Has this world of BB Pins and dirt cheap text messages pushed email marketing and newsletters out of the frame?
The question of whether the new wave of technology has pushed email marketing and newsletter totally out of the picture is one that needs analyzed on the basis of varying perspectives. The first thing that needs to be done for this is to split the perspective from that of the western world to that of the Indian market. In the western world the email marketing, while not as critical as it used to be before the influx of mobile marketing and social network marketing, is still effective. In contrast, the Indian and other similar developing markets are desperately in need of email marketing innovation as this aspect in various companies’ marketing strategies is still quite crude. The reason for this is nothing but poor content quality, formatting and strategizing.
Consider an email newsletter in terms of some of the most basic questions
What is it? It is an amalgamation of images and written content aimed at persuading the reader to read through and then click through it onto the sender’s website. Once this happens, it is up to the website content to convert this into a sale.
What are its most important components? When you receive an email newsletter, what makes you open one and send another to the bin? The answer is the subject line and the sender id. The subject line and the sending email id is the first representation of the email sender to his customer.
When you open an email newsletter, what attracts you? The Indian audience is much more measured when it comes to its purchases. What this means is that the Indian customer is much more calculative than your western audience simply because the standard of living is significantly different. This is a marketing research study that is taught in all major marketing courses and instructional diplomas. Coming back to the question, there are a slew of things that would attract you ranging from large flashing discounts, well formatted and written content and, in some cases, even a fancy image.
Now that we have covered these questions, we should analyze how Indian email newsletters fare with regard to these markers
Designing and synergy: Most Indian email newsletters are designed in a very haphazard and disinterested manner which results in a newsletter that contains poorly formatted and worded content with simple and poor resolution images derived from Google search.
Email ids and subject matter: Most Indian email newsletters are sent from email ids which are either personal or made on free servers. Similarly, the subject line in most email newsletters are either too mundane or too sales based as both are created in house by a multi tasking employee of the company.
Psychology and market studies: The Indian email newsletters are often made in an undignified manner i.e. the moment they are opened, they are too forward or too persuasive. While various market studies of global markets reveal that this technique works in the western world, similar market studies of the Indian market show that this is not that ideal for the Indian market because the Indian customer has a tendency to doubt something too persuasive.
Comparing the effects of Indian email newsletter campaigns and western email newsletter campaigns
These reasons are exactly why the email marketing in the Indian markets only show click through rate of around 5 percent. When this is compared to the western world, the dichotomy between preferences of the two markets is made obvious. The western market newsletters click through rates are, inconclusively, estimated to be between double and triple of the Indian numbers. This leads us to the question of how can email newsletters be made more effective so as to generate more click through traffic.
It is possible to turn your email marketing campaign into a huge success
If you as an entrepreneur want to make your email marketing strategies more effective, then the answer is simply that you should devote some more time and resources to your email marketing campaign. This means that you should either employ some professional content writers or, if hiring content writers permanently is too expensive for you, get help from a web content writing service on a project by project basis. However, if you decide to hire a web content writing service, then you should ensure that they have the ability to create content for newsletters i.e. have custom writing services.
As for the type of content that you should have in your newsletter, you have multiple options depending upon your target audience and the kind of business you are running. Here are some tips regarding email newsletters.
- You can formulate your email newsletter around industry news and statistics but only if your business is technical in nature. Needless to say, the common man would not like to see numbers and graphs and would prefer coupon codes and discounts.
- An instructional email newsletter almost always generates a lot of attention. A simple thumb rule to follow here would be to use ‘how to’ before providing some genuinely helpful tips and instructions on some action, process or goal.
- Providing case studies or testimonials is one of the more time tested methods. However, the problem with case studies and testimonials is that most entrepreneurs only focus on superlatives and exclamation marks. A balanced view is better because it creates confidence in your reader.
- Making the newsletter interactive has a lot of potential but most entrepreneurs tend to avoid doing this because it entails work even after the email newsletter has been dispatched. If you have a weekly newsletter campaign then this might appeal to you and your readers alike.
- Creating an expertise in a certain topic or industry is something that is extremely reliable not only in terms of the initial click through traffic but also for customer retention and recall value. Becoming an authority in some subject would have people seek you out as well.
Having a successful email marketing campaign only requires you to have the right amount of desire because people want to buy and purchase things and it is not that difficult to get them to buy your product. All you have to do is give your audience and the concept of email marketing a little more respect. Along with this, getting professional help from the right web content writing service can also go a long way in having newsletters tailor made for your audience and, hence, your success.
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