Until recently, WhatsApp allowed businesses to only exchange transactional messages with their users. However, they have now released a new feature, WhatsApp newsletters, that expands the platform’s marketing toolkit. Read on to know how you can grow your business with WhatsApp newsletters.
What is a WhatsApp Newsletter?
A WhatsApp newsletter is a broadcasted message that is sent one-to-many by a business account to its users. Those users must opt-in to receive the newsletter, however.
The nature of those newsletters is similar to that of promotional email. However, your users won’t know that it is a broadcasted message, because they will receive the messages via individual chat with your WhatsApp account. So, in other words, they won’t know who else received your WhatsApp newsletter.
Essentially, a WhatsApp newsletter is simply a modified version of WhatsApp broadcast messages.
As a business owner, you can send WhatsApp newsletters to promote new products to your existing customers or to enable them to take advantage of time-sensitive discounts and offers.
Note that a WhatsApp newsletter is different from a WhatsApp group message; WhatsApp group messages are sent out between members in a WhatsApp group who can see each other’s profiles.
WhatsApp newsletters, on the other hand, are broadcasted by businesses but customers receive them as one-on-one messages.
Note that WhatsApp newsletters cannot be free-form messages. You need to create templates and then submit them for approval before customizing and sending them to your users on the contact list.
But don’t worry, we will walk you through it all 😊.
5 Ways WhatsApp Newsletters Can Benefit Your Business
Sending WhatsApp newsletters can benefit your company’s promotion efforts in many ways. A good reason to use WhatsApp newsletters is because your competitors might use them soon or are already using them, and you don’t want them to gain an edge over your business by features like:
1. High Open Rate
The open rate for WhatsApp messages is 98%, which beats email marketing campaigns with their average of 22% open rates.
Additionally, since you are sending the newsletter to your opt-in users on the contact list, it does not count as unsolicited communication and hence, they are more likely to open it.
2. Increased Convenience
WhatsApp is now one of the most preferred forms of communication globally. Therefore, your customers are much more likely to prefer WhatsApp over conventional forms of communication such as email and SMS.
3. Multimedia Support
Your WhatsApp newsletter does not necessarily have to be text-only - you can also add images and videos to boost their appeal and increase engagement with content-rich newsletters.
4. Performance Tracking
What gets tracked, gets measured. With WhatsApp newsletters, you can track various metrics such as the open rate, engagement rate, etc. This enables you as a business to make better decisions on how to optimize those metrics further.
5. Cost Effectiveness
Launching WhatsApp newsletters is a cost-effective option compared to other forms of promotion such as email marketing. Meta charges WhatsApp newsletters on the basis of fixed fees that are dependent on two factors, including business-initiated rate and user-initiated rate.
Those are part of WhatsApp Business API (or WhatsApp API) pricing structure.
User Protection Rules for WhatsApp Newsletters
As a business owner, you need to keep a few things in mind when creating WhatsApp newsletters.
Meta has rolled out several WhatsApp marketing features for businesses, particularly on the WhatsApp Business API (or WhatsApp API), but it is nonetheless user-centric, or in this case, customer-centric. There are a couple of WhatsApp user protection rules to note -
- Make it clear that you will be sending promotional messages to your users on the WhatsApp contact list. When collecting their number, you can do so by adding a checkbox that specifies that they “agree to receive promotional content on marketing offers and other useful information” from your business. This is because every time a user reports your WhatsApp account, your quality score decreases, which brings us to the next point, quality score or quality rating.
- Quality rating is an account reputation metric that determines your WhatsApp newsletter sending or even messaging capabilities. If this figure drops too much, your account can be blocked by Meta from sending messages or broadcasts.
Best Practices for WhatsApp Newsletters
To minimize the chances of losing your WhatsApp quality rating, follow these WhatsApp newsletter best practices.
1. Be Concise and Direct
Attention is the currency of marketing. The more you have of it, the better.
Unfortunately, the average individual’s attention span is far shorter now than it used to be. This is why companies like TikTok have made it to several billions in valuation – they produce short-form content that is well-received by users. YouTube also tried to emulate this success by introducing YouTube Shorts.
What does this mean for your business?
Be concise, and be direct.
When writing WhatsApp newsletters, cut to the chase immediately and show how the customer can benefit from your newsletter.
2. Write Quality Newsletter Copy
Ensure that your WhatsApp newsletters aren’t intrusive or irrelevant. Just as you need more customers to purchase your products, your buyers also need discounts and offers to maximize their cost savings.
Therefore, think from the customer’s perspective when writing newsletter copy. Ask yourself, “would I care to read this message if I were a customer?” If the answer is “yes”, then double down on it. And if the answer is “no”, then figure out the reason(s) and improvise.
With quality newsletter content, your engagement rates are only going to increase further. This can help boost your WhatsApp quality rating which in turn would increase your WhatsApp messaging limits, too.
3. Personalize WhatsApp Newsletters
Yes, they aren’t free-form messages, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be tweaked to suit a specific target audience or market segment.
Dynamically add the customer’s name (you will have this since they registered with their personal details when they purchased from you) and adjust the copy based on their previous purchases (if possible) to make it more engaging and personal.
Personalized WhatsApp newsletters are far more likely to receive higher levels of engagement from users and much less likely to be reported.
4. Reuse High-Performing Templates
You don’t have to create a new WhatsApp template each time you wish to send a newsletter. Instead, just pick the best performing current newsletters and reuse their templates.
This can help save your time and money as a business owner, not to mention that it is far less risky than submitting a new template and fearing that it may not be approved by Meta for any reason.
