Which Is Better for Your Business: Email Marketing or WhatsApp Marketing?

Marketers are taking advantage of conversational channels to engage with customers, nurture leads, and promote their products with timely offers.

Both businesses and customers stand to benefit greatly. Customers get to enjoy personalised and hassle-free shopping experiences while businesses reduce their spending and leverage better customer engagement opportunities. The best part is that customers can connect with their favourite brands with a few mouse clicks.

WhatsApp is unavoidable when it comes to conversational channels of communication. The fact that WhatsApp has over 2 billion monthly users makes it a lucrative platform for marketers to explore. This is primarily because:

• WhatsApp messages have a very high open rate of 99%.
• Because WhatsApp is an instant messaging platform, customers are more likely to respond to messages than to emails or other forms of communication.
• It is estimated that the average user opens WhatsApp nearly 23-25 times per day and spends 38 minutes per day on the app.

Email vs. WhatsApp marketing is one of today’s most discussed and debated marketing topics.

What is Email Marketing?

Simply put, email marketing is the use of email as a channel to promote products and services. Contrary to popular belief, people are still using email.

Email is a quick and low-cost way to contact new customers. Email can assist you in creating and distributing targeted messages. Email broadcast services such as Mailchimp, HubSpot, Sendinblue, Mailer Lite, and others can be used.

Pros of using email marketing

• Email marketing is less expensive than other marketing channels. You will not have to pay for printing, advertising, or branding space
• Email marketing is ideal for sending personalised messages to a specific target group.
• Email designs are adaptable and include a variety of options such as images, gifs, and videos. This adds dynamism and appeal to the messaging.
• Email marketing platforms offer detailed analytics such as open rate, clickthrough rate, engagement, time spent on email, and so on. Businesses can use these statistics to achieve specific marketing goals.
• Marketers can also determine which emails were not opened and try a different campaign for this specific group. This level of detail on each contact or group is not available on other platforms.

Cons of email marketing

• There is no guarantee that your emails will be read by customers, as marketing content is frequently routed to the junk or spam folder.
• Customers are very likely to ignore your emails because they receive hundreds of them from various DTC brands.
• Being creative is essential for making your emails stand out from the crowd. This can consume a significant amount of your time because email is not very flexible in terms of design.

What is WhatsApp Marketing?

When comparing email to WhatsApp, it’s worth noting that WhatsApp is a relative newcomer on the scene, but it’s quickly gaining traction with businesses and consumers alike. WhatsApp marketing is the promotion of your products and services on a popular platform.

WhatsApp is a cross-platform instant messaging and voice calling app that is used by over 2 billion people worldwide. The app, which is now owned by Facebook, is an excellent marketing platform for spreading the word about your company. The channel allows you to reach a large number of people, build strong relationships, and have one-on-one conversations with them to increase your conversion rate. WhatsApp marketing provides brands with a variety of features, including:

• Contacting the customer one-on-one for specific information.
• Messages are broadcast to a group of people or a specific audience
• Brands can also create select groups in which all participants are visible and can interact (similar to a forum) or have a setting in which only the admin can post, ensuring that the group adheres to a set protocol.

Pros of using WhatsApp Marketing

• WhatsApp is a very safe platform. Customers can expect high levels of data privacy and security from WhatsApp due to end-to-end encryption on all conversations.
• It enables you to provide real-time customer service and support. It has never been simpler for businesses to communicate with their customers. Businesses can use WhatsApp to provide immediate responses to customer inquiries.
• E-commerce businesses can easily integrate WhatsApp chat to automate abandoned carts, delivery, payments, and other related activities.
• WhatsApp allows you to create multiple broadcast lists and add recipients, eliminating the need to select individual contacts every time you want to send a message.

Cons of WhatsApp Marketing

• Although you can tell if a customer has read your message, no advanced analytics such as time spent, clickthrough rate, and so on are available.
• According to new policies and regulations, businesses must obtain explicit consent from customers before contacting them on WhatsApp. Customers can block or file complaints, which can result in strict measures being taken against the brand.
• WhatsApp is not available in the following countries: North Korea, China, Syria, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (available but with limited features).

What is the difference between email and WhatsApp? 

The main difference between email and WhatsApp is the speed of communication, as well as the possibility of your messages being marked as junk or spam.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably guessed that there isn’t a simple answer to whether you should use WhatsApp or email. While each marketing channel has advantages and disadvantages, choosing the best platform is dependent on answers to some critical questions such as:

Do your customers prefer to interact on the platform?

Can the platform increase the value of your brand? How does it relate to your business objectives? 

Because every company’s goals and target audiences are different, marketers must select the best platform for broadcasting or mass communication. While focusing on one platform is ideal, we strongly advise brands to develop a multichannel distribution strategy to ensure that they can provide updates on multiple platforms and reach customers via their preferred medium of communication.

Your brand, for example, can use email communication to distribute newsletters, communication for top-priority notifications, and WhatsApp for promotional messages. You can also let customers choose how and on what platform they want your brand to reach out to them.