now often fall short of the mark. The return of investment of advertising is often difficult to gauge, and many forms of traditional marketing are being dwarfed by the outstanding organic reach of modern social media platforms. As competition continues to increase, companies must constantly look for the latest and most efficient ways to reach their target audience.
Conversational Commerce is a type of eCommerce that focuses on two-way conversations with customers via the use of online chat tools, offering an alternative to the indiscriminate barrage of information that users are subjected to daily from brands looking to promote their latest products and offers.
As an eCommerce business owner, you should be making a conscious effort to connect with your audience in a personal and familiar way. For starters, this means meeting customers where they are on a platform that they feel comfortable using.
Why Use WhatsApp Newsletters for Conversational Marketing?
First, the figures speak for themselves: people like WhatsApp and use it regularly. Recent statistics show that two billion people across the globe use WhatsApp monthly, making it one of the most widely used mobile messenger apps in the world. It also has an absolutely astounding open rate of 98% and a click-through rate of 45-60%. So, if your goal is to meet your customers where they are, there's a fairly high chance that the answer will be staring you in the face the next time you look at your phone.
Another clear advantage of using WhatsApp for eCommerce is that it offers a clear alternative to what can often be perceived as the cold, business-like setting of an email inbox. We all use WhatsApp to communicate with friends and loved ones, which means that the app has a familiar feel to it. The fact that WhatsApp has become such a huge part of our daily lives could also explain why 90% of people respond within 30 minutes of receiving a message.
Make Your WhatsApp Newsletter as Useful and Informative as Possible
Another upside that WhatsApp newsletters have over their email equivalent is that - for the moment anyway - there's no spam folder to speak of. However, be wary not to fall into the trap of thinking that this gives you carte blanche to fire out as many messages as you like. Always remember that pestering someone on WhatsApp to the point where they end up blocking you is every bit as bad as spamming them with emails; so keep your messages as short, sweet, and informative as possible.
To sum up, you should start thinking about WhatsApp newsletters for your online business as it allows you to:
Give customers personalized offers based on holidays, birthdays, or promotions, like Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Engage people with real-time messaging and a conversational tone to improve customer service and retention.
Stop worrying about messages ending in the spam folder thanks to WhatsApp's 100% delivery rates.
Benefit from WhatsApp's 90% open rates that give you a receptive audience from day one.
Here at CM.com, we make it easy for brands to get started with using WhatsApp newsletters to transform how you reach people with your products and services, providing you with a unique opportunity to transform a simple WhatsApp message into a rich channel of communication between you and your customers.