5. Build an Omnichannel Experience
Sure, WhatsApp newsletters are great, but to truly ace your marketing and promotional efforts, you need to build an omnichannel experience.
For best results, use WhatsApp newsletters as part of a coordinated marketing strategy that also involves other channels of outreach such as email, SMS, push notifications, etc.
After all, different channels serve different purposes.
The initial conversation between you and a prospect is best done on your website’s live chat. However, subsequent communication may be followed up through emails.
Similarly, whenever your customers have a problem, they can raise a ticket on your website, or navigate to your help center and try to figure out a solution themselves.
Likewise, when you want to send promotional messages, WhatsApp newsletters can help.
So, integrate those channels to create a comprehensive marketing program for your brand to enable you to benefit from each channel’s capabilities.
WhatsApp Newsletter Use Cases
WhatsApp newsletters work well for action-oriented messages where the user is required to view the message and act upon it within a specific duration.
Here are some WhatsApp newsletter use cases for your business:
- Early bird discount offers for your existing customers
- Holiday-themed newsletters (such as Thanksgiving for the US markets) with specific offers and discounts
- Company news updates that may concern or affect your relationship with the buyers
- Any new online events or seminars
- Invitation to visit a new branch if you own a restaurant or cafe
- Technical issues or system upgrades at present or in the near future
- Restock alerts for customers on waiting lists to purchase specific products
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating and Sending WhatsApp Newsletters
If you want your business to benefit and grow from WhatsApp newsletters, follow the steps below to create and send your own WhatsApp newsletter.
#1 Sign-Up for WhatsApp API
Now, you could technically send WhatsApp newsletters via WhatsApp Business, but you would miss out on numerous features like –
- Unlimited message sending
- List management features
- Bulk messaging capabilities
- WhatsApp chat metrics tracking
And more.
Instead, you can get all of those benefits and more with WhatsApp API.
The process to apply for WhatsApp API access is long and tedious; however, DelightChat is a verified WhatsApp Business Partner, and we can help your business acquire the rights to use WhatsApp API.
#2 Collect Opt-Ins from Customers
WhatsApp newsletters are great for promotional purposes, but you must first convince your users on the contact list to first ‘opt-in’ for them.
In other words, your users must explicitly agree to receiving such messages from you.
Now, how do you do that? Well, one of the ways is to include an ‘exit intent pop-up’. Exit intent pop-ups are pop-up messages your customers will see on their screens after they have scrolled your website a bit.
Exit intent pop-ups ask your website visitors for their e-mail address and/or phone number and incentivize it with some benefit, such as an offer or coupon code.
You don’t necessarily have to incentivize their action, but their response rate is likely to be higher if it is.
Here are some examples –
Exit intent pop-ups are great, because you can use them as a last effort to convince your visitors to allow you to connect with them further. Using exit intent popups can help you win back up to 53% of visitors who bounce off your website.
You can also collect opt-ins from other channels. For instance, you can include a similar offer on your Facebook page or Instagram profile and let customers respond to that.
The idea is to promote your WhatsApp profile on as many platforms as necessary, so this would enable you to receive as many opt-ins and grow your contact list. A longer list is beneficial when it comes to making more sales via WhatsApp newsletters.
#3 Create Newsletter Templates (& Submit for Approval)
You need to create newsletter templates first and then have them approved by Meta before you can start using them. Creating and obtaining approval for WhatsApp newsletter templates may take up to 48 hours, but the process can be sped up by applying through a WhatsApp API provider.
You can create and submit your WhatsApp newsletter templates through DelightChat; follow the steps below –
- Login to your DelightChat account
- Navigate to the WhatsApp Marketing tab, followed by ‘Message Templates’, and then select your DelightChat account by clicking on the ‘Edit’ option as shown below.
- Click on ‘Create Message Template’
- You will be taken to the ‘Create New Template’ screen where you can specify the details of your WhatsApp newsletter template as shown.
- Enter the details as you see fit. The template name can be anything you want it to be, the template category in this case is marketing since you will be sending promotional messages, the template language is English, but can be anything else depending on your customers’ primary language, the message body will include the text that you are broadcasting via the newsletter.
- Click on ‘Apply for template’ to send your WhatsApp newsletter template to Meta for approval.
- You can check the status of your templates’ approval at any point via the ‘Message Templates’ screen.
#4 Create a Contact List
Once your WhatsApp newsletter template is approved, create a contact list of your users that you intend to send your newsletter to.
Or if you have WhatsApp API access, you can simply send out a bulk message containing the newsletter to everyone.
This step should be fairly simple if you have used any email marketing tools before, but even if not, it isn’t difficult to get the hang of.
#5 Schedule the Newsletter
Once your contact list is ready, schedule your WhatsApp newsletter’s date and time. Note that if you intend to send out the WhatsApp newsletter immediately, it can take some time if your contact list is large (~1,000 users or more).
#6 Track Performance and Improve
Finally, you can track or monitor the performance of your WhatsApp newsletter and see how it could be improved.
Scale Your Promotional Efforts With WhatsApp Newsletter!
WhatsApp newsletters are a quick and efficient way to grab your customers’ attention and boost engagement through the world’s largest IM platform. With more than a billion users globally, WhatsApp marketing can help you generate significantly more reach. However, to experience the true extent of WhatsApp’s marketing capabilities, you need access to the WhatsApp Business API (or WhatsApp API).
To register for WhatsApp Business API and benefit from a fully out-of-the-box WhatsApp marketing CRM, schedule a live demo today!
