This guide digs into how the best marketers integrate WhatsApp with their email marketing efforts to supercharge their funnels and elevate customer engagement.
Klaar om Bird in actie te zien?
Marketing professionals: if you want to delight and grow your audience, it’s time to align your email and WhatsApp efforts.
Single-channel marketing strategies are severely limited. They often take the shape of a one-way conversation between a brand and its prospects. But today’s consumers seek personal, conversational channels of communication that don’t feel like marketing.
Modern technology has caused the lines to blur between our personal and professional lives. De customer journey is no longer linear or 100% predictable. Numerous social platforms and digital experiences have created a network of consumer touchpoints that are forcing brands to adapt or fail.
A multi-channel approach to generating consistent awareness and conversion is now a table-stakes initiative. And while marketers have a lot of different tools at their disposal, this guide is about two proven options that can yield fruitful results.
Integrating email and WhatsApp will not only help you elevate consumer interest, but you’ll generate more trust, awareness, engagement, and best of all—ROI.
De staat van e-mail en WhatsApp marketing
If effective marketing is all about reaching your customers where they are, then there’s no digital real estate more valuable than consumer inboxes and text threads.
Miljarden mensen sturen nog steeds e-mails
Elk jaar verklaren verschillende thought leaders en publicaties email marketing dood. Maar op basis van de gegevens kan dat niet minder waar zijn.
4,25 miljard mensen—more than half of the planet’s population—used email daily in 2022. That figure is expected to top 4.7 billion active daily users by 2026, translating into more than 392 billion daily e-mails sent. E-mail is far from dead.
It’s not just about volume. De ROI van email marketing is also predicted to rise steadily for the foreseeable future. In 2020, global email marketing efforts were worth a collective $7.5 billion. In 2027, due to an expected compound annual growth of 13.3%, its valuation is estimated to hit nearly $18 billion.
WhatsApp is een wereldwijd communicatiefenomeen geworden
After overschrijding van de grens van 2 miljard wereldwijde gebruikers in 2020, WhatsApp has continued to sustain an unpredictable explosion of growth. Its parent company, Meta, has quickly turned it into a premier marketing channel with WhatsApp Zakelijk. De app has rapidly shifted from a purely conversational platform to an enterprise-level growth channel, and consumers are embracing it with open arms.
Meer dan 1,26 miljard gebruikers interacted via WhatsApp Business accounts
Meer dan $ 330 miljoen aan geschatte inkomsten was generated by WhatsApp Business
Hoe indrukwekkend de groei van e-mail en WhatsApp ook is geweest, de mogelijkheden voor klantbetrokkenheid die je kunt ontsluiten door beide te integreren in je marketingstrategie zijn nog indrukwekkender. Voordat je dat proces kunt starten, moet je de unieke sterke punten en beperkingen van beide begrijpen.
Sterke punten en beperkingen van één kanaal
Email has remained a constant channel in the business world for the better part of three decades. One of the main reasons is due to its versatility. Marketers have the freedom to craft detailed messages, including images, links, and attachments, using an easily adaptable structure.
Other Go-to-Market teams, such as product marketing, customer success, and sales take full advantage of email’s reach and familiarity. Newsletters, promotions, discounts, and product updates are commonplace pieces of content.
Even in the midst of newer trends like ChatGPT and TikTok, email continues to stay ingrained in our daily lives. As cookies van derden evaporate, email remains one of the best ways for businesses to convert and retain, and curated email lists still represent a priceless trove of data.
Een onderzoek uit 2022 of 254 retailers sheds some light. 51% of respondents said social media drives customer acquisition, but 81% say that email marketing drives acquisition.
However, e-mails can get lost in crowded inboxes or get flagged as spam, reducing effectiveness. Email does skew more professional than personal, but folks still demand personalized subject lines, images, and messaging. If one of these elements feels too generic or misplaced, your email will likely remain unopened.
WhatsApp offers a direct, more conversational approach to customer communication. It’s centered around real-time interactions and encourages a sense of personal connection with individual consumers. WhatsApp messages boast een verbazingwekkende open rate van 98%, a benchmark that puts it in a league of its own compared to other communication channels.
These one-on-one conversations often lead to better customer assistance and quicker answers to questions, which is critical. 77% van de consumenten expect a response within the first 24 hours.
WhatsApp also offers better multimedia sharing capabilities than email for formats like GIFs, video, and voice messages. As a result, marketers can lean into a more creative and authentic-sounding communication style, which enhances the overall customer experience (CX).
