Leevje shut down its online shop before Black Friday and sent a presale via WhatsApp only. Far from pushing people away, it created so much FOMO that WhatsApp subscribers grew by almost 40%.
The goal: save costs, build relationships
Leevje started with WhatsApp in November 22 with charles.
It wanted to break away from traditional advertising channels and the associated rising costs. At the same time, it wanted to use a channel like WhatsApp that attracts a high level of attention from customers.
With WhatsApp marketing through charles, it has been able to meet its customers where they communicate with their friends – and create even stronger personal and emotional bonds.
For Black Friday 2023, it wanted to use its new WhatsApp marketing channel in a way that would reach as many customers as possible, grow its subscriber base with new leads and let them feel like VIPs – while staying true to the brand essence of sustainable living.
The campaign: WhatsApp as an exclusive channel
Leevje created the "Conscious Shopping Days" campaign – an event that would encourage sustainable shopping while building its WhatsApp subscriber base.
The clothing company took a risk to catch attention. It closed down its online shop to funnel people into WhatsApp.
The hook? Leevje announced that there would be a a presale 1 day before its Conscious Shopping Days. But to get into this presale, you had to join Leevje's WhatsApp channel. The password to unlock the website would be sent on WhatsApp only on November 8.
When people visited Leevje's website leading up to the event, they saw website popups about the presale. During the event itself, website visitors saw a locked homepage with a link to enter the Leevje WhatsApp channel for the presale.
Leevje uses charles Journeys to automate the WhatsApp "double opt-in" – one of the ways to support GDPR compliance in WhatsApp
Leevje promoted this presale on its organic channels (social organic and email), and boosted awareness with social ads.
The results: high engagement, subscriber growth and revenue
Leevje saw a click-through rate of 54%, and earned €100,000 from 4,000 WhatsApp contacts – with an RPR of nearly €25.
This is a high return considering the average RPR across all charles customers is €1.88* per conversation.
Leevje also increased its WhatsApp subscriber base by almost 40% – customers it can now easily reconnect with once the Black Friday hype dies down.
One reason Leevje is so successful in WhatsApp is because it uses charles not only as a powerful marketing tool, but also as a customer service and engagement tool.
Customers are able to send questions easily and receive a quick answer. Using WhatsApp they can create a satisfying user experience along all touchpoints within the funnel and post purchase.
Then, when marketing campaigns are sent out, engagement tends to be high.
How Leevje ran the campaign
Step 1: Shut down online shop, announced presale
Closed online shop and offered a gated presale. Password was shared with WhatsApp subscribers only for 1 day – the day before the public November deal days.
Step 2: Promoted WhatsApp-only presale on socials
Promoted Conscious Shopping Days presale on social media (ads and posts) and email. Collected around 1.5k additional WhatsApp opt-ins.
Step 3: Sent presale password via WhatsApp only
Sent out campaign to around 4k contacts, revealing presale password and linking to locked website.
Future steps
1. Post-purchase automation with Klaviyo integration.
2. Use social ads to grow subscriber base.
3. Optimize segmentation with A/B testing.
With this "WhatsApp as an exclusive channel" strategy, Leevje clearly communicated the benefit of joining WhatsApp to its customers – with great effect.
Leevje CEO, David Ortmeier says, "Our customers were super engaged. They waited for the start of the event and shopped instantly when the WhatsApp messages came through. These customers felt like VIP customers, as the presale was exclusively for WhatsApp subscribers.
"We're very satisfied with WhatsApp and the charles team in particular. We're happy with the tool and the many releases it has.
"A steady open rate of over 80% speaks for itself. We also receive positive feedback from their customers, and enquiries via WhatsApp are steadily increasing, which shows how important this channel is."
*€1.88 median customer RPR per month from Dec 23 to May 24 from all charles customers with enabled revenue tracking
