In today's digital landscape, conversational channels have become a vital part of customer engagement strategies. Brands now have the opportunity to connect with their customers at every stage of the customer lifecycle, from customer journey steps like awareness, interest, desire action, to pre-sales support, ask&order curation during purchase decision making processes, and post-purchase care.
The broad spectrum of use cases for each and every communications channel not only allows companies to optimize customer engagement activities but also enhances the overall shopping experience for consumers.
In this article, we will explore three popular conversational channels for marketing: WhatsApp, SMS, and email. By understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each channel, businesses can make informed decisions about which one(s) to incorporate into their marketing strategies.
Deciding on your communicational marketing mix: It all starts with Email
Adding a second communications channel - or multiple channels - to your retention strategy will pay off sooner or later. Depending on facts such as user demography, geographical location of your business and clients, as well as budget thresholds and channel concepts, you will decide on one - or multiple - of the following:
- SMS/iMessage/MMS
- Mobile App
- Direct Mailings
- Other Messengers
All of those have multiple up- and downsides, as can be seen in the following graphic, created and provided by our Chatarmin founders team:
Source: chatarmin.com
Email Marketing: An Ever-Present Channel
Despite numerous predictions about its demise, email remains a highly active and effective marketing channel. However, it's important to note that different age cohorts have varying preferences and behaviors when it comes to email. According to a study, 74% of Baby Boomers, 72% of Generation X, 64% of Millennials, and 60% of Zoomers believe that email is the best channel to receive information from brands. Therefore, understanding the age demographics of your target audience is crucial in determining which channels to prioritize.
Email Statistics: Insights and Benchmarks
Let's delve into some interesting email statistics:
- Approximately 8 out of 10 people open a welcome email from a brand, generating 4 times more opens and 10 times more clicks than other types of emails.
- Open and click rates are typically higher when brands send less. We have witnessed brands sending the mandatory newsletter, multiple newsletters and only segmented hyper-personalized email campaigns. Needless to tell you which concepts work better in terms of email marketing KPI's.
- The average email click-rate across all industries worldwide is 1.3%, and the average bounce rate is 10.1%.
- Mobile optimization is of utmost importance, as 59% of Millennials and 67% of Zoomers primarily check emails using their smartphones. It's worth noting that around 73% of businesses are already optimizing their emails for mobile devices.
With these statistics in mind, it's clear that email marketing continues to be a powerful tool for customer engagement and should not be overlooked in your marketing efforts.
Whilst email is the core channel of most retention strategies, it is worth noting that many young people don’t even use email anymore, despite some not even owning an email account.
Moreover, it is safe to say your email marketing KPI’s will suffer, the bigger your audience gets, and the more email marketing you do.
Make sure you don’t miss out on marketing through Email to your customers on revenue-critical campaigning days such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mothers’ Day, and so on. Reaching only 25-30% of your audience - a totally reasonable Email Marketing Opening Rate - will have you lose out on a bunch of revenue, exactly, when you need it the most.”
SMS Marketing: Global Reach and Direct Connection
SMS marketing offers several advantages, primarily its extensive global reach and the ability to send messages without relying on internet connectivity. This makes SMS an invaluable channel for businesses looking to connect with customers in areas where mobile data may not always be available or affordable.
If you contemplate adding SMS to your communicational strategy, make sure though that SMS is not a heavily outdated communications channel per se already, at least in the markets you are operating your business in.
Whilst iMessage is huge in the US, SMS is still very commonly used in Scandinavian countries. In the DACH region though, SMS has a spammy taste and no one is using it for its daily communications, anymore.
Certainly, an empty - or spammy - environment is not where you want to drop your messages when trying to reach your customers in a favourable and professional way.
SMS Statistics: Breaking Through the Noise
Let's take a look at some insightful SMS statistics:
- A US survey found that 58% of consumers believe that texting is the best way for businesses to reach them quickly. Here, keep in mind iMessage!
- SMS messages have a significantly higher open rate compared to emails, providing a direct and efficient means of communication.
- SMS marketing is highly effective in increasing customer engagement and revenue due to its ability to break through the noise and capture attention.
With its high open rates and direct connection to customers, SMS marketing is a valuable addition to any conversational marketing strategy.
Keep in mind in the DACH region for example, SMS is literally not used at all by consumers, thus, as a business you are landing in an abandoned communicational environment, mostly used by shady businesses such as casinos, or for transactional use cases such as boarding pass or contract extension notifications by your mobile provider.
WhatsApp Marketing: The Power of Interactive Conversations
WhatsApp has emerged as one of the most popular messaging apps worldwide, with over 2 billion users. It offers three different versions: the standard app, the Business App for small companies, and the Business API for large businesses. One of WhatsApp's key advantages is its support for various types of rich media, including images, videos, and gifs. This makes it easier than ever for businesses to engage customers with eye-catching and interactive content.
In the end, it is worth noting, that WhatsApp offers a broad variety of use cases, which you simply cannot cover through other marketing channels such as Email or SMS.
WhatsApp allows you to personalize your flows even after the absolute first touchpoint you have with your customer. This works since you simply fetch your clients’ WhatsApp user name upon chatstart.
Also, creating dedicated flows and user journeys, all whilst integrating those with your native techstack, is not possible through SMS. The conversational pricing as well as the chance to add multimedia assets to the conversational mix, is another favourable aspect of WhatsApp.
Integrating your native techstack into chatarmin.com - which is built upon the WhatsApp Business API - creates a seamless data-transfer throughout all your operations. This fact alone makes WhatsApp stand out heavily as opposed to SMS.
Ultimately, WhatsApp’s KPI’s outweigh Email by a factor of three to eight, all whilst having a way faster opening rate than Email does. So, if you want to push urgent notifications, or drop important news, to your audience, you should definitely consider adding WhatsApp to your marketing mix.
Understand the differences between WhatsApp and SMS in this "WhatsApp vs. SMS" table:
| SMS | ||
|---|---|---|
| videos | ❌ | ✅ |
| fotos | ❌ | ✅ |
| voice memos | ❌ | ✅ |
| gifs | ❌ | ✅ |
| billing model | pay-per-msg. | pay-per-conversation |
| native user environment | ❌ | ✅ |
| interaction & engagement | ❌ | ✅ |
| lead enrichment | ❌ | ✅ |
| integrations | ❌ | ✅ |
| send messages | ✅ | ✅ |
