Jan 13, 2022 8 min read Guides

12 Ready-to-use WhatsApp Marketing Campaigns for Ecommerce

Ecommerce is maturing and competition is becoming more and more fierce. Stay ahead of the curve by add WhatsApp to your marketing channels.

Ecommerce is maturing and competition is becoming more and more fierce. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you need to add messaging apps like WhatsApp to your marketing channels.

But what type of WhatsApp marketing campaigns are appropriate for ecommerce? How can you set up a WhatsApp marketing strategy that actually works and drives revenue for your online store? And what should D2C brands focus on?

We dove into these questions to bring you 12 examples of ready-to-use campaigns on WhatsApp for ecommerce businesses.

Why WhatsApp for ecommerce?

First of all, let’s look at some basic statistics. One of the world’s most popular messaging apps, WhatsApp:

Has 2 billion monthly active users
More than 5 million businesses already use WhatsApp Business

Not only does this mean it’s highly likely your customers will be WhatsApp users. But other businesses are already jumping on the WhatsApp marketing bandwagon.

You see, most marketing channels are extremely saturated, and it can be hard - and very expensive - to cut through the noise. So instead of wasting more money on another one-to-many marketing approach like marketplace advertising or bulk email newsletters, you should be adding more one-on-one channels to the mix.

Advantages of WhatsApp as a marketing channel

Apart from being less spammy, and more relevant, WhatsApp as a marketing tool comes with several distinct advantages:

High open and click rates. Open rates for WhatsApp often surpass the 90% and click rates are 5x higher than email.
Consent-based. WhatsApp has built-in systems to guarantee all your marketing messages are warranted. Keeps the spam away, and end-users happy.
Private and safe. WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted and isn’t linked to any personal identifiers.

These are some pretty good advantages compared to more traditional marketing channels. But the question remains: how do ecommerce businesses, and D2C brands in particular, put WhatsApp marketing to good use?

What is a good WhatsApp marketing strategy for D2C brands?

With WhatsApp’s insane presence of 2 billions users worldwide, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands need to tap into this messaging app’s potential to reach customers and drive loyalty and sales.

Setting up a good WhatsApp marketing strategy means you should take the following steps into account, at least:

Choose your metrics for success. It’s essential to set clear objectives and define KPIs you can monitor. This will allow you to figure out the ROI on your WhatsApp marketing campaigns.
Know your audience. Any serious D2C brand will have already figured out their ideal customer profile. Having a clear understanding of who your customers are will help you strategize your WhatsApp campaigns more effectively.
Stick to your brand voice. Your website copy will be very helpful with finding the right voice to write your WhatsApp messages. Bear in mind that one-on-one conversations on WhatsApp are a little more personal than generic web copy.
Keep up-to-date with your data. Just like with an email list, keep an eye on the audience enrolled in your WhatsApp campaigns. Built up a large audience for a promotional notification? Send it out!
Choose a type of WhatsApp campaign. There are many types of WhatsApp marketing campaigns available for D2C ecommerce. We’ve listed the 10 most important ones below, so make sure to keep reading.

Once you’ve followed the above steps, it’s important to remember your WhatsApp marketing strategies should focus on driving revenue for your business. A simple notification reminding customers of a new sale, promotion, or collection can go a long way towards getting more sales.

10 WhatsApp growth campaigns to drive revenue for your store

To give you an idea of how to use WhatsApp to grow your D2C ecommerce business, we’ve collected 10 examples of growth campaigns you can start using today. These campaigns are simple, easy to set up, and super efficient at driving more revenue for your store.

1. Pre-orders

It’s one of the most powerful forces in modern-day D2C ecommerce: hype. Building up expectations for a product well in advance is how you get it sold out in no time.

Let customers pre-order your new products by opting in to receive a WhatsApp alert when it’s live. Include a payment link in the WhatsApp message so these early adopters can be the very first to purchase your hyped product.

2. Re-orders

Subscription services in ecommerce are experiencing massive growth right now. Let customers opt in to receiving recurring WhatsApp notifications allowing them to re-order a product.

Better yet: let loyal customers who already have a running subscription opt in to receiving their invoices through WhatsApp, instead of cluttering their email inboxes. Add some options to down- and upgrade to these alerts as an extra level of customer service. Your loyal subscription customers will love your brand for it.

3. Cart recovery

This tried and tested messaging tactic will drive customers back to your store and retain revenue otherwise spent elsewhere. Especially in D2C fashion ecommerce, cart abandonment rates average upward of 90%. That’s a lot of potential revenue.

Use cart recovery campaigns for WhatsApp to reconvert those potential customers. With click through rates 5x those of email and open rates of over 90% you’ll be able to recover loads of carts. With those recovered carts, you can expect a significant revenue boost.