Despite its overwhelming popularity, WhatsApp holds een zeer hoge standaard over the heads of Business Accounts. The platform’s administrators go through great lengths to keep in-platform conversations personal and high-quality. As a result, businesses that rely solely on WhatsApp may face challenges breaking through to their audience, especially as they learn the platform’s requirements.
Beheer e-mail en WhatsApp onder één dak
To extract the most value out of each channel, you’ll need to create an integrated ecosystem that unifies all your tasks, data, and automations in one place. Each marketing channel provides your team with an opportunity to collect valuable data about your prospects and customers. Their preferences, behaviors, and decisions all serve as indicators that help you design personalized experiences.
When the data for each of these channels is managed separately, it becomes difficult to gain a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not.
An omni-channel marketing platform like Bird gives you seamless integration with all of your most important data warehouses such as your CRM, e-commerce platform, and existing customer service tools. There’s no need for technical expertise or manual coding. Instead, everything happens seamlessly in one interface. This way, you spend less time troubleshooting and more time generating high-impact content.
Bird offers robust features for email marketing:
Sign-up forms to capture opt-ins and grow your list
Aangepaste e-mailsjablonen maken
Stel automatische journeys in voor je abonnees
Hypergerichte e-mails versturen naar gesegmenteerde lijsten op basis van gedrag in het verleden
Ontwikkel campaigns met meerdere stappen om kopers door de trechter te leiden
With our WhatsApp integration you can:
Al het bovenstaande, maar ook op WhatsApp
WhatsApp en e-mail combineren in één campagne
Ga realtime interacties aan met klanten
Geautomatiseerde reacties maken op basis van kopersactiviteiten
Gebruik chatbots om persoonlijke hulp en ondersteuning te bieden
Inhoudstrategieën voor geïntegreerde e-mail en WhatsApp marketing
Door consumenten te bereiken waar ze zijn, op verschillende apparaten, kunnen marketingmanagers en strategen hun bereik vergroten en hun content diversifiëren. Laten we een paar essentiële punten bespreken die je in gedachten moet houden bij het ontwerpen van een marketingstrategie die het meeste haalt uit zowel e-mail als WhatsApp.
1. Eersteklas personalisatie leveren via elk kanaal
Conversational marketing means creating 1:1 engagement with each customer. The challenge is to send the right message naar de right person aan de right time. With a multi-channel marketing platform, you have more tactics at your disposal to craft meaningful content across the entire customer journey.
Doelgroepsegmentatie: You can increase personalization by targeting a specific group of customers based on their preferences, behaviors, and purchase history. These pieces of data help you design content with precision. For example, you can create an email campaign that engages first-time buyers only, customers with filled carts, or checkouts with +X% value than the average value of checkouts.
Rijke, diverse inhoudsvariaties: Customers expect more than simple text ads and emails. Regular WhatsApp users particularly look for interactive content experiences filled with videos, images, buttons, and audio. Boring, uninspired emails won’t get read either. High-performing emails have compelling layouts, personalized salutations, and mobile compatibility.
Unieke aanbiedingen: Even if your content has the right message, it still needs a personalized offer to keep the conversation alive. Depending on your audience’s preferences, you can send bundle deals, one-time discounts, or product recommendations based on previous purchases.
2. Perfect getimede berichten versturen
Often, when you deliver messages to your clients or prospects, timing matters just as much (if not more) than the content you’re transmitting.
Timing plays a crucial role in integrated marketing strategies that leverage multiple channels such as email and WhatsApp. Keep in mind the time of day, days of the week, and holidays to optimize performance. For example, emails sent between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. tend to receive the highest engagement from recipients.
Using email and WhatsApp together presents a variety of timing options, especially for integrated campaigns. After sending an email blast about a discount sale, you can bake in a targeted WhatsApp notification targeting users with items currently in their cart.
Onderzoek suggereert that consumers typically respond to WhatsApp messages in less than a minute, far quicker than your typical email engagement timeframe. As a result, sending WhatsApp notifications a few hours after a campaign email is highly effective.
Over time, you can start developing insights with user data gained from email and WhatsApp. Listen to your target audience and their communication preferences, conduct A/B testing, and don’t be afraid of marketing’s oldest friend, trial and error.
3. Houd je inhoud en berichtgeving consistent
Merkconsistentie is een kenmerk van goed presterende geïntegreerde marketing campaigns. De bekendste merken ter wereld, van Apple tot Nike tot Amazon, zijn meesters in het opduiken op channels op een onbetwistbaar merkeigen manier. Betere consistentie leidt tot meer vertrouwen en bekendheid bij de consument, waardoor je meer kans maakt op engagement en conversies.
