Are you looking for a way to expand your clientele reach through email marketing in Singapore? You are in luck, today we will look at the best email marketing strategies that deliver the best results. We will tell you exactly what you need to do to get ahead of the competition.
However, before we look at the strategies, here are the latest statistics about email marketing that you should keep in mind.
- By 2022, there will be more than 4.3 billion active email users
- 269 billion emails are sent and received every day
- The average ROI (Return on Investment) per $1 spent in email marketing is $32
Effective email marketing is the main driver of consumer acquisition and retention for small-medium businesses in Singapore. Data shows that email marketing in Singapore is the primary customer acquisition channel for 81% of SMBS. The report also shows that 80% of SMBs use top email marketing software and practices to increase customer retention rate.
Email Marketing in Singapore –
Best Practices
1: Send the Email to Yourself First
This is no-brainer but it is still worth mention, as most digital marketers do not do this. Sending the email to yourself first before forwarding it to the target recipients will give you a clearer perspective of the message. As you read it, watch out for errors that could discourage prospects from taking the desired action.
Concisely, the test email will help ensure that:
- There are no grammatical errors and typos in the copy
- All graphics are displayed properly
- Email format looks great on both smartphone and desktop
- The links are working
- There is nothing glaringly wrong with the email
More importantly, double-check the plain text and HTML version of the email before sending it out. The point we are trying to put across is that, you should always send email newsletters to yourself first.
2: No Spamming
Spamming is one of the reasons why most of the email marketing campaigns fails to take off. Picture this; the recipient probably receives more than 20 emails per day from colleagues and companies that are trying to sell the same or similar product/service to them. You should only send the email to recipients who have already shown interest in your brand.
Otherwise, if you send the email to random people or the content of the email is not relevant to the audience, rest assured that it would be marked as spam. You can avoid spamming the target audience and ruining your reputation by avoiding buying generic email lists.
It is also recommended to give customers an option to opt in on your website. Note that purchased lists usually record the highest unsubscribe and spam rate. Your Singapore email marketing provider will ban you if you get too many of those. Be sure to include your physical address in the footer and give the recipients an opportunity to unsubscribe.
3: Ease the Process of Subscribing
As mentioned earlier, you should desist from buying email lists. Focus on getting legitimate subscribers who are truly interested in what your brand offers. One of the surest ways of achieving this goal is by making it easy for the interested prospects to subscribe. Here are some ideas on how to motivate website visitors in Singapore to subscribe to your email list.
- Add signup CTAs at strategic locations on your blog or website
- Include a pre-checked checkbox besides other forms on your website where prospects input their email address. For example, you can add it in the checkout or member registration pages.
- Regularly send tweets with a link that the target customers can click on to visit your subscribe page
- Include a signup form in your official Facebook page
The first email should be sent within 24 hours of subscription – you cannot risk some of the prospecting forgetting they signed up.
4: Smart Scheduling
If you want to good results from email marketing in Singapore, you need to schedule your emails in a smart way. Well, knowing the best time to send out the email is challenging, as each customer is different. Research shows that the best days to send emails to prospects is on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at around 10am.
This timeframe may not work well for your brand, but start with it then carry out several A/B tests based on the results you get to know when you should send the email. Categorise your list based on time zones to get the highest response rate possible.
5: Double Opt-in
Sharing email addresses is a norm nowadays and people do not always know what they are signup for until they are spammed with emails. A double opt-in process will ensure that every person who subscribes to your list is genuinely interested in your brand.
What does a double opt-in entail? As the name suggests, this is a top email marketing strategy in Singapore that involves sending a confirmation email to the recipient after they sign up. The main objective of this email is to inform them that they signed up to your weekly or monthly newsletter. Highlight what they can expect in the coming days and request them to confirm their subscription by clicking on the confirmation button.
Ideally, the confirmation button should be placed at the end of the email copy. It is also important to point out that the email should be concise – no need to go provide detailed information about products. You will get an opportunity to give such information in the subsequent emails.
6: Create a Cadence
When doing email marketing in Singapore, timing is important. How frequent do you send the emails? If you have automated the process, most of your emails will be sent out based on specific user actions such as double opt-in and order confirmations.
Schedule a meeting your in-house digital marketing team to come up with an email calendar that is in line with your content marketing strategies, promotion and event marketing calendars. Synchronisation, planning product launch announcements, and sales emails ahead of time will increase the chances of your email marketing campaign succeeding.
