WhatsApp marketing has become increasingly popular since the WhatsApp Business Platform ("WhatsApp API") relaunch in spring 2022. While WhatsApp was already available as a campaign tool from 2014 to 2019, META turned this feature off entirely between 2019 and 2021 due to data and privacy reasons. In the meantime, WhatsApp Marketing is scalable via the "WhatsApp Business Platform" without hesitation and limitlessly GDPR-compliant.
What is WhatsApp marketing?
WhatsApp marketing describes the possibility to promote your products and/or services via WhatsApp. The idea is quite simple: every CMO or founder can choose from a range of possible marketing and communication channels:
For new customer acquisition:
- Offline advertising with banners, print, posters, promotions and co.
- Social media advertising via Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn and Co.
- Traditional television and radio advertising
- Search engine optimisation (SEO) or search engine advertising (SEA)
- Partnerships with other companies
- Influencer and brand ambassador marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Referral marketing
- Guerilla or stunt marketing
- etc. etc.
For "retention", i.e. addressing existing customers:
- Own (loyalty) app
- SMS and iMessage
- Messenger services such as Telegram, Signal, FB Messenger, Instagram Broadcasts and Co.
- Direct mailings
- website members club
- etc. etc.
In 2023, CMOs and founders will find it difficult to choose the right marketing channels for their company. This applies to the acquisition of new customers ("Acquisition") as well as the maintenance of existing customers ("Retention")_.
WhatsApp marketing is an obvious choice from this wide range of options, simply because over 90% of smartphone owners in the DACH region use WhatsApp on a daily basis. The aforementioned communication alternatives do not even come close to these figures. This alone makes WhatsApp and WhatsApp campaigns so attractive for direct customer contact.
In our analysis of WhatsApp marketing, we mainly focus on the "retention case", i.e. the increase in customer lifetime value ("CLTV" or "CLV") through WhatsApp marketing flows and WhatsApp campaigns.
Get a CLTV uplift by adding WhatsApp marketing campaigns to your communication mix..
One argument for using WhatsApp marketing campaigns is that WhatsApp is the most used app with the most global downloads ever, with nearly three billion installs. WhatsApp is used by almost three billion people worldwide and is also omnipresent here in the DACH region with over 90% distribution on our smartphones. Not using this channel for your business is therefore bordering on negligence in our Chatarmin opinion. WhatsApp is used and loved by young and old. It is as much a part of our everyday lives as eating and drinking.
Source: Statista
WhatsApp Marketing: How it Works
WhatsApp marketing can also be used to acquire new customers through WhatsApp Ads, but this use case is not very widespread. Furthermore, WhatsApp marketing does not mean that advertisements are suddenly placed in WhatsApp, similar to what you're used to from Instagram or Snapchat. This is not the case with WhatsApp marketing.
No, WhatsApp marketing is most similar to email marketing in terms of the user journey and the administrative access for marketing teams.
Scan the following QR code of our customer "BAUHAUS Austria" for a test to become a "victim" of WhatsApp marketing yourself:
Alternatively, click this link to start WhatsApp chat with cereal brand "Spacies by CRO."
In the following video I explain how the user usually gets into the WhatsApp chat and do an 8-minute WhatsApp marketing deep dive:
