Complete WhatsApp Marketing Guide: Use Cases, Practical Examples & Strategies [2024]

WhatsApp is the most installed and most popular app in the world. Young and old use WhatsApp in their daily lives in almost all latitudes. It is therefore only natural that more and more companies are interested in scalable and GDPR-compliant sales, support and marketing via WhatsApp.

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WhatsApp is the most popular messenger in the world_

What is WhatsApp marketing?

"WhatsApp Marketing" describes the direct 1:1 chat with your stakeholders or end customers via WhatsApp. The aim is scalable and GDPR-compliant communication with key stakeholders for company growth via WhatsApp. These include customers, business partners and sponsors. WhatsApp Marketing is used in B2B and B2C and is directly related to "WhatsApp Sales" and "WhatsApp Support".

With WhatsApp marketing, you can use a WhatsApp marketing tool based on the "WhatsApp Business Platform" (WhatsApp API) to target your end customers with campaigns, newsletters and automations and encourage them to buy your products and services.

waterdrop® lead generation and enrichment via mobile popup for website traffic at waterdrop.de

We at Chatarmin have been working on the topic of "GDPR-compliant and scalable WhatsApp" for 18 months now and have established ourselves as the leading WhatsApp CRM in the DACH region. My name is Johannes Mansbart, founder of Chatarmin, and in this article you will find out more:

• What WhatsApp marketing is
• How WhatsApp marketing works
• Why you should start with WhatsApp marketing
• When you should start with WhatsApp marketing
• Who is already doing WhatsApp marketing and how
• Use cases and case studies from practice

WhatsApp marketing therefore describes the possibility of generating new customers and additional sales via WhatsApp. WhatsApp is most similar to the "email marketing" channel.

WhatsApp marketing differs from email marketing in a few key ways

• Double opt-in for lead generation
• Existing customer marketing to increase customer lifetime value ("CLTV")
• Campaigns to promote your company's most important promotions and events
• Lead generation ("Lead Gen") and lead enrichment ("Lead Enrichment") are in the foreground
• Interaction with email as the "perfect retention marketing duo"

If you are already super curious about scalable and GDPR-compliant WhatsApp and WhatsApp marketing, feel free to book your call with us:

WhatsApp marketing practical examples & use cases

When identifying WhatsApp marketing, we must consciously differentiate on the basis of the user journey and the integration of WhatsApp in conjunction with other marketing channels.

We distinguish between:

• Push marketing: You "force" your product or service on your target group, so to speak, and thereby generate demand that your customers were previously unaware of
• Pull marketing: The customer searches for a solution, and in the process remembers your brand or product, or finds you through word of mouth, recommendations or search engine results

For example, depending on whether you play out your WhatsApp chatstart link via Facebook or Instagram Ads, you can create individual and customized WhatsApp automations in Chatarmin's Flowbuilder that are different from chatstart links on mobile website popups or SEO blog posts.

It is also important to differentiate where you use WhatsApp along the user journey of your customers. Because the areas of application of WhatsApp marketing for

• New customer acquisition
• Existing customers

are very diverse. As you can see in the following graphic, it is possible to use WhatsApp along the entire user journey from:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

to use. Initially through training and educational content, later with user-generated content and tetstimonials, and along the customer journey with great offers and psychological levers such as urgency, social proof, etc.

WhatsApp marketing along the entire user journey, using eCommerce as an example

Let's now take a look at three popular WhatsApp marketing use cases:

WhatsApp Marketing Use Case #1: Acquiring new customers with click-to-WhatsApp ads

It sounds so simple, and yet for 99.99% of marketing teams it is still completely uncharted territory. While most lead-gen campaigns refer to poor-converting landing page and sales funnels, you can just as easily include the "WhatsApp chat start link" in ads and CTAs. The advantage of this? You have much higher conversion rates, faster lead generation and seamless "WhatsApp-Inflow-Lead-Conversion". This means you can automatically save the cell phone number of your target group immediately, automatically obtain the WhatsApp username of the customer and can sell your product in the welcome flow, make appointments to discuss your service or link "lead enrichment flows".

