How Can I Get More Subscribers for My WhatsApp newsletter?

Messaging customers is not as easy as it might seem, as it can be tricky to find the best approach right away. We’re here to help! In our series, “dos and don’ts of messaging for businesses”, we tackle the most important questions around messaging. Today: What can you do if your WhatsApp newsletter doesn’t have (enough) subscribers?

The conversation between businesses and customers is moving from e-mail and social media channels to messaging apps. This offers new exciting opportunities to engage more with your clients and grow your business, but it also brings up a lot of questions.

Maybe your WhatsApp account has been blocked, and you don’t know why. Or, you are not sure, why your customers don’t like your Facebook Messenger bot. No worries, we get it! The world of messaging can be quite complex. In our series, “dos and dont’s of messaging for businesses”, we answer the most important questions, and give you tips and examples of best practices. Today: What you can do if your WhatsApp newsletter doesn’t have (enough) subscribers.

1. The challenge: why are people not subscribing to my WhatsApp newsletter?

You have created a profile on WhatsApp Business, and are ready to send out newsletters. Together with your team, you have come up with a concept: you want to send out a weekly newsletter with special deals for your subscribers.

You are excited because you know that WhatsApp newsletters can achieve open rates of 90 percent, and click-through rates of 35 percent!

However: you are somehow not able to scale the newsletter because very few people have signed up to receive your notifications, and you are also noticing a number of unsubscribes. What can you do?

2. Dos and don’ts for more WhatsApp newsletter subscribers

WhatsApp newsletters are one of the best ways to increase customer engagement, and even trigger sales. So getting started with the broadcasting messages is the first step in the right direction.

However, there are a few mistakes that some companies make in the beginning.

Don’t use the wrong platform

Most businesses like to start out with the WhatsApp Business app. After all, it’s made for businesses, and it’s free. However, it also comes with limitations, especially around the newsletter feature.

First, you are not allowed to contact more than 256 recipients per Broadcasting list on the WhatsApp Business app. Companies that send out more messages, can get their campaigns paused or their accounts blocked. If you are a mid-sized company, or are looking to reach more people with your newsletter, you probably want to increase that limit.

Another issue is that you can’t link the WhatsApp Business app to your CRM system, so it’s very hard to run targeted campaigns that will reach the right people, and drive better engagement.

If you have run into these issues, you are using the wrong platform, and you need to switch to the WhatsApp Business Platform. This is the professional version for companies that want to take their WhatsApp communication to the next level. The easiest way to gain access to the WhatsApp Business Platform is through a Business Solution Provider.

There are clear advantages to the WhatsApp Business Platform for sending out broadcasting messages.

• You start at a minimum of 1,000 marketing messages, and this limit can be increased very fast.
• It’s possible to integrate your CRM system to run more targeted campaigns.
• You get valuable insights into your campaigns that will help you to achieve even better results in the future.

Don’t spam your customers

Of course, nobody wants to send spam messages to their customers. However, if you haven’t integrated your CRM system with your WhatsApp campaigns, and didn’t put some thought into creating suitable target groups, it can be difficult to see if you are reaching the right people with your messages. If you are getting a lot of unsubsribes, you might be sending out your newsletter to the wrong target group.

For example, if you own a gym, and want to re-activate some leads that haven’t signed up for a membership yet, it’s not smart to send out newsletters to all of your subscribers. In fact, they might get annoyed with you for sending them irrelevant messages, and unsubscribe.

So sending out targeted newsletters that people want to read is the first step in avoiding spamming your customers.

One of the easiest ways to set that up is a professional tool like the Messenger Information Assistant from MessengerPeople by Sinch. It’s specifically designed to help you get the most out of your newsletter campaigns on virtually every messaging app.

Do: promote your newsletter

You can have the best newsletter campaign in the world, be on the right platform, and even ready to go with perfect target groups, and still have nobody to send the newsletters to. In this case, you probably need to focus on promoting the newsletter better.

• Set up click-to-chat links or ads to get people directly into the WhatsApp chat.
• Use widgets on your website to direct people towards your WhatsApp newsletter.
• Set up QR codes on flyers, posters or business cards.
• Go live on Facebook or share a story on Instagram to let your followers know about your newsletter.
• Send out an e-mail to your customers to inform them about your WhatsApp newsletter.
• …

In other words: use all available channels to promote your newsletter! It can also help to give users an incentive to subscribe, like a discount on their next purchase.

Big Bazaar used a WhatsApp broadcast to grow their customer base. (Source: Freshworks)

3. WhatsApp newsletter best practices: examples from successful brands

The best way to get more subscribers to your WhatsApp newsletter is to learn from other successful brands. The following examples show that, with the right approach, the WhatsApp newsletter can be extremely successful in reaching many people.

Newschecker: Giving users what they want

If you are not sure what content your readers might be most interested in, ask them! That’s what the Indian fact checking organization Newschecker does. When users subscribe to their newsletter, they can choose what type of content they want to receive.

This has two advantages: it helps Newschecker understand what type of articles their readers are interested in, and it ensures that users receive the content that is most relevant to them, which greatly reduces the number of cancelled newsletter subscriptions.

Bloomberg Quint: Doubling the number of subscribers

The Indian financial publication Bloomberg Quint wanted to reach more readers, and decided to start a WhatsApp newsletter. Together with MessengerPeople by Sinch they implemented a broadcast to send out important stock market and financial news.

With the newsletter, they doubled their readership, and reached more than 200,000 readers. The key to their success: They used the Messenger Information Assistant to analyze what type of content to send out and in what frequency.

As per our projections, we targeted 100,000 users with the launch, and we achieved that. At present, the community has grown to over 225,000 active users enjoying curated news, stock bots and much more – they can receive everything directly through WhatsApp.

Ankit Dikshit, Bloomberg Quint

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