WhatsApp vs SMS vs Email Broadcast: Which one is for you

Kazi Nazia

Content Editor

You just launched a new collection and you want to update all your customers about it. So you decided to send out a mass message. But, how would you do that?

When it comes down to mass messaging you have three options - SMS broadcast, Email broadcast, or WhatsApp broadcast. 

Although all of them essentially serve the same purposes. Each of them has key differences that make them suitable for different cases. In this article, we break down these differences to help you understand which one is the one for you. 

WhatsApp vs SMS vs Email broadcast

What is SMS Broadcast? 

SMS broadcasts sometimes referred to as bulk SMS and mass texting lets you transmit the same message to numerous recipients via the Short Message Service. It sends clients promotional offers via text texts.

The majority of firms continue to promote their brands and sell items using SMS marketing. It's still beneficial to promote new deals and discounts with bulk SMS blasts. Furthermore, recipients won't be able to detect if an SMS broadcast was sent to a large group of people. But, creating group conversations is also not possible.

On the other hand, tailored users like monitoring orders, OTPs, and account verification are possible for customized SMS marketing. One of SMS's main advantages is its extensive global reach. You now have a channel that enables you to communicate with clients in regions of the world where mobile data isn't always accessible or affordable for consumers. Add to that the capability to send messages without the internet.


Pros and Cons of SMS Marketing

Example: Kylie Jenner, a well-known media personality, launched the American cosmetics firm Kylie Cosmetics. With an emphasis on when you should buy, such as "TODAY," Kylie Cosmetics sends text marketing messages that highlight an overall offer like, "$10 off your complete order." Additionally, Kylie Cosmetics employs SMS marketing to advise clients of critical information pertaining to their orders, such as delays in shipping.

What is Email Broadcast?

Sending a single email to many recipients at once is known as an email broadcast. Also known as, email marketing.

Unlike SMS broadcast, email broadcast can be configured so that recipients can view other recipients of the same message. It is also possible to set up email broadcast messages so that each recipient receives a unique message. 

Email broadcasts are frequently used for marketing and promotional activities since they have no word count restriction and include multimedia components like pictures, videos, pdf, etc. Email marketing is a great marketing channel that makes use of email to advertise the goods or services offered by your business. It falls under the category of digital marketing as well as direct marketing. It's to keep your customers updated about your most recent products or deals with email newsletters.

And contrary to endless stories proclaiming the demise of email every year, users are still engaged in this channel, however different audience segments have varied preferences and behaviours.

Pros and Cons of Email broadcast

Example: Sephora uses email broadcasts for its email marketing to grow its customer base through sales, events, and educational material (tips). The email newsletter displayed below was simple but efficient in promoting the brand's special deal.

What is WhatsApp broadcast?

Just as the name suggests, WhatsApp broadcast is an exclusive mass messaging feature you get with WhatsApp API.  Which lets you send your receivers separate messages, much like SMS broadcast messages do. Now keep in mind that, WhatsApp groups and WhatsApp broadcasts are two different things. A lot of the time people end up mixing them together. The two differ in that WhatsApp broadcast conversations are private between the sender and the recipient only, whereas communications in WhatsApp groups are available to all participants.

WhatsApp marketing is a more recent form of advertising than SMS marketing. Since its beginning, WhatsApp has revolutionised and provided users with sophisticated communication options. And in this case - WhatsApp broadcast. 

Unlike SMS, WhatsApp makes it possible to share files and documents. WhatsApp offers a plethora of marketing chances while building brand engagement with users. WhatsApp broadcast is far more suitable for marketing than SMS because it generates three times as much traffic. You can quickly message your consumers and react to their questions using either of them. You can use your WhatsApp Business account to manually react to client questions. You can also send messages to your customers.

Pros and Cons of WhatsApp broadcast

Example: CRED uses WhatsApp broadcast to let their customers know about holiday sales. During the holidays' people are searching for sales, deals, and coupons. Even a promotion for free shipping may encourage them to buy anything.

Which one should you go for?

If you’ve read through the above descriptions then by now you have a clear idea of SMS, Email, and WhatsApp broadcast. But now that you know all about it, the question is - which should be best suited for you?

To be frank, there is no right answer. The answer depends on what you are looking for. If you want a medium to send mass texts with limited characters then SMS broadcast is the one for you. And, if you want your messages to hold more content like newsletters then go for email.

WhatsApp broadcast, on the other hand, gives a bit from both features. With WhatsApp broadcast, you can send mass messages to your contacts without being too annoying. And thanks to WhatsApp broadcast's features, you have additional options to modify and personalize your messages. WhatsApp has over two billion users worldwide, making it the most widely used chat program, therefore the likelihood that your target customer uses it frequently is also rather significant. At the same time open an option to start a private conversation with each receiver personally.

Do you find yourself chasing down new customers because current customers aren't sticking around, and you need to keep your eCommerce business afloat? Is it a sustainable strategy to run your eCommerce business?

We hear you saying no because it actually isn't. It's time you need to focus on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

In this competitive narrative, you can't really go far by keeping on investing in getting NEW customers rather than keeping your OLD customers. What you really need to concentrate on is maximizing your revenue from your present customers. And this is where customer lifetime value comes into play.

According to Tim Cameron Kitchen - CEO of Exposure Ninja, "In order to increase your customer lifetime value, you need to pull two levers. One, increase the number of purchases. And two, increase the purchase value of each customer. And of course, a good business will have a combination of both of these levers."

