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You already know WhatsApp's power as a marketing channel if you read this. We don’t need to re-iterate its popularity and how the majority of potential customers of D2C brands are already using this messaging channel at scale.
But here’s the thing: while most of us already know that WhatsApp offers an extensive user base to D2C brands to reach a huge customer base, we hardly come across great examples of WhatsApp marketing campaigns as consumers.
For example, did you know that Netflix’s “Stay in Touch” WhatsApp campaign boosted customer retention and converted some unsubscribed users to subscribed ones?
And this is just one example. Numerous examples of WhatsApp marketing campaigns stood out to me in terms of their creativity and messaging.
In this article, we will discuss the different types of WhatsApp campaigns, along with examples and lessons from brands that did them right.
Let’s start!
There is no tried and tested way to define your WhatsApp marketing campaign types. It depends on your goals, target audiences, and the results you want to achieve from the campaign.
Here, we list the most common types of WhatsApp marketing campaigns and messaging examples from our team’s personal WhatsApp inboxes.
Promotional WhatsApp campaigns aim to promote new products, upcoming sales, events, or personalized offers for loyal customers.
🤔What worked?
Amazon’s SALE notification message is thoroughly personalized. It lists the exact categories we have been browsing for a while now. The cherry on top is the 10% instant discount on the preferred payment methods.
💡Lesson learned
Notifying users about an upcoming SALE over WhatsApp increases accessibility. It's even better if this discount is on their preferred items, backed by data-driven browsing. Also, add a special discount and make new-age payment methods like Credit/Debit cards and BNPL accessible to the users to drive instant action.
🔑What could have been better?
While we appreciate that Amazon provided personalized discounts on all the preferred products, the presence of too many URLs affected the overall aesthetics of the message. It gave it a little spammy vibe.
When a user signs up for an online store application, they receive a welcome email explaining what to expect from the store. Sometimes, there is a sweet treat disguised as a special welcome discount. A welcome campaign on WhatsApp is along the same lines. Instead of sending an email, you send a WhatsApp message to reach the user faster.
🤔What worked?
We loved the authenticity of this message. It made me feel included. Newme also gives us a sneak peek into what to expect from the store and a quick CTA to explore it.
💡Lesson learned
A simple welcome message that nudges on the users’ emotions goes a long way compared to a formal message that says, “Welcome to our store, start browsing.” In the above message, Newme hints at a discount upon shopping from the app, which could be reason enough to attract first-time users to start their purchase journey.
🔑What could have been better?
The only thing slightly off with this message was that there was no welcome discount. As a first-time buyer, that’s not much to expect, right? 🙈
The average global cart abandonment rate is 70.19%. Each time a user abandons their carts after browsing different products for hours, there is a loss of opportunity. Common reasons for cart abandonment include high prices, hidden charges, and unavailability of desired payment methods. A WhatsApp trigger with a personalized discount on the cart items easily resolves these concerns—at least, it did for us 😅.
🤔What worked?
We were sold on the messaging itself. The first sentence told me this discount was only for the items added to my cart. Being a regular customer of Nykaa and after eyeing a set of products for a long time, this discount was all we wanted to take the final action and click on “Buy Now” on the said items. This personalized discount surely made me feel like a valued Nykaa customer.
💡Lesson learned
To re-engage a lost user, a personalized discount on cart or wishlist items works far better than a random discount on all products. Most users already know what they want and await the right purchase opportunity.
🔑What could have been better?
The message could have been more specific. While it mentions that Nykaa is offering up to 60% discount, it doesn’t mention the particular items. Usually, these are online shopping areas where users are easily deceived, as when they try opting for a discount, it shows on “selected items”.
Conversational commerce campaigns are end-to-end WhatsApp campaigns where you take a customer through different stages of buying, starting with discovery, purchase, return, or any other type of post-purchase support - all without leaving the WhatsApp application. Conversational commerce personalizes the shopping journey for customers. The fact that they don’t have to browse multiple products to find one item reduces the friction and increases the possibility of completing a purchase.
🤔What worked?
KLM Airlines, a popular Dutch aviation brand, uses conversational commerce to answer all customer queries through WhatsApp. Observe how the KLM WhatsApp assistant takes the customer service options up a notch by helping the user with different categories of concerns, such as flight timings, baggage, refunds, etc.
💡Lesson learned
Customers prefer a seamless shopping experience with personalized service without navigating multiple options. WhatsApp’s conversational commerce feature makes that happen. This is reason enough for me or any other D2C customer to act on conversational WhatsApp marketing campaigns.
🔑What could have been better?
The KLM example was spot on in terms of support messaging. However, if we were to nitpick, one improvement could be in the salutation. Using "Hi <first name>" would make the bot feel more personal and friendly by using WhatsApp details. Adopting a friendlier and fun tone overall would also make the user experience better, given the casual nature of WhatsApp.
Hellmann is a global food brand known for its delicious Mayonnaise. This brand launched a WhatsApp marketing campaign called WHATSCOOK to make more users and home cooks aware of Mayonnaise as a cooking ingredient. WHATSCOOK was projected as a live recipe service run through WhatsApp where chefs would cook new meals every day using ingredients at hand, including Mayonnaise.
It blew off within 10 days of launching the WHATSCOOK campaign, reaching over 4,000,000+ users. The campaign was particularly successful in Brazil, and one in every two visitors who visited the campaign landing page signed up for the service.
🤔What worked?
It was different from those same-old promotional campaigns where the brand would oversell its products. Instead, Hellmann selected a different route where they empowered the users with knowledge and won their trust, leading to a record increase in brand interaction per user (65 minutes).
💡Lesson learned
Hard-selling campaigns will not always work. Instead, go for out-of-the-box, educational WhatsApp campaigns and promote your products as a helpful resource for users. Show them how to use your products in their daily lives, and you will see a difference.
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