3 Essential WhatsApp Marketing Campaigns to Get Started

WhatsApp is leading the shift to conversational marketing, and it’s changing how brands and customers communicate. A new channel means a new opportunity to build an impactful program. Once you breeze past getting started on WhatsApp, the next question often is, “What exactly should I send?”

At Tildei, we want to make each step of building your next-generation marketing program seamless, so we’ve got the answers to your campaign questions. Here are the most important WhatsApp marketing campaigns to get started:

1. Welcome Campaign

The perfect start to the conversation

The foundations of a strong WhatsApp marketing program aren’t entirely different from other channels. When a customer opts-in to connect with your brand, the first interaction they experience is a welcome message. So a welcome campaign should be the first campaign that you create. Customers are most engaged when they first subscribe, so this is your opportunity to make an impression. If done right, you can win customers for life. To do that you should:

• Thank them for opting-in
• Explain how they can expect to interact with your brand
• Ask for additional profile information
• Communicate in a tone and language that resonates with your customer while aligning with your brand

Beyond the initial “thanks for choosing to opt-in,” this is a great moment to orient them to this new kind of experience. You can leverage tools and techniques unique to WhatsApp like sending a list of items from which they can choose to learn more about, or a three-button quick reply which they can easily tap to continue the conversation. Anything that creates a back-and-forth dialogue at the beginning will help your subscribers see how much more conversational this channel is than others.

You can also personalize the experience from the get go, if the customer has shared their mobile number with you in other ways. When their WhatsApp number matches the number you have on record, you can apply conditional logic and personalization to make the messages unique to them.

WhatsApp also stands out from other marketing messaging with its ease in building a customer profile. Every response you receive from the customer, whether that’s in a quick reply, typed response, or reaction (heart, thumbs up, etc.), can write directly to their customer profile. For the customer, it’s as easy as tapping a response. For you, the marketer, it’s as straightforward as the information automatically saving to their profile for you to use in the future. You can gather helpful insights on the customer as you get to know each other better in this first welcome experience.

This moment in the relationship is also their first impression of your brand in this channel. It may even be their first impression of interacting with a brand in general on WhatsApp, so it’s important to put your best foot forward. Make it a fun, engaging experience, and avoid selling to them at this early stage. They’re already showing interest in your brand, so help them get comfortable with you!

Strategic Approach: This is a triggered message. It is individual-based sent on the behavior of a customer after they opt-in to your program. This is in contrast to a ‘broadcast’ message that goes out to a group of subscribers all at once.

2. Conversational Newsletter Campaign

A reason to continue the conversation

We’re all familiar with the newsletter. Whether it’s an old-fashioned paper printout or the email messages in our inboxes every day, we’ve all received and even sent newsletters. With WhatsApp, you can innovate on the newsletter and create a moment to connect with your customers on the topics that matter most to them. The newsletter no longer has to be a push of information, but instead it can be turned into a conversation that makes the experience more personal. It’s a chance to truly build a relationship.

Goals for a Conversational Newsletter Campaign:

• Share the latest news and updates related to your brand
• Communicate authentically - like you’re catching up with a friend
• Provide an pathway for deeper engagement like starting a conversation or sharing input
• Make it personal by including their name, preferred interests, or specific information related to a past purchase

The power of this kind of message in WhatsApp comes from the opportunity to do two things: 1. make it personal and 2. keep it conversational.

Similar to other digital channels, you can pull in known data points to show you understand them and how they’ve engaged with your brand. Consider incorporating elements like past purchase history and preferred products. Maybe you’re mentioning a new product in your newsletter, and you could highlight how that new product pairs well with their previous purchase.

Additionally, you want to make it conversational and start a dialogue. This is one of the key differentiators to messaging in WhatsApp compared to the more traditional messaging channels like email and SMS, so lean into this improved approach. Because of the two-way exchange of information, this is your chance to avoid making it one-sided. Instead, craft a conversational newsletter that asks the customer for their opinion or encourages them to reply and engage.

A great first-step is considering an email newsletter and thinking of how it could be turned into a conversation. One easy way is to leverage the quick reply to make it easy to interact and allow subscribers to learn more about the areas that interest them the most. For retail, this could mean giving them options of patterns or styles they want to learn more about. For travel, you could ask them about their preferred method of travel and share updates related to their choice. The customer’s responses can also give you more data to use for personalization or segmentation in the future.

Strategic Approach: This is a broadcast message meaning that it’s sent to a segment of subscribers at the same time. It’s not triggered by behavior and is instead sent on a weekly or monthly cadence. You can tailor the message by segments and send it to those interested in those segments or you can send a broader message to your full, opted-in audience.

3. Post-Experience Campaign

A moment to listen to the customer

We’re all trained to share feedback after an experience. Often times, the request for feedback comes through the email inbox, but it’s still not the most convenient way to share input. WhatsApp, being a mobile messaging channel, has an estimated 98% open rate, meaning it will almost certainly be seen and not lost in the noise. In addition, it will be in a place where customers are already comfortable quickly replying and sharing their top-of-mind thoughts.

Goals for a Post-Experience Campaign:

• Make sharing feedback easy and convenient
• Provide a path to rectify any issues
• Offer guidance and additional information on the product, service, or experience

Post-purchase messages are nothing new to digital marketing, so this is again a place where you can leverage the power of WhatsApp to reinvent the customer experience. This is your chance to make it conversational. Think of how you ask your friend about something they bought or just finished and use similar language. Take advantage of the quick reply option to make it as easy as tapping for customers to respond to your message. Even more, customers can reply with images and videos, making it that much easier for them to share a thorough, more meaningful review.

To make it informational, learn from your customer support team to understand common issues or commonly asked questions post-experience. Use that as information to include in your post-purchase conversational flow. Give the customer the means to learn more about the topics they care about by using the quick reply or a menu of topics to select.

Strategic Approach: This is a triggered message. It is an individual based message sent after a customer completes an action like receiving a package or taking a trip. This is in contrast to a ‘broadcast’ message that goes out to a group of subscribers all at once.

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