Note that sending too many emails will discourage prospects from doing business with you. One of the signs you are overdoing it is increase in un-subscription rate and decrease in open and click rates. Only reach out to prospects when it is necessary.
7: Give the Recipients Options
Guessing the right time to send out emails may or may not help your Singapore business scale up. The best email marketing gurus recommend giving the recipients options. That is, give them a chance to decide the specific day and time they would like to receive the email.
Some of the customers genuinely care about your business and would like to do business with you but are simply overwhelmed. Give such potential customers an option to pause their newsletter subscription for 30 or 90 days. Concisely, giving customers an opportunity to choose the frequency of your emails will help foster a cordial working relationship with them.
8: Create Compelling Subject Lines
Subject lines are critically important, have a direct impact on email click, and open rates. They can either discourage or encourage the recipient from opening your email. Therefore, make sure that the subject line of every email that you send is compelling and relevant to the email copy.
Carry out A/B tests with a small group of subscribers to know which subject lines resonate well with your audience. Here are some tips on how to make your email subject lines more compelling.
- Add one or two tasteful emojis
- Personalize it by adding the recipient’s name
- It should have 30 – 50 characters
- Include action verbs
- Give an irresistible and clear value proposition that resonate with the contents of the email
- Be consistent
Below is a list of things that will discourage potential customers in Singapore from reading your emails.
- Capitalising all letters
- Including spammy keywords such as free, win, urgent, buy now
- Typos
- Excessive use of emojis
- Deceptive subject lines that don’t match the email content
As you write the subject lines, keep in mind that the goal is to motivate people who are interested in the content to open the email, not to get a high open rate at any cost.
9: Don’t Omit Details of the Sender
Well, the subject line has a direct impact on email open rates, but there are other important things that you need to consider when doing email marketing in Singapore. In a recent study, that sort to determine the main factors that people consider before opening an email, 42% said details of the sender, 34% the subject line, and only 24% are motivated to open an email based on the preview text.
Sender names tend to deliver the best results when personalised. For example, instead of just mentioning your brand name, include your name. The name should be real and assign one of your digital marketers the role of respond to all emails to establish consistency.
Remember to optimise the pre-header. This is the preview text that will be displayed after the email subject line. If you do not optimise it, the client might preview random sections of the email that look unprofessional or messy.
10: Simplicity Always Get the Job Done
The main goal of the email copy is to grab the attention of the reader quickly and encourage them to take the desired action by strategically placing a CTA in the email body. Regardless of whether you want the audience to order a new product you recently launched, visit your blog, or sign up to your weekly newsletter, make sure that your copy is professionally organized.
One of the mistakes that most email marketers make is including too many CTAs in the email. If possible, only include one and place it above the fold to ensure they do not miss it. Use colour contrast to make the CTA pop out.
Earlier on, we discussed the importance of first sending the email to yourself to ensure that everything is in order. Go a step further and send the email to one of your colleagues to be sure that there are no errors. Can they see the CTA immediately after opening the email on both desktop and smartphone? If YES, proceed to send out the email. If not, work on the CTA placement and copy to get the most out of it.
Alt text is not just for images that you upload on your website. Adding them on the images and buttons in your emails will help prospects understand and resonate with your content if the HTML fails to display them. Note that some email service providers block images by default.
If that happens, the readers will see a blank space where the image or button should be. With Alt text, they will still be able to know the desired action and the specific part of the email they should click to complete the action. Consider also hyperlinking them to your landing pages to boost your Singapore website conversion rate.
12: Create Drip Campaigns
Drip campaigns have proven to be very effective in enhancing the performance of email marketing in Singapore. Here is an example of a drip campaign for a new online store blog subscriber:
- Introductory email: Thank you for joining our emailing list! Here is a 5% off coupon on your next purchase
- 2 days later: We hope you are enjoying reading our blog articles. Check out this list of our most popular articles.
- Two weeks later: We hope you are still enjoying reading our articles. If you do, check out our whitepaper! It discusses the topics covered in the blog posts more comprehensively.
Create a new drip campaign with a different goal or objective for readers who read your third email and download the whitepaper.
Understanding your audience needs and expectations when they visit your website will help you come up with ideal drip campaigns. Define user personas and segment your email list to get the best results from each campaign.
Closing Remarks
Conducting email marketing in Singapore is not difficult, you just need to make sure that you have a clear understanding of your audience from the word go. Monitor results, be open to new ideas, and make sure that your content is 100% relevant to the recipient to the best results.
Get in touch with us for more personalised assistance on how to create custom email marketing campaigns in Singapore.
