With over 2 billion users and use in 180+ countries, WhatsApp has transformed the way we connect, not just with friends and family but also with the brands we love and trust. Brands that capitalize on messaging customers in this channel are not just heard but also seen—gaining the kind of attention that traditional email marketing envies.
Can you imagine launching an email campaign and witnessing nearly every message blossom into engagement? Unlike overcrowded inboxes, a WhatsApp notification rarely goes unnoticed. A good email open rate is between 17-28%, but WhatsApp can deliver up to 98% open rates, with most messages read within minutes. This isn't just marketing; it's the beginning of a digital commerce revolution, and it's no wonder that smart brands see WhatsApp as an excellent way to grab customer attention.
Digitization Saves Costs, Increases Reach, and Is More Environmentally Sound
One of Clickatell’s customers, a large retailer, used to print hundreds of thousands of broadsheets for their shoppers every month. These were distributed as newspaper inserts or mailed directly to consumers, generally seeing a conversion rate of 1-5%. The retailer replaced the printed brochures with targeted WhatsApp campaigns, sending out digital broadsheets instead, featuring the same products, prices, and promotions.
And the result? By far, the biggest benefit is the impressive reach that WhatsApp offers. Their campaigns enjoy excellent open rates of up to 95%, with low opt-out rates of around 6%. Their messages provide customers with the option to opt out of receiving marketing messages by tapping an opt-out button in the chat thread, ensuring you are only contacting customers who want to hear from you. Sending the campaign via WhatsApp was also 10.4% cheaper than printing broadsheets. Then there’s the reduction in the environmental impact. How many printed pages end up in the trash or on the street?
Redefining Engagement with WhatsApp
In marketing, grabbing attention is only the first step. Engagement is the journey. WhatsApp empowers brands to deliver innovative, interactive messages on a platform users trust and regularly engage with. Its global ubiquity and rich media capabilities make it a versatile tool for creating deeply personalized and contextually relevant brand experiences. Hundreds of millions of people a day use WhatsApp to contact businesses, making it an important customer service channel through customer-initiated messaging. What about the opportunities that exist for marketing on WhatsApp, with business-initiated messaging that can be used to start personalized, impactful, and meaningful communication?
WhatsApp isn't just a messaging app; it's become a sophisticated channel for real-time, two-way conversations between businesses and customers, at every phase of the customer journey, and through the marketing funnel. Adopting a full-funnel approach to WhatsApp messaging ensures customers not only stay engaged but are also motivated to take the next step in the journey:
Top of funnel - awareness: Grab attention and build awareness by sending media-rich messages that showcase your products or services, utilizing images, videos, and interactive content to captivate your audience. Robust interaction helps drum up interest and initiate a connection with potential customers.
Middle of funnel - consideration: Nurture leads and drive conversions by sending personalized messages and unique offers to customers. Use WhatsApp's messaging capabilities to deliver targeted content, building trust and increase the likelihood of conversion.
Bottom of funnel - conversion: Recover potentially lost sales by sending helpful reminders to customers who have abandoned their carts. Leverage the power of a WhatsApp conversation to engage with these customers on a more personal level and provide them with support and incentives to complete their purchase. Additionally, create remarketing content in the form of ads that direct customers to a WhatsApp conversation, where they can continue the buying process seamlessly.
Using WhatsApp, businesses can optimize their marketing efforts and create meaningful interactions with customers. The platform's rich media capabilities, personalized messaging, and convenient conversational interface make it an ideal channel for driving customer engagement and conversions.
A Gateway to Meaningful Messaging
To take advantage of the thriving WhatsApp Business messaging ecosystem, Clickatell has built Campaign Manager, a user-friendly broadcast messaging web app specifically for sending WhatsApp messages. It's designed to streamline outbound marketing efforts, ensuring messages not only reach their destination but also resonate with their recipients.
Campaign Manager enables marketing teams to craft, schedule, and dispatch messaging campaigns through a simple, intuitive interface, allowing the team to focus on crafting compelling messages, not navigating complex software.
Key features include:
Creating, scheduling, and sending WhatsApp messaging campaigns.
Sending approved WhatsApp templates already set up in your account.
Uploading recipient details in bulk via the web front-end, or SFTP.
Receiving and viewing customer responses.
Creating and managing auto-responses.
Managing customer opt-outs.
Connect, Interact and Transact with Customers
Digital marketing is not just about broadcasting a message; it's about starting a conversation. As the mobile messaging market grows, the need for a sophisticated messaging tool becomes clear. Clickatell understands this, offering a new way to engage, impress, and foster lasting relationships with customers. Our Chat Commerce Platform empowers businesses to connect, interact, and transact with customers on the channels they love and use daily.
Supercharge your marketing this year with efficiency and effectiveness. Make each message count, and every conversation matter. In this world, reach and engagement are not just metrics; they are cornerstones of customer connection. WhatsApp isn't just another channel in the digital marketing repertoire—it's an opportunity for sophisticated, modern customer engagement, and in the competitive race to win customer attention, WhatsApp is your secret weapon. Embrace conversational marketing, where every message sent is an opportunity to nurture, to sell, and to grow.
Step into the future of business messaging.
SMS and two-way channels, automation, call center integration, payments - do it all with Clickatell's Chat Commerce platform.