Austrian FinTech "froots" leverages WhatsApp for its WhatsApp-Lead-Gen, Lead-Enrichment and appointment-scheduling-automation

For further reading, we recommend our blog post about Click-To-WhatsApp-Ads as well as that of our colleagues from 360Dialog.

WhatsApp Marketing Use Case #2: Customer acquisition through promotion, PR and offline leads

Your promotional marketing strategy most likely has the following problem: You're standing around at trade fairs, events and the like, handing out your products, talking to people and perhaps keeping a list. One or two people follow you on Instagram. When your team asks you "how was it?" you say "great". But what was your quantifiable success? How do you measure the value of your offline marketing?

Without

• Quantifiable customer feedback
• Collected leads (& appointments)
• Clearly measurable traction

...promotion and sponsorship budgets are simply wasted. Do it like our customer Spacies:

Spacies only lets you spin the wheel of fortune if you sign up for the "WhatsApp newsletter". This way the guys from Essen collect 1000+ leads per day_

or like our customer BAUHAUS:

BAUHAUS Austria advertises its WhatsApp channel via print and landing page, desktop and mobile_

Secure offline and sponsorship leads where there were none before. Do you work with influencers, events and print advertising such as banners, flyers or posters? Pop your WhatsApp chat start everywhere and collect quantifiable results that grow your community and your account balance through additional sales!

WhatsApp Marketing Use Case #3: Existing customer marketing through promotion, PR, retail POS leads or direct mailings

Every piece of packaging, every piece of merchandise and generally every exposure to your community can be decorated with a CTA (call-to-action). Both offline and online. Various use cases have already been discussed, so here's the next one from "Wholey":

Source: Wholey CEO Philipp Stahr on LinkedIn

WhatsApp Marketing Use Case #4: Lead Gen and Lead Enrichment via Mobile Popup

7-digit Shopify & Klaviyo D2C brand "Kloster Kitchen" has almost perfected WhatsApp lead gen and WhatsApp lead enrichment. Through Chatarmin's Klaviyo integration, Kloster Kitchen creates 100% synchronization of Chatarmin and Klaviyo, as well as propperty enrichment along WhatsApp lead enrichment. See:

Kloster Kitchen 7-figure D2C Brand built on Shopify & Klaviyo, Direct WhatsApp-Leadgen, -Lead Enrichment and -Lead Sync through Chatarmin

This way, you can already ask your customers about the most important "properties" in the welcome journey, such as

• Birthdays
• Names of children or pets
• Preferences
• Previous history with your fire

ask, filter, segment and address accordingly. And the best thing? You synchronize 100% of your data directly with Klaviyo and Shopify.

WhatsApp Marketing Use Case #5: Influencer marketing and giveaways via social media

The aforementioned cereal start-up "Wholey" from Berlin ran its "Elevator Boys" influencer campaign via WhatsApp, among other things, and has much more potential in this direction.

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Wholey User Journey Influencer Collab "Elevator Boys" WhatsApp-Leagen, Mobile-First through Tik Tok and Instagram

Let us advise you on how to run your first WhatsApp influencer campaign:

Our customers "Kloster Kitchen", "Bitterliebe" and "Smilodox" have also been able to generate 4 to 5-digit leads within 24 hours through influencer campaigns.

We hope that you now have a good overview of use cases for acquiring new customers via WhatsApp.

WhatsApp Marketing Use Case #6: Shipping information as a service hook for lead generation

Easily embed your "shipping information" thank you page widget - for both desktop and mobile - on the order confirmation website.

Offer your customers a shipping confirmation and shipping information via WhatsApp immediately after purchase

Chatarmin has optimized this journey for mobile devices: On a smartphone, a "one click" is all it takes to immediately request a shipping confirmation. On the desktop, the user unfortunately has to enter their phone number again.

Experience has shown that lead gen KPIs of 35-45% of your customers are possible here, which means a very valuable increase in leads.

Chatarmin clients leverage their thank you page traffic through offering automated and scalable shipping infos via WhatsApp

Above you can see a best-practice shipping info flow after the customer has signed up for it in the Thank You Page widget. It is important to differentiate between "Transactional Optin", "Single Optin" and "Double Optin" and to obtain the latter for future marketing campaigns.

