What are WhatsApp campaigns? Including 4 client examples

Understanding the world of digital marketing can be a tricky business. There's a lot to get to grips with, from multichannel marketing techniques like email marketing, to WhatsApp campaigns.

If you're part of an eCommerce brand, you need to be aware of the power of WhatsApp. WhatsApp campaigns, part of the services offered by charles, are a powerful tool for connecting with customers, promoting your brand, and driving sales.

Now, let's dive deeper into understanding what these campaigns are and how they can benefit your business.

Understanding WhatsApp campaigns

WhatsApp campaigns are an effective marketing strategy where businesses use the popular messaging platform, WhatsApp, to connect and engage with their customers. With WhatsApp campaigns, businesses can send out promotional messages, updates, and offers directly to their target audience in a personalized and direct manner.

It provides a unique opportunity to establish a direct line of communication with customers, fostering trust and loyalty.

By using our campaigns feature, businesses can easily reach their audience on a platform they frequently use, enhancing brand presence and driving customer engagement.

Additionally, businesses can use the interactive features of WhatsApp to create compelling content that resonates with their audience, increasing the effectiveness of their campaigns. To maximize the impact of WhatsApp campaigns, businesses should focus on creating relevant and engaging content tailored to their customers' preferences.

Why should eCommerce brands use WhatsApp campaigns?

WhatsApp has transformed from a simple messaging app into an essential tool for eCommerce marketing strategies. Here's why it's a game-changer:

1. Reach a global audience

WhatsApp boasts over 2 billion users worldwide, offering eCommerce brands an unparalleled opportunity to reach a vast and diverse audience. Its extensive user base ensures maximum exposure for your brand.

2. Foster high engagement

When it comes to customer interaction, WhatsApp shines with its exceptional engagement rates. Unlike email or other social media platforms, WhatsApp messages have higher open rates and engagement levels. People tend to read almost every message they receive on WhatsApp.

3. Personalize and connect

At charles, we empower brands to deliver personalized experiences at scale. WhatsApp allows you to tailor your messages to each customer's preferences and behavior, creating meaningful connections. With our WhatsApp campaigns feature, you can easily customize your messages and optimize campaign effectiveness.

4. Seamless eCommerce integration

WhatsApp eCommerce integration offered by charles revolutionizes the shopping experience. You can now provide a seamless purchasing journey within WhatsApp itself, eliminating friction and increasing conversion rates. Explore our WhatsApp eCommerce feature to enhance your customers' shopping experience.

5. Efficient customer support

With charles' WhatsApp support feature, you can provide exceptional customer service directly through WhatsApp. This real-time support enhances customer satisfaction and fosters long-term loyalty.

6. Automate with Ease

Save time and streamline your marketing efforts with charles' WhatsApp automation feature, known as "journeys". Automate your campaigns, nurture customer relationships, and drive conversions effortlessly.

4 great examples of WhatsApp campaigns from beloved clients

Baro Cosmetics

The primary goal of the campaign was to improve the outreach, engagement, and reactivation of the customer base of Barò Cosmetics, a digital-first cosmetic brand. Specifically, they aimed to:

1. Improve campaign engagement
2. Improve direct sales from emails and WhatsApp newsletters
3. Automate important customer processes like order tracking

How they did it

1. Chat-ins: Barò Cosmetics placed chat-ins at various points across their website, including welcome pop-ups, thank you pages, and floating bubbles. This strategy helped lower the barriers between the customers and the chat, and began collecting customer opt-ins.

2. Opt-ins and tags: Automation of the opt-in flow minimized the need for manual inputs by agents. Messages were written in a highly personalized manner, helping build an intimate rapport with the customers. The extensive use of tags helped in audience segmentation and further personalization of offerings.

3. Interactive campaigns: Barò Cosmetics used interactive campaigns designed in charles’ flow builder, featuring links, buttons, and multimedia content. In these campaigns, customers engaged with the brand by answering questions about their preferences. The answers were automatically translated into tags for segmentation, and the quiz participants were rewarded with special offers or discounts.

Read in full how Baro Cosmetics reached 50,000 opt-ins in 90 days.

Results

1. The campaign was launched in just 8 days, with high rates of opt-ins being collected via the chat-ins on Barò’s website.
2. WhatsApp newsletters showed an opening rate of over 90%, far exceeding the opening rates of traditional email newsletters.
3. 50,000 opt-ins were collected in the first 90 days.

The campaign clearly demonstrated the value of WhatsApp marketing in improving customer outreach, simplifying customer service, and making direct sales via product-related conversations. The success has prompted Barò Cosmetics to continue its partnership with charles as it plans to expand and gain market share in other European countries.

Concrete Jungle

Concrete Jungle, a brand manufacturing innovative concrete jewelry, aimed to increase customer retention and build a strong community around their brand by using WhatsApp Newsletters. Their goal was to stand out from the crowd during the pre-holiday advertisement frenzy by providing a personal and unique connection to their brand through WhatsApp, hence driving up engagement and sales.

How they did it

1. Exit intent popups: In collaboration with charles, Concrete Jungle set up Exit Intent Popups on their website, directing customers directly into chat and collecting opt-ins in exchange for discount codes. An additional widget on the post-purchase thank-you page prompted new customers to track their orders through chat, offering a seamless user experience.

