MEDIA RICHNESS AND SOCIAL PRESENCE IN DIGITAL NEWSLETTERS: A COMPARISON OF WHATSAPP AND E-MAIL MARKETING

While e-mail newsletters are one of the most popular marketing channels in German-speaking countries, WhatsApp marketing has not been extensively researched in scientific literature, even though the channel has been gaining importance since the launch of its cloud-based Business Platform in 2022. This study examines how newsletter subscribers of the fashion label Marc O'Polo (MOP) perceive the WhatsApp and e-mail newsletters in terms of Media Richness, Information Overload, Social Presence, Customer Brand Engagement, brand loyalty, and newsletter loyalty. As part of the mono-method quantitative study, 751 responses were collected through a standardized online survey sent to subscribers of the MOP e-mail and WhatsApp newsletters. The analysis of the structural equation model confirms the conceptual framework established: the richer the communication medium, the higher the perceived Social Presence, and the stronger the Customer Brand Engagement. Information Overload has a small but significantly negative effect on engagement in both channels. Moreover, a higher level of Customer Brand Engagement leads to greater loyalty to the newsletter as well as to the brand. Through multiple permutation multigroup analyses, significant differences were found in the chain of effects between e-mail and WhatsApp, and transaction frequency was identified as significant moderator. It was determined that the perceived Social Presence on WhatsApp leads to a significantly stronger increase in engagement compared to the e-mail newsletter. This dissertation provides new insights into the understanding and differentiation between e-mail and WhatsApp newsletters from a customer's perspective. Moreover, managerial recommendations were developed for optimizing WhatsApp and e-mail newsletters for recipients who have subscribed to both channels. Thus, this work contributes to closing the research gap in the field of WhatsApp marketing.