WhatsApp Marketing Use Case #7: Abandoned Checkout and Abandoned Browse Retargeting via WhatsApp

Here is the theory behind "Abandoned Checkout Recovery": You can assume that 80-90% of your customers who reach the shopping cart will abandon it for various reasons.

Shopify statistics on abandoned shopping carts

Here are the results of the "Abandoned Checkout Recovery" via WhatsApp:

Chatarmin customers rave about 5%-15% Abandoned Checkout Recovery via WhatsApp_

It is important to note when you switch WhatsApp-Abandoned-Checkout-Automations live:

• distinguish whether your customer is already a "warm WhatsApp lead" (if/else logic in the flow on property or optin "WhatsApp Optin-true")
• optionally do not trigger the Abandoned Checkout Recovery every time your customer abandons a shopping cart (If/Else logic in the flow on "last received")
• optionally pair the WhatsApp Abandoned Checkout Recovery with email (If/Else logic in the flow on Klaviyo-Property)

Now you know the strategic and practical considerations for Abandoned Checkout Recovery via WhatsApp.

Criteria for successful WhatsApp marketing

These are the criteria for getting started with WhatsApp marketing in the first place:

1. You have an optimized email setup and want to use a second channel to reach your existing customers. OR you don't have a CRM yet and see more value in the phone number and WhatsApp contact of your target group than in their email address. This can be the case with very expensive products, for example, or if your target group is older or younger than average. This is because young and old people often no longer have an email address, but do use WhatsApp. In this case, it can make sense to go "WhatsApp-First " or "WhatsApp-Only ".
2. You have the marketing resources, capacity and budget to grow your list via WhatsApp lead gen measures
3. You have a META Business Suite to set up your WABA ("WhatsApp Business Account")
4. You have a telephone number to register your WABA via
5. You have an online presence in the form of a website
6. You have a registered company with founding documents, such as an excerpt from the commercial register (Germany) or an excerpt from the commercial register (Austria)
7. You have a sufficient target audience so that the alternative WhatsApp Business solutions are insufficient for you.

We hope that these seven criteria will help you decide whether professional and GDPR-compliant WhatsApp marketing is the right fit for you and your company. If you are still unsure, book your free consultation with our Account Executive:

Go-To-Market: Get started! Final questions before the WhatsApp launch

If you have ticked off the above criteria as positive, you are ready to get started. You should have asked yourself the following questions:

**What do I want to use WhatsApp for anyway?

Many of our customers or leads think WhatsApp is great and don't even know what they should use it for. Due to the paid nature of the WhatsApp Business Platform in particular, it is important to explore use cases and find a new "mini product market/fit" every time. The case must

• either save sufficient costs compared to the alternative, e.g. direct mailings
• or be so profitable that "the WhatsApp costs fall through the cracks"
• or have such a value for the company that it is happy to accept the additional costs that scalable and GDPR-compliant WhatsApp entails in any case

If you have answered these criteria positively, you are ready to go! If you find this difficult, feel free to book your call with us.

Get a full WhatsApp-Marketing-walkthrough here:

Source: Chatarmin, Q2 2024

The customers that we often lost after a few months in the early days of Chatarmin were usually too small. There was simply a lack

• of traffic on the social media channels
• of sales in the online store
• on the team resources for a professional WhatsApp setup
• on the capacitiy to continuously iterate and scale the WhatsApp marketing channel

For many, successful WhatsApp marketing simply remains a pipe dream, as too few leads are generated to make a difference to the success of your company. Due to the additional effort and costs that WhatsApp marketing entails, it must be possible to realistically hypothesize and outline the success of the case.

Choosing the right WhatsApp CRM

In our WhatsApp marketing provider comparison you will find an extensive overview of every relevant WhatsApp marketing tool worldwide. In this article, we set out to present the WhatsApp marketing provider market transparently and honestly. Our market companions have made this easy for us, sometimes more, sometimes less. Unfortunately, there is a "bad practice" in SaaS of keeping prices under wraps and only presenting them in elaborate sales demos and sales pitches. We disagree with this. We have set out our Chatarmin prices transparently on our pricing page. No hidden additional costs is the motto here.