Handhaaf consistente merkrichtlijnen: Logos, images, colors, and messaging make up the core of your brand. When multiple teams start creating content across various channels, things can get out of hand. Instead of drafting a list of guidelines for creators, use a platform like MessageBird to build guidelines directly into the process. Our email and WhatsApp templates offer beautiful customization parameters that keep all your teams consistent.
Centraliseer marketingelementen: Without a designated home for your team’s marketing assets, it’s difficult to maintain consistency. Out-of-date versions of logos, color palettes, and fonts can easily leak into your content and confuse your customers. MessageBird provides easy-to-use asset management across all your channels. That means better efficiency, collaboration, and content quality.
Hergebruik inhoud: Once you find a theme or conversation that your audience loves, you can double down by repurposing specific content formats and variations. Break webinars up into mini clips and blast them via WhatsApp or turn popular eBooks into a weekly email campaign. With an omni-channel platform like MessageBird, you can create, distribute, and repurpose content across channels all in one place.
De beste KPI's voor het volgen van e-mail en WhatsApp campaigns
With more marketing channels comes a greater intake of data. It can become challenging to understand which KPIs to measure, especially with a combined channel approach. If you’re new to multi-channel marketing, start with these essential metrics for each channel.
E-mail: Open tarieven, CTR's en conversiepercentages
Het doel van het bijhouden van e-mail KPI's is het ontdekken van de voorkeuren en berichtgevingsthema's die resoneren met je merk. Om het succes van je email marketing campaigns te meten, zijn er drie belangrijke meetcriteria:
Open rates indicate the percentage of recipients who open a message. A high open rate suggests the subject line’s initial hook resonated with the audience enough for them to stop scrolling and read.
Doorklikpercentages (CTR's) take it a step further, measuring the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link, button, or other CTA. They were intrigued by the offer and wanted to know more.
Omrekeningskoersen measure the percentage of recipients who ultimately completed the campaign’s desired action. Depending on the funnel stage of the customer or prospect, this can mean they filled out a form, signed up for a newsletter, or made a purchase on your website.
WhatsApp: Berichten en gesprekken traceren
On its own, The WhatsApp Business Account Platform gives you an inside look at basic measurements and data points. The primary metrics you can follow in the WhatsApp-platform include:
Ontvangen berichten: The number of WhatsApp messages your company successfully receives from users.
Berichten verzonden: The number of WhatsApp messages your organization has sent to users. This includes messages en route, not effectively delivered.
Afgeleverde berichten: The number of WhatsApp messages your organization sends that have been definitively delivered.
Totaal aantal gesprekken: Conversations are messages sent during a specific window after an initial message was already sent. Conversation windows are usually 24 or 72 hours.
Cross-channel meting in MessageBird
While email and WhatsApp metrics are insightful on their own, understanding big-picture performance gives you the ability to make better decisions across the entire customer experience. MessageBird’s platform lets you track and measure KPIs with two primary reporting views: Channel Performance and Campaign Performance.
Kanaalprestaties: This report aggregates data across channels such as WhatsApp, email, and SMS. This report is perfect for comparing and analyzing the individual channel metrics listed above. You can easily navigate between each channel and measure performance over time by breaking down reports on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.
Campagneprestaties: Measuring KPIs aan de campaign level offers a holistic view of how your key messaging is performing across all your channels. Track reach, recipients, delivery rate, open rate, clicks and more to uncover your top-performing campaigns. With all your data in one dashboard, you can compare the performance of each channel within one campaign.
Managing email and WhatsApp in one platform gives you the ability to conduct A/B testing. This helps you determine which messages, content, and offers are best suited to any given channel. Select your channels, determine which metrics you want to measure, segment your audience, and then launch your campaign. Everything should stay the same except the channel so you can uncover the differences in results.
E-mail en WhatsApp horen bij elkaar
With the majority of adults owning and veel tijd doorbrengen op hun mobiele apparaten, it's crucial to meet consumers where they are and how they want to be meant.
Door gebruik te maken van de sterke punten van beide channels kun je een uitgebreide marketingcommunicatiestrategie creëren die tegelijkertijd inspeelt op verschillende klantvoorkeuren. U zult waarschijnlijk ook tijd en geld besparen in het proces.
To successfully integrate email and WhatsApp, it’s imperative to synchronize your customer data, obtain proper consent for data processing and usage, and prepare content for both channels.
Thankfully, there’s Bird. We’d love to take those challenges off of your plate so you can personalize every touchpoint with your customers across email and WhatsApp. Neem vandaag nog contact met ons op if you’re interested in learning more.