We want your business to have high customer LTV. So we noted down a series of pointers that you could follow to increase your customer lifetime value and higher profits. Before we dive into the strategies, let's start with the basics.

What is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)?


According to Omniconvert, "customer lifetime value (CLV) shows how much revenue a business can expect from one customer compared to how long the company predicts that customer will stay."

Customer lifetime value is an important metric for eCommerce brands to measure the average accumulating total of their purchase for some time.

Lifetime value helps you determine if your business will scale the ROI from marketing. It also helps you evaluate the retention strategy depending on how low or high your LTV is.

How To Increase Customer Lifetime Value

You can increase your customer lifetime value by either increasing your Average Order Value or Average Purchase Frequency. An increase in either of these metrics will rise Customer Lifetime Value. Apart from that, let's take a look at the other ways to increase CLV.

Improve Your Customer Support

Treating your customer right is the core to increasing customer lifetime value. According to Tim Han, an international speaker and author from success insider - "treating your customers like family is the key to recurring customers."

Now we're not telling you to turn a blind eye to their red flags and keep on supporting them. But we definitely recommend you to go a bit above to give them special treatments. In fact, according to research from PWC,  86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. So enhancing your customer support is an absolute must.

A solid customer support strategy includes attention to the customer pre, mid and post-sale. Your customer support should cater to your customer at every stage of their buying journey. A great way to make sure your customer's queries are always answered in no time is by using an AI-powered chatbot. Having a live chat available can turn a customer question into a sale or complaint into a resolution. We recommend you check out MyAlice as their chatbot can actually automate your entire selling process from start to finish. And the best part is, MyAlice is completely free to sign up!

You need to make sure your customers are returning again and again for the delightful experience you provide.

Send out occasional gifts

Who doesn't like free stuff? Especially when it comes as a surprise from a place you shopped from. We find ourselves leaning towards shops that offer great discounts or free goodies in most cases. And that's because this is a psychological trick that all of us fall for.

Lippincott's creative consultancy provided a scientific and psychological-based study called the "Happiness Halo" - proving exactly that. In the "Happiness Halo," the author stresses, "Appeal to customers' reason and they're yours for a day. Appeal to customer's emotions, and they're yours for a lifetime."

And nothing is more solid than sending gifts to appeal to your customer's emotions. It shows them that you care about them more than just a means of getting some sales.

We're not telling you to send out gifts 365 days a year to every customer for every purchase. But rather, identify your loyal set of customers and potentially loyal customers, and then send out occasional gifts to show them you care.

Nudge Your Customers into Subscriptions

One of the most popular ways (that works) of increasing the number of purchases of your customers is by bumping them into subscriptions. They're one of the new trends of e-commerce. And they can be lucrative enough that we even see big names like GoPro getting into the subscription realm they previously didn't opt for.

You can nudge them into a subscription by displaying a subscription-biased pricing option of your product.

This basically means you will show the pricing option of a one-time purchase on one side. And on another, the pricing option is based on subscription. However, you need to show your customers how the subscription pricing will be more effective and profitable.

This will incentivize them to opt for the subscription rather than going for a one-time purchase.

Another way of getting your customers into subscriptions is by showing the subscription as the default purchase method. And if customers want to go for a one-time purchase, they need to click on that purchase method.

You can do to level up the subscription game by giving them an option to allow your customers to customize the time frame and the amount of product for the subscription. This way, they will not have too much stock of the product based on their lifestyle. And they are less likely to cancel the subscription altogether.

Integrate Add-ons and Upsells

Another great way to increase the average order value of your customers is by adding add-ons and upsells. Big names like GoDaddy GoPro have been using this pricing strategy for years now, which has helped them generate more sales.

Everything that you throw at your customers before and after purchasing the products is for one thing - increasing the order value.

And therefore, there's an increase in customer LTV. Some of your add-ons and upsells features may seem annoying to your customers. But it's a genius idea for your business.

Since you are competing in a very competitive and price-sensitive space, If you want to maximize your customer acquisition, you need to maximize the value of every customer you get through the door.

By doing so, you can save the money that you would have otherwise spent on getting new customers. So you can now invest it in other business activities. Like - marketing. Which will help you build market share without increasing the price of their core product.


— Introduce Premium Versions

Introducing a line of premium versions of the same product can incentivize your customers to opt for better options. But, you need to make sure you can present it in a manner that demonstrates why the premium versions are better than the regular ones.

That way, customers who always want the best of everything are more likely to opt for the premium purchase. The pricing of the premium product will also be higher than the regular, which may be a problem for some of your customers. In such a case, you can introduce split pay for that.

Now split pay is absolutely everywhere and another massive trend of e-commerce over the last few years. One of the biggest players in the split pay market -Klarna, claims to increase the average order value by up to 58%.

Split pay will help you get more sales for your premium products and end up increasing the average order value for your customers.

Drawing Conclusion: Loyalty Brings Revenue

The right customer lifetime value model can boost your company's growth and progress in many ways. It puts more money in your business's wallet by lowering customer acquisition costs and saving money on marketing and sales activities.

Delivering a great deal of value, understanding the customers being in their shoes, prioritizing customer service are what they need to come back to you again and again.

Learn More:

  1. How Customer Service Can Help Sustain Your E-Commerce Business
  2. How To Get Repeat E-commerce Customers: Encourage Them To Return For More

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