Here is an overview table of all the relevant WhatsApp marketing tools for you:

Comparison table of WhatsApp marketing providers, source: WhatsApp Marketing Tools. Criteria: Price, API connections, support use case, marketing, multi-messenger, German customer support, premium customer support_

If you need a more extensive calculation here, or would like to compare a narrow range of tools in detail, book your call with us.

At Chatarmin, we are the only WhatsApp CRM in the world that works bootstrapped (without investor funding). Due to this we are "lean" and agile, and also build unique projects on customer request.

We are known worldwide for our Shopify & Klaviyo integration for eCommerce and focus on our core markets eCommerce, retail, and franchise in the DACH region.

How does WhatsApp marketing work?

Hopefully we have already explained this question sufficiently. In short: WhatsApp marketing works like email marketing. Here is the table in comparison:

Why WhatsApp marketing?

The reasons are obvious. WhatsApp marketing offers:

• One-click lead gen for mobile traffic
• 100% retention in the lead enrichment
• Almost 100% opening rate within 24 hours
• 20-40% click-through rates
• 2-5% conversion rates

These KPIs are unbeatable. At the same time, WhatsApp is

• Used by approx. 90% of smartphone users in the DACH region
• used by young and old, some of whom do not even have an e-mail address

...so it's only a matter of time before WhatsApp conquers the marketing world. We offer the right solution for this. In our opinion, it's more a question of "when" and "how" rather than "why". Let's take a look at the other side.

You should not touch WhatsApp Marketing if:

• you are already trying to scale enough construction sites and non-functioning marketing channels. Less is more. Your WhatsApp marketing also needs care and time
• you can't afford the costs yet. Then you should think about an alternative WhatsApp Business solution, or postpone the issue for the time being
• target group is not on the move digitally or on smartphones
• you operate in a market like China, Russia, USA or Scandinavia, where WhatsApp is not as relevant as in LATAM, EMEA, or Oceania

We hope that you now have a feel for it

• Why you should do WhatsApp marketing
• When to start WhatsApp marketing
• which criteria and questions speak for or against starting with WhatsApp marketing

If you are still finding all this difficult, book your free WhatsApp consultation with a Chatarmin WhatsApp expert here:

Advantages of WhatsApp marketing

This blog post is already long enough, so let's keep it short. The benefits of WhatsApp marketing are:

• extremely good KPIs: High opening rate, click rate, engagement rate, conversion rate
• Operational feasibility: Thanks to Chatarmin, the operational implementation of Chatarmin is as easy as email marketing with Klaviyo or Mailchimp!
• User-friendly "mobile-first" user journey
• Interactive "conversational" automations with end customers
• Fast lead gen
• Uncomplicated lead enrichment
• Synchronization of data with CRM and store infrastructure
• Retention duet with email
• Measurability and analysis of results in flows and campaigns
• Reliable and guaranteed existing customer marketing with detailed segmentation and CLTV uplift
• Cohort analysis and incremental value-add to email

For all the advantages of WhatsApp marketing - apart from the fact that we at Chatarmin are biased - there are also disadvantages to WhatsApp marketing that should not be forgotten.

Disadvantages of WhatsApp marketing

The disadvantages of WhatsApp marketing are:

• Data protection issue and potential skepticism from stakeholders and customers
• Costs: GDPR-compliant and scalable WhatsApp is publicly and transparently chargeable per WhatsApp cost catalog
• Acquiring new customers: WhatsApp is similar to email, so you have to work hard for every "lead"
• Virality: It doesn't happen to you with WhatsApp marketing like it does with Tik Tok or Instagram. No algorithm pushes your campaigns virally by itself. You have to take care of the "audience exposure" yourself

To give you a feel for desktop vs. mobile popup lead gen, here is a best practice example of desktop WhatsApp lead gen from our client "Essbella".

Chatarmin customer Essbella generates WhatsApp-first desktop leads via QR code Leadgen for non-mobile traffic in the online shop

We hope that you now have a good overview of the advantages and disadvantages, as well as useful and useless use cases for WhatsApp communication for companies.

Costs for WhatsApp marketing

We have already described the costs of WhatsApp marketing in detail. Therefore, you will only get the "high-level overview" here.

META charges a few cents for each "conversation". A conversation is a 24-hour time window that begins as soon as your company responds to a message from your customer or writes to them proactively. No matter how much correspondence takes place from this point on, this 24-hour time window always costs the same amount of money.

