The Chinese Version of Email Marketing Is Taking The Industry By Storm
The new way of email marketing
Email marketing has been around for a long time.
It’s one of the tried and true ways to sell a product.
There are a few problems with it today. Let’s talk about a few here and how the Chinese version is different.
The first problem with the traditional way is that sometimes it doesn’t even hit the person's inbox.
Google has gotten very good at being able to detect sales-related emails. They automatically send them to either the promotional section or place them in spam.
The next problem is that people know a sales pitch when they see one. They are being bombarded for hours on end and can tell when someone is trying to sell them something a mile away.
Another issue is that there is no direct way for a person to answer these emails usually.
They more often than not have to send a link intended for the customer to click or some other kind of call to action.
Until now.
The Chinese way of doing is a little bit different.
They are making email marketing much more of a conversational place.
Let’s say for example you walk into a store and buy a new bedside table.
As you check out, the cashier might offer you a 10% discount in exchange for your email address or even phone number.
Here then says in case you have any questions about assembly of the bedside table or anything else, simply message him in the given medium.
In addition to this, other customers who have bought the same thing in your area might also be in the chat with you and the cashier.
Essentially, it becomes its own community of people who have bought the same product as you. There is the cashier in the group acting as an administrator for the chat.
People can share questions or ways they are using the product, in addition to anything else they might want to say.
The cashier can then send additional sales updates. He may send add-ons you can purchase with the bedside table.
He may also mention other products that are similar or other products the store offers altogether.
Not only that, he may send you tips related to your product as well.
For example, if you buy a cookbook, he may send you some cool recipes he has found to keep you engaged.
It’s combining email marketing and content marketing all into one.
It makes for a much more direct marketing approach.
Of course, the person can still unsubscribe from the communication at any time, but it’s intended to be more of an ongoing conversation than simply getting sales pitches by email all the time.
It’ll be interesting to see if America adopts a similar method.
I’m sure we will catch up one day.
Until then, you can read more about the new method here.
