For years, email has been the backbone of business communication. It transformed how companies connect with their customers, offering an easy and cost-effective way to reach large audiences. However, email’s effectiveness has declined over time due to spam filters, inbox overload, and decreasing engagement rates. That’s where WhatsApp Business Messaging comes in.
As businesses look for better ways to engage customers, WhatsApp is emerging as a powerful alternative to email, especially when it comes to driving engagement and conversions. It offers direct delivery, rich media, and interactive capabilities that email simply can’t match.
But does this mean WhatsApp will replace email? Let’s take a closer look at how each works for marketing.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is where a business sends targeted messages, such as newsletters, promotions, announcements, and transactional updates, to its subscribers via email. It leverages segmentation, personalization tokens, and automated workflows to nurture leads, onboard new customers, and drive repeat sales.
Brands use email marketing not just to tell their story and market their products but also to keep audiences informed. This is all done through a medium that’s universally accessible and highly familiar for a large part of the population, making it an ideal choice for reaching large audiences.
But all that glitters is not gold.
Limitations of email marketing
Inbox overload: Depending on who your audience is, they may be receiving tens to hundreds of new email messages per day. There is a high chance of your one marketing email getting lost in the mix, especially if your recipient doesn’t spend much time every day reading emails from brands very carefully.
Spam and deliverability issues: Often, strict or glitchy spam filters might reroute your legitimate marketing emails to the junk folder. With time, the rules on sender reputation are getting stricter. This means that even minor mistakes can result in your email going into the junk folder instead of the main inbox.
Declining engagement rates: Open and click-through rates have plateaued or dipped in many industries, with subscribers growing fatigued by sales-heavy content.
Limited interactivity: While you can embed images and links, email clients vary widely in their support for advanced features like polls, carousels, or payment buttons. Often, emails with complicated graphic elements end up facing problems in proper display, depending on the subscriber’s device and screen type and size.
Delayed responses: Customers often treat email as “low priority,” especially those that they can immediately tell have been sent for marketing purposes. Many people don’t even read emails that are not of a personal or professional nature. This leads them to reply slower, sometimes hours or days later, if at all.
How does WhatsApp marketing work?
WhatsApp marketing is when you send marketing messages via the popular instant messaging app, WhatsApp, particularly from its business account. This account operates via the WhatsApp Business API or the WhatsApp Business app.
WhatsApp’s business platform enables companies to send promotional texts, notifications, and other types of marketing messages. It also allows two-way conversations with users who want to reach out to you or reply to any of your brand’s messages.
After making sure your customers have consented to this mode of business communication, here are some of the things you can do with WhatsApp marketing:
Broadcast templated messages (e.g., order confirmations, appointment reminders) that follow WhatsApp’s format guidelines
Initiate or receive chats for customer support and real-time consultations
Use interactive elements, such as quick reply buttons, call to action (CTA) buttons, and list messages, to guide users through menus or campaigns
Integrate with your company’s CRM and automation platforms to personalize content based on purchase history, support tickets, or user behavior
Run Groups, Channels, and even entire Communities for efficient mass marketing
Track delivery and engagement metrics in real time so you know when your marketing messages are sent, delivered, read, and acted upon
The combination of one-to-many and one-on-one interactions makes WhatsApp a flexible tool for everything marketing, from flash sales to high-level support.
The case for WhatsApp over email
As businesses look for more effective ways to reach their customers, WhatsApp is emerging as a powerful alternative to email. Here are five major advantages you’ll get with WhatsApp that you won’t get with email.
Direct inbox delivery
One of the main reasons businesses are turning to WhatsApp is that it bypasses the problems that plague email. With email, there’s always a risk that your message will end up in the spam folder or get lost in a crowded inbox. On the other hand, WhatsApp delivers messages directly to a customer’s messaging app, ensuring they actually see it.
In fact, WhatsApp boasts an impressive 98% open rate, compared to email’s 20%, giving you a much higher chance of engagement. When customers receive a WhatsApp message, it’s seen as more personal, informal, and immediate, resulting in faster response times and more action.
Rich media and interactive features
While email is primarily text-based with some formatting and linking options, WhatsApp enables businesses to send rich multimedia content, from images and videos, and even more interactive elements, like clickable buttons, dynamic GIFs, and even polls. This means businesses can create more engaging, interactive experiences that drive conversions.
For example, Barò Cosmetics saw a 300% increase in conversions compared to SMS and a 700% increase over email by switching to WhatsApp for customer messaging. By using WhatsApp’s ability to send visually rich content with clear CTAs, they were able to boost customer engagement in ways that email simply couldn’t achieve.
Read receipts and delivery insights
WhatsApp’s double‑tick system gives you live confirmation when a message is sent, delivered, and read. This insight lets you optimize send times, follow up promptly, and measure campaign performance more accurately than the limited analytics that email offers you.
Two‑way conversational capabilities
Email is ideal for one‑way broadcast campaigns, with replies often being scarce and slow, particularly for marketing purposes. On the other hand, WhatsApp, being a conversational messaging app, supports smooth, instant back‑and‑forth dialogue. Customers can reply immediately to any messages you send. They can ask questions and even provide feedback within the same thread, fostering deeper engagement and quicker resolution of queries.
WhatsApp communication also feels more conversational and natural, making for a better customer experience. Customers prefer quick, informal interactions rather than the structured formality of email.
High trust through opt‑in and encryption
Because users must opt in to receive messages, your audience is highly engaged and less likely to unsubscribe. End‑to‑end encryption adds a layer of security, assuring customers that their conversations and data remain private.
Why WhatsApp is more effective for customer communication
WhatsApp transforms customer communication into a smooth, dynamic, and personalized experience. Here’s how you can increase the impact and effectiveness of your marketing efforts via WhatsApp.
Automated workflows: By setting up chatbots to respond to routine queries instantly, you can free up human agents so they’re able to focus on other, more complex issues.
Global reach, localization, and support: WhatsApp offers support for 180+ countries and multiple languages. This allows you to tailor your marketing messages to different regions while keeping overhead costs to a minimum.
Contextual conversations: Persistent chat threads keep customer history well-organized and always in view, so you can pick up where you left off, with full context.
Data-driven personalization: By using real-time engagement metrics provided by WhatsApp Business, you can come up with more impactful follow‑up messages that resonate better with each customer’s unique behaviors and preferences.
Can WhatsApp replace email?
While WhatsApp is undoubtedly more effective for certain types of communication, email still has its place. Email is better suited for long-form content, product launches, and newsletters. But for urgent messages, customer support, and time-sensitive offers, WhatsApp has proven to be far more effective.
The real power lies in combining both channels. By using email for detailed updates and newsletters, and WhatsApp for immediate engagement and promotions, businesses can create a more dynamic and responsive communication strategy.
The future of business messaging
It’s clear that WhatsApp is quickly becoming the preferred platform for customer communication, offering faster delivery, richer content, and higher engagement. Messente’s seamless integration of WhatsApp alongside SMS and Viber allows businesses to easily incorporate WhatsApp into their existing messaging strategy without added complexity.
If you’re looking for a way to boost customer engagement, increase conversions, and communicate more effectively, it’s time to make WhatsApp part of your messaging strategy. Messente can help you, let's talk!