The prices are between €0.01 and €0.13 per 24-hour "conversation". This means that you need to think carefully about your WhatsApp marketing use cases, and in principle, you will always be in the retention marketing mix:

1. "Email First"
2. "WhatsApp Second"
3. Direct mailings Third

You use these channels with varying frequency and intensity, depending on the pricing. WhatsApp should therefore only be used for important and segmented marketing campaigns. But then it is extremely effective and brings you more sales or lower costs.

WhatsApp marketing for new customer acquisition

We have already outlined some "go-to WhatsApp strategies" and marketing activities via WhatsApp. Some of them, as well as

• Influencer & brand collaborations via WhatsApp
• Giveaways via WhatsApp
• QR code and offline charging
• Promotion and sponsoring use cases
• Mobile pop-up lead gen on the website
• Abandoned (Checkout/Browse & Co.) Retargeting
• Click-To-WhatsApp-Ads

are ideal for acquiring new customers. Try to generate leads quickly, enrich them smartly and then, depending on the user journey of your usual customers:

• Duration until the first purchase
• Touchpoints up to the first purchase
• Method of communication until the first purchase
• Offers and arguments for the first purchase

to actually become paying community members. Of course, this takes a little longer if your products or services are

• are consumed infrequently
• are "pull products" that are only consumed in the "moment of pain"
• in need of explanation or
• very expensive

are. If one of the above criteria applies, your case may be more of a "curated Sales&Support case ("Ask&Order") like our customers Naturbummler or woodboom.

Find here a 16-minute full setup guide of a 7-figureShopify & Klaviyo brand, on starting WhatsApp marketing project with Chatarmin:

Source: Chatarmin, Q2 2024

In the following industries our Chatarmin WhatsApp software works best in Ecommerce WhatsApp Marketing. New customer acquisition in eCommerce works best in the following sectors, ranked accordingly:

1. Supplements
2. Pets
3. PSCG (Pain-Solving Consumer Goods)
4. FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods)
5. Lifestyle (Jewelry, etc.)
6. Fashion

In other sectors such as insurance, FinTechs, B2B SaaS or other sales use cases, we have too little statistically significant data to forecast and estimate the exact results.

The fact is, WhatsApp is not only an interesting channel for eCommerce, but also for B2B hospitality & sales, hotels & travel brokerage, insurance companies, FinTechs and banks for acquiring new customers. We recommend a personal meeting with us to discuss your use case:

WhatsApp marketing for existing customer care

Chatarmin's focus and specialty is WhatsApp marketing for existing customers. Why is WhatsApp primarily a "retention" domain?

• As a company, you need the trust of your customers to get in touch with them via WhatsApp
• You need a good reason ("value proposition"/angle) to communicate with end customers via WhatsApp
• WhatsApp as a channel does not offer the virality of social media channels such as Tik Tok or Instagram
• WhatsApp is usually covered operationally by "CRM", in combination with other CRM channels such as email, SMS or direct mailings
• WhatsApp offers a CLTV uplift in eCommerce of 25-50%
• The goal must be almost 100% synchronization between the (online) store system, email CRM and Chatarmin
• WhatsApp marketing campaigns differ significantly from other communication channels in their best practices

All of these reasons suggest that the strengths of WhatsApp marketing lie primarily in marketing to existing customers. The closer the community is to your company, the more likely they are to tolerate you in their private WhatsApp inbox.

The more "lovebrand status" you enjoy as a brand, the more receptive your audience will be to your WhatsApp campaigns. Better KPIs and better sales are the result.

For this reason, Chatarmin also focuses on "direct to consumer" companies that proclaim strong brand loyalty with their customers.

The results here are better than with comparison platforms, blogs or other "generic companies" that cannot claim clear and unambiguous customer loyalty with "early adopters" and "die-hard fans".

You can find more information on WhatsApp marketing for existing customer care in our blog post "Create WhatsApp newsletter" and our blog post on WhatsApp Marketing Best Practices. With the tabs you already have open in your browser, two additional ones don't matter, haha!

Conclusion & recommendation on WhatsApp marketing

WhatsApp marketing shines with sensational KPIs and extremely fast interaction with your end customers.