2. WhatsApp newsletters: The brand then created native and personalized templates for their WhatsApp newsletters. They prioritized short, personal messages instead of repurposing email newsletters, adding interactivity to simulate a two-sided conversation and help collect valuable customer information.

3. Customer relationships: Using charles’ feature set, Concrete Jungle could accurately target and segment their newsletters based on gender, purchase data, and other factors. They also personalized their newsletters with customer-specific data to build a personal rapport with their brand.

Read in full how Concrete Jungle boosted their CTR by 50X

Results

Concrete Jungle's approach proved highly successful, with the WhatsApp marketing strategy outperforming traditional email newsletters. Their click-through-rate increased by over 50x, and their conversion rate improved by over 4x. WhatsApp quickly became one of their main revenue contributors, validating the effectiveness of their strategy.

Future efforts are aimed at scaling this approach and further improving conversions through this channel.

Maniko's customer engagement and retention

The goal was to overcome the customer service challenges faced by Maniko, a beauty company specializing in stick-on nail polish.

The company aimed to centralize its customer interaction point, providing immediate responses to recurring questions, and increasing customer lifetime value (CLV) through heightened engagement and easy reordering.

How they did it

1. Chat-ins on website and flyers: Maniko integrated WhatsApp into their website, offering chat options on product detail pages, the header, and the "Contact Us" page. Additionally, they distributed flyers with QR codes, guiding customers into the chat feature, and providing an easy avenue for addressing their queries.

2. Automated service: After customers scanned the QR code and sent a prewritten message, an automated flow was triggered, offering a video explaining the product's application. This significantly reduced Maniko's service effort and fostered further customer interactions.

3. Opt-in generation: Post-service conversation, Maniko harnessed the positive customer experience to generate opt-ins. The customer was then automatically added to a campaign list, ensuring the delivery of content relevant to their interests and needs.

4. Re-engagement and community building: Maniko established a recurring newsletter announcing new collections, designs, and restocks, sent via WhatsApp. They made use of images, videos, links, and buttons to keep their audience engaged and informed.

Read in full how Maniko launched a successful campaign to build their community.

Results

Through this strategy, Maniko achieved an 11x higher click-through rate (CTR), a 4x higher opening rate, and 10x more value per sendout compared to email.

The campaign also transformed their service department into a profit center by answering queries, engaging customers, and making the reordering process more accessible.

The campaign was so successful that Maniko planned to scale up their WhatsApp opt-in collection and eventually replace other service tools, such as Zendesk, with this system.

Holy Energy

The Berlin-based direct-to-consumer beverage brand, HOLY Energy, wanted to better connect with their Generation Y and Z audience, combat rising customer acquisition costs, and build a more personalized community around their product.

The company aimed to reach their customers where they were most active, specifically WhatsApp and Instagram.

How they did it

1. Create anticipation: HOLY Energy created a hype around the launch of a new drink flavor using various social media channels and newsletter formats. The company made a promise of exclusive, yearly access to the product for subscribers.

2. Collect opt-ins: The company focused on collecting opt-ins through website Chat-ins. By creating a sense of exclusivity and scarcity around the new product, they successfully increased their sign-up rates.

3. Launch exclusive campaign: Following the opt-ins, HOLY set up a WhatsApp campaign that contained a unique password and a link to its exclusive online store for this launch.

4. Engage and build community: Immediately after signing up, customers were enrolled for future notifications managed through charles "Studio." This helped in retaining customers and building a community around the brand.

Read in full how Holy Energy aims to replace Zendesk with charles.

Results

The WhatsApp marketing campaign for the new product launch was a success. HOLY Energy doubled their subscriber base, smashed their previous records for orders and revenue in a single day, and improved several key performance indicators.

As a result, WhatsApp emerged as a powerful tool for HOLY Energy to provide personal service, build community, and achieve commercial activation of their customer base.

Their plan for the future includes scaling WhatsApp opt-in collection, replacing Zendesk with charles as a service tool, and enabling easy and seamless reordering in chat with a simple text message.

How to launch a successful WhatsApp campaign with charles

Launching a successful WhatsApp campaign involves more than just sending out messages. You need a well-thought-out strategy, and that's where charles can help.

1. Define your goals: Before you start your campaign, you need to know what you want to achieve. Are you trying to promote a new product, boost sales, or increase brand awareness? Having clear goals will guide your campaign strategy.

2. Build your audience: Use charles' chat-ins feature to generate opt-ins for your WhatsApp campaign. This feature ensures you're reaching out to people who are interested in what you have to offer.

3. Create engaging content: Make sure your campaign messages are engaging and relevant to your audience. You can use the WhatsApp eCommerce feature to create a seamless shopping experience within WhatsApp.

4. Automate and analyze: With charles' journeys feature, you can automate your WhatsApp campaigns and analyze their performance. This allows you to make data-driven decisions and optimize your campaigns.

Remember, when it comes to marketing, it's all about connecting with your customers where they are. And in today's digital world, that placeis often WhatsApp. So, why not take advantage of this and launch your WhatsApp campaign with charles? Happy marketing!