It’s been around three months since demonetisation
was introduced by the Indian government. How did this decision impact the
Indian businesses and how did they cope? How their communication strategy
adapted to the situation? We took two popular industries; the online
wallet/payment and online cab aggregator, and compared their performance.
The aftermath of demonetisation witnessed online
platforms becoming the go-to destinations for everyday transactions. However,
the mass exodus of Indian customers from brick and mortar stores to online
payment platforms wasn’t easy. It involved the incorporation of extensive email
marketing strategies in their subject lines so as to target the right customer
base, drive their click through rate and result in actual transactional
actions.
Various keywords were exclusively used by these
brands. Following is the comparative analysis based on Paytm vs Freecharge and
Ola vs Uber’s campaign data recorded from 8th November to 8th
December-2016.
Comparison:
Paytm vs Freecharge
- The over-all
sent out email campaigns went by two to three times for Freecharge as well
as PayTM compared to previous months.
- Campaigns
carried out by PayTM used keywords such as ‘Wallet’, ‘Cash free’ and
‘Cashless’ that helped PayTM, improve its average open rate from 7% to
16%. For Freecharge, the open rate remained almost consistent at around
11% as it majorly emphasized on word FreeCharge.
Comparison:
Uber vs Ola
- Ola
mainly emphasized on the word ‘Cashless travelling’ in many of its
campaigns whereas Uber used the words ‘Skip’ and ‘ATM queue’ in their
campaigns
- The
overall sent volume of Ola emails was much higher than of that of Uber by
around 18%.
- In
terms of numbers of subscribers opening the emails, Ola performed better
as compared to Uber. This can be attributed to two reasons: Ola has a
larger subscriber base and a slightly better read rate
Most
Popular Subject Lines Used:
Brands
|
Subject Line
|
Read %
|
Ola
|
Say Ola to cashless travelling
|
24.62%
|
Uber
|
Skip the ATM queue
|
22.58%
|
Paytm
|
It’s So Easy to Pay With Your Paytm Wallet
|
61.54%
|
Freecharge
|
{{First Name}}, Open this mail before you Freecharge! #Cashfree
|
20.44%
|
Some previously unimaginable transactions have
become common place today. Email marketing was deployed as the weapon of choice
to encourage more Indians to embrace online transactions. As a result, more
people began transacting online to complete their everyday grocery purchases
even at the local Kirana stores, online booking of cabs/movies, hotels and
restaurants.