Furthermore

• Lead Generation
• Lead Enrichment

cannot be compared with any other (marketing/communication) channel. We hope this guide gives you an overview of the possibilities with WhatsApp marketing.

WhatsApp is used by over 80% of the population, no other mobile app - or messenger function - can offer you this "value proposition". WhatsApp is an extremely private channel, which leads to a privileged position if your end customers tolerate you where otherwise only family and friends are allowed to be.

The only disadvantages of WhatsApp marketing are the focus on "mobile-first" user journeys, i.e. the inadequate mapping of desktop application purposes. These can be processed to a limited extent using QR codes and the like. WhatsApp marketing is also subject to a fee, which limits the potential use cases and areas of application. The GDPR compliance of WhatsApp is controversial, but we have dealt with this topic sufficiently here - please ask us to translate it to english if you do need it and here. You will find a bonus paragraph on Chatarmin's GDPR compliance following this blog post.

We hope that this extensive WhatsApp marketing guide has given you a good overview of the topic, and we've also hidden two little WhatsApp marketing nuggets for you:

• WhatsApp marketing: Eight ways to scale your WhatsApp marketing
• GDPR compliance of WhatsApp

Thanks for reading! Chatarmin is a bootstrapped B2B SaaS, which is very rare. Based in Vienna - Austria - we build the most agile WhatsApp CRM in the world, with the best Klaviyo and Shopify integration on the market. Book your appointment with our team here to discuss your next steps:

[BONUS] WhatsApp Marketing: Eight ways to scale your WhatsApp marketing

If you sell products or services, you will ask yourself which communication channels are best for marketing them.

In the following lines, we will look at practical examples of WhatsApp marketing to give you an understanding of the role WhatsApp can play along your customer journey.

The following marketing channels are particularly popular with companies, and you can use WhatsApp within them:

Social media (Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Instagram...)

Chatarmin customers use social media channels for lead generation via WhatsApp. Using a so-called "WhatsApp Chatstart Link", you can invite people to a WhatsApp chat with your company with just one click. This is particularly recommended for mobile-first channels such as Instagram, Tik Tok or Snapchat. By sending a "start message" - embedded in the chat start link - the customer triggers a WhatsApp welcome automation created in Chatarmin.

As a WhatsApp marketing manager, you immediately secure the cell phone number and WhatsApp name (95% either first name or first name and last name) of your lead. This mobile-friendly user journey leads to extremely good conversion rates for generating leads from your mobile traffic. This effect is also used via "Mobile Popup" on websites.

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Smilodox WhatsApp Marketing Setup Mobile Landing Page Leadgen & Lead Enrichment

Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA)

Google Analytics shows the website visitors, broken down by origin. Organic visitors according to Google Search promise "free customers", which is extremely interesting for companies.

The theory is that Google Ads and SEO results predominantly lead to websites and product pages. The problem here is that these usually only have a 1-3% "conversion rate" to the "CTA" (Call-To-Action).

So if you lead your target customers to a website, you can assume that only every 50th to 100th will complete your target action - a purchase, filling out a form, or something else.

In principle, this is a major problem that needs to be solved by conversion rate optimization.

Imagine Google Ads leading directly to the WhatsApp chat with your company

With "WhatsApp first leads", you can now turn this game around and lead people who click on your advertising or search engine results not to a (poorly converting) homepage, but directly to WhatsApp with your company to ensure immediate lead generation - and thus long-term contact and engagement. If you also ask for the email address in your WhatsApp welcome automation, you already have a strong template for your customer relationship management (CRM). This is a more attractive prospect for us than simply hoping that your website traffic converts to 1%.

Hypothetical WhatsApp User Journey for Click-To-WhatsApp Mobile Leadgen_

PR in magazines, media and the press

Chatarmin customers such as SPACIES or BAUHAUS also use WhatsApp as a lead generation machine in press releases, newspaper articles or offline print advertising.

BAUHAUS Austria promotes its WhatsApp channel via QR code lead generation

TV, radio & Co.

The QR code lead gen concept is also possible on TV. It is more difficult on the radio, as attribution problems often occur here, many people listen to the radio "passively" in the car or at work, and the presenter has to talk through a domain or website that people can access. One of these could look like "Kloster Kitchen" from Chatarmin customers:

Kloster Kitchen is a Bavarian 7-figure D2C eCom brand that advertises its ginger shots with Chatarmin via WhatsApp.

