Does Email Marketing still work in Vietnam?
Has Messenger pushed out email marketing, or is there still hope in Vietnam?
A few months ago we sat down for lunch with a client who boldly claimed that Email Marketing is dead in Myanmar.
“Barely anyone has an email address,” he told us.
“If they do, how many people would regularly open emails?”
It’s true that Facebook Messenger racks up twice the open rates and six times the click rates compared to email. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to grieve this internet-old form of effective marketing.
We bodly reply: there’s still a place for email marketing in Vietnam.
Email Marketing benchmarks for Vietnam
Check out GetResponse’s report on email marketing in Vietnam for the first half of 2019.
Vietnam’s open rate is 24.98%, which is 3% keener than the world’s average. Click-through-rates (CTRs) on the other hand, sit at is 2.74% — which is just 0.7% lower than the world’s average.
Sure, email marketing may be struggling in other countries, with open rate falling to 11%, or being ignored all together, but the medium clearly still thrives in Vietnam — especially among audiences who are truly engaged with your brand or business.
As Social Media algorithms change, organic traffic goes down. Ads become more expensive, and at the end of the day, money wins. That’s a game small businesses can’t play.
Email marketing is still the most cost-efficient tool for any business. MailChimp offers a free plan with up to 2,000 contacts. Even with a plan of 25,000 contacts, the cost doesn’t go higher than $219 a month!
When does Email Marketing fail?
We’re not going to lie. Email marketing’s competitive. Not every email is going to hit that sweet 24.98% open rate.
Here’s what you’ might be doing wrong.
Buying email lists instead of building email lists
Great it theory, right? Save yourself time and effort and head straight to the potential customer.
That’s not really how it works. These poor people don’t know about your brand yet, and you’ll find yourself landing in their spam box, or they’ll put you there themselves.
At We Create Content, we generate marketing qualified leads — or MQLS. These are contacts that care and know about your brand, ensuring high open rates and interest from your audience.
Here’s how we do it:
- Creating lead magnets: Quality gated content that your audience will happily exchange their contact information for (ebooks, white paper, checklist, quiz, tests).
- Organising events: Signing up for workshops and webinars through registration forms.
- Email subscription box: Creating an appealing subscription box on your website. Some classics never die.
Spam emails instead of meaningful conversations
Our Digital Marketing Manager recently confessed to unsubscribing from his gym’s newsletter. “Not that big of a deal,” we thought, “but carry on.”
He explained that he liked the service, but not the rubbish content.
It’s true. People hate spam.
So, how do you differentiate between good content and a spam email? Here’s what we do.
- Set objectives for your emails: Emails are a direct line to your client, but what are you trying to say? Before sending any emails, figure out your purpose.
- Personalise emails: Don’t just whack their name in the headline. Segment your email lists and serve content that fits each audience group.
- Write compelling copy: From the headline to the body copy and CTA, everything needs to be well-thought-out.
- Create a good design: No one likes a text monolith. There should be a balance between image and copy. Your email design should also be responsive to various devices.
- Make it easy to unsubscribe: This isn’t just a benefit to the reader. Unsubscribers tell you whether your audience think they’re being spammed.
Starting to feel like email marketing might be a game-changer for your business?
Sorry, that was probably our fault.
In truth, email marketing is just another tool. It takes time, monitoring, and constant optimisation. With enough experience, however, your emails will improve and see better results.
Email Marketing tactics
Clearly email marketing still has legs in Vietnam, but it needs to be a part of a greater strategy.
Here’s an example from HubSpot.
Once a potential customer engages with their product, they use emails to give them a little, ‘hello, remember us?’ push.
Visual learner? Check this:
Different email marketing strategies work for different industries, but here are the four main ones:
- Triggered emails: Part of an automated workflow, these emails are triggered by audience’s behaviours. They might be triggered by downloading a document, opting into a subscriber’s list, or filling in the form on a landing page.
- Autoresponder: These are emails on a timer. They might, for example, be sent out 24 hours after they join a list, or two days after a triggered email.
- Newsletter: These emails are your basic weekly or monthly newsletter. It’s important to make them useful. Provide the reader with something they want and avoid appearing like spam.
- RSS: These are automatic emails. They’re sent to anyone signed up to your RSS feed when you publish a new blog post.
So, does it work? GetResponse data from 2019 will tell you:
Clearly triggered emails come out on top. That’s because they’re timely and relevant. They’re based on user’s behaviours, serving the right content to the right audience, exactly when they need it.
Triggered emails, however, are no quick fix. It takes time to figure out the buyer’s journey, and each journey needs its own email automation workflow.
It’ll all pay off soon, though. Then, just sit back, and watch the carefully selected emails send themselves off to the customer. Nice.
We’ve been working with HubSpot’s email marketing automation workflow here at We Create Content.
Here’s how it looks:
You don’t need to be HubSpot-ready to get involved in email automation. It’s usually included in any paid plan of email service providers like MailChimp or GetResponse.
When it comes to marketing, email proves to be a cost-effective way of reaching your audience, provided it’s done right.
We’ve seen businesses dump their email marketing strategies. We also see their shocked faces when we talk about them. That’s why we let the numbers speak for themselves.
Now, go and plan that email strategy!
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Originally published at https://wecreatecontent.asia on January 27, 2021.
