4 reasons why Email marketing/advertising strategy does not work in Nigeria

Keywords:

1. The advantages and disadvantages of email marketing/advertisement in Nigeria,

2. 4 reasons why Email marketing/advertising does not work in Nigeria.

3. Email marketing in Nigeria, problems of email marketing in Nigeria,

4. Issues in email advertisement in Nigeria.

Introduction

Whoever told you to rely largely on email marketing/advertorial strategy as a Nigerian Internet operator or one that has the Nigerian “websphere” in focus must have told you a lie. Whatever the magnitude of pros possible with email advertising strategy, when it comes to the Nigerian online environment, the cons seem to take the lead. And when the odds is more popular, then such is not a feasible strategy to adopt, its best suitable for the trashcan, it just doesn’t work!

I do not intend to bore you with much stories, so I will take it straight to the point – as one that have toed this path in the past and I tell you, it was very unsuccessful. See reasons below shortly. But before I proceed, let me hint if I forget to do so after dropping my last fullstop on this message that online advertisement is a serious business and if you have nothing to do with online advertisement, then you have no business wasting your time on this. Shall we then proceed?

Nigerian hardly check their emails

When last did you check your email? Oh sorry, how old is your email account? Let’s start from there as the age of your email address coupled with your frequency of accessing the content of your inbox folder and spam goes a long way to prove or disapprove a point here. I guess you only check your email address when, or mostly when you have something very important to access in your box, not so? You would not just get to your email address without a consciousness of getting something serious from your box or would you? So what happens to the mailing program you subscribed to, how useful does it become to you? Maybe not that necessary – and you are not alone as millions across this country do the same thing. Email is but an option when it matters most – it gets dumped once the issue of priority is done with. Hardly do Nigerians check their emails daily or frequently daily, except it of something important, perhaps very important. This is an odd against email advertising in Nigeria websphere. When someone only comes to realize your email days after the service you tried to pass across had passed, is there any sense in that? The poor web-culture of Nigerians is an issue that if not properly checked has the potency of sending most of us offline.

It is a time waster: email databases contains numerous errors, needs exhaustive editing

Purchasing a Nigerian email database is one thing, using it is strictly a different business. I know the kind of stress I went through when I got an email database sometimes ago. I only got to discover after purchase that most of the email addresses were not working – some had been disabled, some contained errors, some were inoperative and stuffs like that. It then dawned on me to sit tight and edit a database of over 0.8million email addresses across the Nigerian federation – who would be able to do that? For once, I did not really know what to edit and could only check for spelling errors in the email addresses – what and herculean task! There is hardly an email database you will buy that lacks errors of sorts. There would always be errors and you are required to edit these. That is much work, I must tell you.

Sending the emails is another problem: costly, ends up in clients’ spam folders

If at all you scale through the ordeal of editing the email address or perhaps say you are lucky not to have significant errors in your own database, there comes the problem of sending the mails. I don’t think email marketing such predominantly be an individualistic affair as it is quite costly here in Nigeria. I did not know Gmail and other traditional email clients have restrictions on the volumes of emails possible a day using their non-business emailing packages. When I got to know I was in a mess, almost. So I opted for email sending programs and platforms – hardly do you find one that is free and very efficient. Mailchimp is a good way to start – but if you must get better services, you must pay. Other restrictions exist like their opting for an emailing list generic to their own platform. What that means is that you first get to have subscribers who enter their emails willingly to forms developed by Mailchimp – no that you can use your own emailing database you got just like that. And if that must be the case however, you would have to pay for better services.

The use of software could be a better option – but its cost effectiveness is another issue. Costly to setup, costly to maintain. So what’s the point?

But that is really not where the problem lies anyway. Paying for them to send the emails for you does not solve it all. The question is, where do your emails land – inbox or spam? To a large extent, spam! Generic email clients like Gmail and Yahoo have developed strict algorithms that restrict spam emails from entering users’s inbox of last. So if your intention is to email directly to the inbox, well that is a work of fate as over 70% of your efforts will end up in the trashcan once the user comes on. So what’s the need wasting all this time and it ends up wasted? I’m not saying some would not go through; all I’m saying is that a majority would go under. It mostly ends up in the spam folder.

Lacks specifics

Let me assume you scaled through the above and finally your email arrived users’ inbox. Now, who gets an email and for what purpose? The thing is, for emailing lists that is unspecified – that is, the users interest is not specified or the emails are not properly categorized – as often is the case with commercial email databases, who gets what and why would they respond just like that? I am a business man involved in building materials sales and you email me on how to create a cook Afang soup – of what use would that necessarily be to me? It may be useful in later times but for the moment that is not my concern. I can always buy my Afang soup and move on, but if you emailed me on the latest trends in the building materials market terrain in Nigeria, that would have done much good. So prioritization matters.

Conclusion

Commercial emailing databases would only perhaps categorize the emails according to states of the federation and not necessarily according to other specifics – and that is where the problem lies – emailing people who do not necessarily need your emails.

When next you consider advertisement of your online service within the Nigerian webspere, trash the option of emailing from your head – it just does not work, just like bulk SMS services here in Nigeria. I may be wrong, and I stand to be corrected by only people who have toes this path before and it worked for them or who have a practical idea of email marketing/advertisement. General Comments and contributions are welcome.

Written by De Kemcy, Nigeria.