4. Price drops

This WhatsApp marketing campaign keeps you firmly in control of the efficiency of your online store’s price drops. Let store visitors opt in to receive a message when the price for one of your products drops - a common notification in the air travel business.

Not only does this let you gather extensive data on which of your products are most popular and/or seen as more expensive than others. You’ll also be able to boost sales figures for specific products once enough people have signed up for an alert.

At the click of a button, the entire WhatsApp list who opted in for this specific alert will receive a push notification and a product link, when you lower the product’s price. Immediate sales figure increase guaranteed.

5. Sale alerts

Similar to WhatsApp price drop campaigns, use sale alerts to let customers sign up for a notification when products, collections, or all products in your store go on sale. In essence, this is like any other other promotional email campaign, but with better open and click-through rates.

On top of that, these sale alerts are sent on a one-off basis. Instead of spamming customers with messages they never signed up for, you are sending them a highly relevant alert they explicitly signed up for.

Because of this high relevance, these types of WhatsApp marketing campaigns will drive much better results than your other, traditional marketing channels.

6. Collection alerts

You probably release new product collections every so often. You can let your customers sign up for a WhatsApp notification whenever a new collection drops in your online store. By offering marketing messages on the collection level, you’re allowing your customers to personalize their WhatsApp messaging experience.

It’s this level of personalization when it comes to marketing messages that modern ecommerce consumers are looking for. Keep your messages as relevant as possible to ensure engagement and conversion rates necessary to grow your business.

7. Product recommendations

Did you know you can let users opt in to WhatsApp chat marketing messages from specific product pages on your website? This allows you to use call-to-actions like “More like this?” to let users sign up for product recommendations on WhatsApp.

Depending on the product page users signed up on, you can schedule notifications to this list of WhatsApp contacts recommending products they are likely to enjoy. How’s that for relevant marketing messaging and cross-/upselling to the right people?

8. New product alerts

For any D2C ecommerce brand, cultivating a following of loyal customers and fans is a must. These brand advocates are the type of people who’d buy almost anything your business has to offer.

It is these people who are also most likely to opt in to new product alerts from your store. With these product alerts you will be able to update your fans when a new product hits your store at the click of a button. With WhatsApp’s high open and click through rates, this campaign is a real treat for hiking up revenue numbers.

9. Coupon codes

Everybody loves a nice discount. Instead of seeing coupon codes end up in the spam folders of your customers’ email inboxes, send it to them on their favorite messaging app instead. Let people opt in to receive your store’s coupon codes directly on WhatsApp.

Use this WhatsApp marketing campaign to make sure your coupon codes don’t go unused. There’s really not much sadder than trying to delight your customers with the gift of a free discount code, and it being lost forever among their other spam emails.

10. Shipping updates

When it comes to shipping updates, ecommerce customers quickly start suffering from anxiety. Even though ecommerce is becoming more the norm than an outlier, having spent your money without immediately holding the purchase in your hands.

This means proactive shipping updates in ecommerce are more important than ever. And nothing makes shipping updates more personal than a conversational WhatsApp message from your favorite brand.

Let customers sign up for this WhatsApp marketing campaign with a simple post-purchase widget on the checkout page of their order with your store.

11. Back in stock notifications

Did you know you can drive over 50% of customers back to your website and triple your sales with just one WhatsApp notification?

You do this by automatically sending out notifications when you restock an item. Item out of stock? A button will appear on the product page that lets people opt in to receive a back in stock notification on WhatsApp.

It’s as simple as that, and will keep customers coming back to your online store.

12. Newsletters

This WhatsApp marketing campaign is one that’s more recurring than one-off, but if executed well, can be a wonderful addition to your marketing mix. By letting your customers opt in to a regular newsletter, you can keep them up to date on everything concerning your D2C ecommerce brand.

We have to warn you that this type of campaign can be a bit tricky. Writing a newsletter in the format of chat messages can be quite a challenge. You’ll need to keep it short and simple, and bear the conversational tone of the medium in mind.

Do it well, however, and your loyal customers will be in for a treat.

Getting started with WhatsApp marketing on Shopify

Would you also like to get started with WhatsApp marketing for your ecommerce brand? If you’ve built your store on Shopify, there’s a simple app you can install to set up all of the above in a matter of minutes.

Go to this page in the Shopify app store, or get in touch with our customer success team by sending an email to hello@shoppop.com. We’re more than happy to get you set up straightaway.

Get started with WhatsApp marketing using ShopPop for your Shopify store.

Or why don't you connect with ShopPop directly through Messenger at https://m.me/shoppophq