Affiliate and influencer marketing

We recommend running social media campaigns "via WhatsApp" in the future. Why? Standard social media campaigns - such as influencers or giveaways - only generate short-term hype with a few additional followers on the social media channel. If you now play out the chat start link - with dedicated giveaway or influencer automation - via WhatsApp, you secure valuable leads that you can use in a long-term and controllable way.

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Kloster Kitchen secures over 800 WhatsApp leads within 24 hours with just one influencer campaign_

We therefore encourage our customers and partners to see influencer campaigns and competitions as long-term levers for lead generation and enrichment that bring real added value to the company.

Podcast advertising

OMR founder Philipp Westermeyer is leading the way: He promotes his WhatsApp channel via podcast. As with radio, this is not easy, as people first have to find the advertised website or the advertised link. Promoting WhatsApp via podcast is therefore counterintuitive and not a priority in WhatsApp marketing.

Guerrilla marketing & viral marketing

In principle, WhatsApp is ideal for viral and guerrilla marketing. Why? By printing QR codes on billboards, posters and merchandise, you generate interest and attention, but don't give too much away and create a feeling of "exclusivity" among your target group.

This was implemented to perfection in autumn 2023 by the German street fashion brand "PESO":

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The German fashion brand "PESO" is dropping a secret location with an exclusive and limited giveaway on its exclusive WhatsApp channel.

Dialog and direct marketing (email, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger)

We distinguish between the following marketing categories:

• Organic marketing: without the use of money: "organic" use of channels without the use of budgets and additional input
• Performance marketing: with the use of money, purchasing of inserts, advertisements and frequencies

and between

• Push marketing: to activate new customers or existing customers due to an important event such as early access, drops, launches or dsicounts
• Pull marketing: for example in SEO or SEA CTAs if you want to enable curated sales user journeys via WhatsApp.

The areas of application for "dialogue marketing" to leverage WhatsApp marketing are diverse. One of the most common use cases is to draw the attention of your existing customers to the launch of your own WhatsApp channel via an initial organic email (&SMS) campaign and thus start your WhatsApp marketing with a solid basic subscriber base.

Can you think of any other WhatsApp dialogue marketing use cases to leverage your retention mix? Text us please!

[BONUS] GDPR compliance of WhatsApp Business

The WhatsApp Business Platform is the publicly available programming interface from META ("Facebook") for using scalable WhatsApp. Companies such as Chatarmin build their applications based on this to enable other companies to use the world's most popular messenger in a GDPR-compliant and scalable manner.

This overview provides you with a compact overview of the key criteria of the GDPR in connection with (the three versions of) WhatsApp

GDPR compliance of "WhatsApp Private" and the "WhatsApp Business App"

Due to the non-display of the double opt-in, as well as the granting of data sovereignty to the end customer, both the WhatsApp Private App and the WhatsApp Business App are to be classified as non-GDPR-compliant.

Furthermore, there is no permanent end-to-end encrypted storage of your data on local and secure server infrastructures. Last but not least, you cannot guarantee permanent deletion of this data, as the "on-premise hosting" of this data is made impossible by the WhatsApp Private App and the WhatsApp Business App.

According to the GDPR, only the WhatsApp Business Platform, i.e. a solution like Chatarmin, is GDPR-compliant_

GDPR compliance of the "WhatsApp Business Platform" and Chatarmin

Feel free to read our blog post on the GDPR compliance of the WhatsApp Business Platform or request our extensive statement on GDPR compliance here:

Send GDPR to Chatarmin to receive an extensive statement from our CEO Johannes Mansbart on Chatarmin's GDPR compliance

It is important to note that the difference between

• "WhatsApp Private", "WhatsApp Business" and the
• "WhatsApp Business API"

is to be understood. Only the latter can be integrated into companies in compliance with the GDPR. The "WhatsApp Business API" ("Platform") is subject to a fee, but conversely offers GDPR compliance and the possibility of enabling scalable communication between companies and end users, as well as the implementation of extensive automated and individualized use cases by individual IT service providers.