WhatsApp Marketing: Tips for your newsletter campaign

With 2 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp is the most popular social network of all. Every day, around 100 billion messages are sent via WhatsApp worldwide (source: Statista), and in Germany alone, the messaging service has over 60 million active users. In the meantime, WhatsApp even has more users than the parent platform Facebook. With WhatsApp Business and the WhatsApp Business API , WhatsApp is now making this gigantic user base accessible to companies. This opens up completely new opportunities in online marketing for almost all industries. In this blog article, you will learn how to start a successful advertising campaign via WhatsApp and what you should keep in mind.

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What is WhatsApp Marketing?

But let's start from the beginning: What does WhatsApp marketing actually mean?

WhatsApp marketing or WhatsApp advertising includes all advertising activities that are carried out via WhatsApp. Above all, Business Initiated Messages - i.e. messages that your company sends to customers - fall into this category.

Within these Business Initiated Messages, a further distinction is made between two message types: transactional messages and advertising messages. Transactional messages are all messages that you send to your customers to execute an order. This includes, for example, payment and delivery notifications. Promotional messages are messages such as your WhatsApp newsletter that are sent to customers for pure marketing purposes. According to the GDPR, this requires a clear marketing opt-in from customers, which must be collected separately from the opt-in for transactional messages. Probably the most common form of WhatsApp online marketing are WhatsApp campaigns such as a newsletter.

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By the way: We at Mateo advise how you can send a successful WhatsApp campaign in compliance with the GDPR.

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The advantages of WhatsApp newsletter marketing for your business

With WhatsApp marketing, you have the potential to reach your customers where they are anyway. There are also many other reasons why you should enhance your online marketing with WhatsApp:

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1. personal customer relationship

WhatsApp is the medium your customers use every day to communicate with friends and family. Approached correctly, you can use WhatsApp marketing to build a very personal customer relationship. According to a meta-survey, as many as 80% of adults are actively interested in communicating with companies in the same way they would normally communicate with acquaintances or friends. Every day, 175 million people (source: Meta) already chat with a company on WhatsApp.

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2. measurable added value for your business

Compared to email newsletters, you can reach your customers much more effectively with a WhatsApp campaign. An average of 93% open rate and up to 60% click rate can be achieved with WhatsApp marketing. Compared to the 20% open rates of email newsletters, this is many times better. For your company, this can be reflected above all in a higher ROI.

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3. low-threshold and fast communication

With messengers like WhatsApp, you communicate 1:1 with your customers. This makes your company more accessible and reduces the barriers to contact. In addition, the use of WhatsApp can shorten response times on both sides. Especially customers who contact you due to a problem appreciate this very much. With message templates, the WhatsApp Business API offers them the possibility to answer frequent inquiries in a standardized way and with one click. Your customers are happy to receive quick, accurate responses and your employees are relieved by the standardized approach. Some of our customers have been able to significantly reduce the communication effort this way.

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5 tips to help you optimize your WhatsApp campaign

As with all forms of advertising, there are a few things you should keep in mind when planning and designing your WahtsApp advertising campaign:

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1. follow the WhatsApp Business guidelines

To prevent misuse of WhatsApp's advertising features, WhatsApp's parent company Meta has set up some rules and guidelines for the commercial use of WhatsApp. For example, advertising gambling or alcoholic products is completely prohibited. In addition, WhatsApp attaches great importance to companies using WhatsApp to offer customers a high-quality shopping or service experience. It is worth taking a look at the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy and the WhatsApp Business documentation before starting with WhatsApp Business Marketing.

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2. adapt your campaign to the medium

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What sounds simple at first glance and seems obvious, however, is often not or only insufficiently considered in the implementation. WhatsApp and the type of communication on the platform is fundamentally different from e-mail or SMS. Email newsletters are usually long and elaborately designed, SMS very short and without graphic elements. For a successful WhatsApp campaign, a middle ground of both must be found. Texts must never be too long, but an image is a welcome companion to a WhatsApp newsletter. Users expect a short, but at best multimedia interaction with their business on WhatsApp. Emojis are also ideal for emphasizing the advertising message they convey. But here, too, the right amount is crucial.

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3. offer added value to your customers

Since the goal of your WhatsApp campaign is to establish a personal relationship with your customers, you should make sure that you also offer them tangible added value. WhatsApp newsletters are not the right medium to advertise the latest special offer every week. Rather, remind your customers of service dates that they would otherwise forget, or use your WhatsApp newsletter to tell a story. If your customers don't get any added value from your newsletter, they'll unsubscribe within a few weeks.

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4. pay attention to the correct frequency

The frequency with which you send your WhatsApp newsletter is just as important as the quality of the content. No customer wants to be "bombarded" by business on WhatsApp. However, occasional tips and messages with added value are a welcome guest in the WhatsApp inbox. We recommend a maximum weekly frequency to start with. However, a 14-day cycle is also ideal for your WhatsApp campaign.

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5. create a feeling of exclusivity

As a personal communication medium to your customers, WhatsApp is particularly well suited to create an exclusive shopping experience. Use your WhatsApp campaign, for example, to let your customers look behind the scenes of the company. To increase the number of users of your WhatsApp newsletter, it also makes sense to present all new products or announcements there first before publishing them in other advertising media.

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What to avoid with your WhatsApp newsletter

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Three of the most common mistakes you should avoid in WhatsApp business marketing.

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1. too long messages

Over the last few years, the attention span of Internet users has become shorter and shorter. 10-minute YouTube videos have become 15-second TikToks. Lengthy emails have become short chat messages. If your WhatsApp newsletter is too long, recipients won't read it to the end and will lose general interest relatively quickly.

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2. a violation of the meta guidelines

Understandably, Meta is concerned that users are satisfied with the quality of the advertising campaigns received on WhatsApp. Therefore, if you repeatedly or grossly violate the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy, this may result in restrictions or a complete blocking of your WhatsApp profile.

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3. newsletter bombardment

As mentioned above, it is essential in WhatsApp marketing not to send too many messages to the customer. Although you might think that a lot helps a lot, this is clearly not the case here. If your customers feel bombarded with advertising messages, they will unsubscribe from your newsletter in no time.

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Conclusion

WhatsApp marketing adds another dimension to digital marketing. The topic is interesting for companies in almost all industries in order to sustainably strengthen customer loyalty, improve the shopping experience and positively differentiate themselves from the competition. But also internally, the use of the WhatsApp Business API can have many advantages: Reduction of communication effort, standardization of customer communication with templates or automatic customer reminders. The possibilities of how you can use WhatsApp in your business are almost unlimited. With a strong partner like Mateo at your side, the implementation of WhatsApp Business will be a real success!

Schedule a free consultation now and learn even more about the benefits of WhatsApp Business Marketing for your business.

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WhatsApp marketing: tips for your WhatsApp newsletter campaign