Marketing over email: Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better

Asia demonstrated high email marketing engagement, with an open rate of 24.81% and a click-through rate of 3.53%, according to GetResponse's latest "Southeast Asia Industry Benchmarks 2017" report.However, in Southeast Asia, Malaysia had the lowest open rates at 16.52%. Meanwhile Singapore was at 20.25% and Indonesia was at 25.72%. According to the report, the email engagement rate is higher among companies with smaller databases. Those with less than 2,500 subscribers are found to have an average open rate of 41.95% and an average click-through rate of 6.47%.Throughout Southeast Asia, shorter subject lines garner higher open rates, due to 40% of the Southeast Asian population using smartphones. As a result, email subject lines are shorter on mobile devices, as compared to desktop.Additionally, marketers that personalise their subject lines see an average open rate of 30.60%, double the rate of those who do not use personalisation.The education industry has the highest average open rate (41.06%), followed by financial services (35.73%) and retail (34.95%). Industries with the lowest average open rate were health and beauty (21.62%) and internet marketing (16.24%). The report noted that the better-performing industries are likely integrating better marketing practices into their customer outreach, such as segmenting email lists based on user actions and behaviours, as well as sending targeted and personalised emails.[gallery columns="2" link="file" ids="197449,197452"]The report also noted that 46% of the 450 million emails sent came from Singapore. Malaysia (17%), Vietnam (16%) and Thailand (14%) were next in the top four.“The email marketing landscape in Southeast Asia is growing at an exponential rate. We are seeing increasingly high demand in emerging countries such as Vietnam, and consistent growth in more sophisticated markets like Malaysia and Singapore," Mellissa Lee, head of GetResponse Malaysia, said."The Southeast Asia Benchmark study will help marketers identify areas in need of improvement. These findings can be applied to their campaigns and programs to meet and exceed consumer expectation. We hope the results will provide answers to questions such as the best times or days to send emails, deliverability best practices, and benchmarks marketers should strive towards," Lee added.The "Southeast Asia Industry Benchmarks 2017" report focuses on helping businesses improve the effectiveness of their email marketing, discover benchmarks for specific industries, and help compare and identify where to improve.