Some time ago one of our customers wanted to know if they can send "Whatsapp newsletters" from our platform. When this request reached me, I was rather nonplussed - what's a Whatsapp newsletter?? Wait, how is this even a thing?
Lets start with basics: What's a newsletter?
I asked AI Boi what it is and got a fairly decent reply:
A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication, typically issued at a predetermined interval, that provides information and updates on a specific topic or area of interest to a particular audience. Newsletters often take the form of printed documents or, more commonly in the digital age, electronic formats such as emails or web pages.
I would actually add some bits to this - a newsletter must:
- evoke delight - it should have a story, be creative and compelling and engaging to be worth a read, and make one feel that some real hooman effort has gone into crafting it
- have some heft - it should have say 100 words at least? A title, a smart intro, some meat, ie it should not be a 200 character tweet pretending to be a post
- be unique each time - who wants to receive the same newsletter repeatedly with just different words and codes filled in. That's not a newsletter, that's a templatized bulk message 🥱.
- And most importantly, be sent without a trigger from the recipient - in other words, a newsletter is sent when the sender wants to send - either periodically, or based on a notable event. It has some info that the recipient was not expecting. When the sender sends an update based on an action taken by the user - umm, that's not a newsletter either, just age old transactional updates, whether delivered by email, push notification, SMS, RCS, messenger (Whatsapp, Telegram), or pigeon mail. Nothing new here, move along. Examples:
- event confirmation from the system upon registering for an event
- purchase confirmation upon buying something
What a newsletter is not
A newsletter is not a chat message.
What can one do on Whatsapp? Send chat messages.
Ergo chat messages are not newsletters.
That's pretty much it actually as far as the gist of this article goes - calling Whatsapp messages "newsletters" is a bit silly. Its just a message and just as one can send chat messages between friends and family on any of the 100s of chat services out there, businesses can send chat messages to their pretend customers on Whatsapp. Just because businesses are sending bulk promotional WhatsApp chat messages, they don't suddenly get elevated as "newsletters".
Lets look into specific examples of the kind of stuff that is being touted as "whatsapp newsletters" and people are falling over themselves to buy into it.
This gem is from Brevo:
What is so newslettery about this? Its the same old promo bulk message that one can get via SMS and everyone is used to this.
Here's some more gems from Wati, according to whom any message sent via Whatsapp is a "Whatsapp newsletter" 🙄🤣. No need for any nuance.
- Customer Updates
- Event Reminders
- Exclusive Offers
- Survey & Feedback
None of the above are "newsletters" - they are all
- short, to the point, matter of fact updates about something
- cookie cutter chat messages, made with 0 creativity
- sent via automated services using strictly approved templates
Diving deeper into automated Whatsapp messaging
Let's talk for a moment about how these so called "Whatsapp newsletters" are put together.
"Whatsapp newsletters" are chat messages sent in bulk ie to a great many Whatapp users, most of whom are already annoyed with the huge amount of endless unsolicited commercial communication that they receive.
These are sent via automation, and when businesses want to send bulk messages, they must do this via a Whatsapp BSP (Business Solution Provider). Sending messages is really expensive, and Meta (the owner of Whatsapp) is of course busy being a giant parasite on the world and sucking everyone dry with their Whatsapp pricing. As if that cost was not enough, a layer of rent seekers on top, ie the BSP, also needs to be paid, driving up the messaging cost even further.
Psst, while on this topic - do you think it ends here? Oh no. Most businesses use Digital Agencies. So this SECOND layer on top - the Digital Agency which uses the services of the BSP, marks up the messaging cost even further for its end customers.
Thankfully sending messages via Whatsapp is heavily regulated, and every message that is sent out needs to follow a template, and the template needs to be approved by Meta. Which means a business can have only so many templates, and whatever one sends, has to follow the template, including the so called whatsapp newsletters. Here are some template examples:
Need to get beach-ready for summers? We are running a special sale on our collection of {{1}} & {{2}} for the next 24 hours. Use the promo code {{3}} to get your hands on the sassiest looking hats for your beach vacation. No string attached! Head over to the website to order now.
It's finally here! Today, we launched the much-awaited {{1}}. You can get your hands on it for the next 24 hours at a special launch discount of 30%. Offers last till stocks last. Order here {{2}}.
While sending, the messaging automation replaces {{1}}, {{2}} with actual contextual words.
As one can see, its heavily templatized and fails the newsletter tests I outlined at the start. Its just a cookie cutter marketing automation message nothing else.
There is no human emotion coming across here, no love for the medium, no creative expression, no sly humour - just the same boring call-to-attention language that silly valley marketers have exported across the world, and now is being churned out by GIGO AI. Thoo.
So who coined this term anyway?
No prizes for guessing this one - its been invented by the BSPs who need to offer something, anything, to lure the unsuspecting masses.
Imagine saying a simple - we offer Whatsapp messaging for businesses which you can use as an effective marketing channel
vs saying
we offer whatsapp newsletters which is a powerful tool for brands to effectively engage their audience, and make apples fall out of trees.
Its just marketing automation, people. Nothing fancy going on here. Whatsapp is great for marketing automation - but, please, lets all just go easy on the bullshit terminology like whatsapp newsletters.
Our take on this
There is a deep divide between digital natives and the millions of businesses out there - businesses who are not so knowledgeable about the digital world and its endless snake-oil salesmen, businesses who are desperate for customer attention and who are unfortunately driven by FOMO.
When businesses hear about this term somewhere, it sounds quite impressive - and FOMO drives them to buy into using this, and of course paying the cost for all this. As mentioned earlier, the costs can be significant - one needs to pay (money or time) a knowledgeable person inhouse who understands and owns this strategy, then pay the digital agency one deals with, then pay the BSP, then pay the actual messaging infra provided by Whatsapp.
It need not be like this:
- We want to ensure that we always guide our customers to become more proficient with technology, deal with FOMO and prevent needless spend where not required.
- We want to stay true to our mission, and enable our customers to use our tools without jumping through hoops.
Network operators (ie our customers) can use our Communication suite to easily reach their community members in a myriad ways, always with consent and respecting privacy - via email, in-app, native and web push notifications, Telegram, Whatsapp and SMS.
In other words, Whatsapp messages can also happily be sent on the MainCross platform, but we certainly won't call them "whatsapp newsletters".
What's our mission? I'm glad you asked.
Create the most complete elegant digital system that just works and has solutions for solving many of the usual use-cases that everyone needs. Without breaking the bank.
