This year it’s the 10th anniversary of Econsultancy’s Email Marketing Industry Census, in association with Adestra.
Subscribers can download the full census but first let’s look at three key charts from the report.
Email marketing has a reputation of being a boring direct response channel, always on the verge of “death” at the hands of the latest digital touch point, which gets heralded as the “future of messaging”.
Yet email trudges on, consistently ranking at the highest level for ROI. Despite the death threats, companies are attributing 23% of their total sales to email, up from 18% in 2013.
In the face of newer digital channels, email has thrived in its role as the unassuming, reliable touch point for marketers to engage with customers.
So how will the elder statesman of digital marketing change in a continuously evolving digital ecosystem?
Here are a number of ways marketers think email will be used in the near future and beyond.
Though 83% of companies see the benefits of increased automation in email marketing, many are yet to use the technology to its full extent.
For example, though the use of triggers for emails such as abandoned baskets can produce results, the vast majority are just using one or two automated triggers.
In this post, I’ll look at some of the findings from our Email Marketing Industry Census 2014, based on a survey of more than 1,100 email marketers and produced in partnership with Adestra.
As with many things in digital, there’s always someone proclaiming the imminent death of email.
Its ‘killers’ are said to include social media, instant messaging, and spam. However, it’s still here, it works, and we can prove it.
According to our Email Marketing Industry Census 2014 sponsored by Adestra, revenue from email has increased proportionately by 28% in one year.
In spite of all the advances and innovations in digital marketing, good old email remains as one of the most effective channels for driving traffic and conversions.
Econsultancy’s Email Marketing Census found that just over half (55%) of respondents achieved more than 10% of their sales from email.
But to really reap the benefits of email marketing businesses should also be personalising their campaigns based on user demographics and behaviours, and according to the Census three quarters (73%) carry out basic segmentation.
However only 22% said that they currently implement ‘advanced segmentation’.
To show why this tactic is so important I’ve rounded up 10 case studies from businesses that have improved their traffic or conversions using segmentation…
There are many factors that influence whether or not people bother to open your marketing emails or not.
Email frequency, brand affinity and time of day are all influential, as is the subject line that marketers opt for.
The precise wording will vary depending on the brand identity and the product offer, but the basic aim is to grab the reader’s attention and make them interested enough to clickthrough and find out more.
To help get to the bottom of what makes up the best subject line, I’ve rounded up a few case studies and infographics that try to shed some light on the topic.
Just over one in five (22%) commercial emails sent globally on the first half of 2013 never made it to the subscriber’s inbox, according to a new report from Return Path.
This means that billions of messages sent with the intended recipient’s permission were either bumped into the spam folder or, more commonly, didn’t reach the inbox at all.
Furthermore, the global inbox placement rate actually declined slightly versus the first half of 2012, dropping 4% year-on-year.
Obviously on the plus side the good news is that 78% of marketing messages do reach their intended recipient.
Deliverability is one of the topics covered in our Email Marketing Census 2013. According to the responding companies (58%) clean and up-to-date lists have the biggest impact on improving deliverability, and this has increased by 4% since 2012.
In the fast moving world of digital marketing the value of email for driving sales is occasionally overlooked as shiny new technologies emerge and distract our attention from what actually works in terms of bringing in revenue.
However the new Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Census again highlights the importance of email as a sales channel, as just over half (55%) of all company respondents could attribute more than 10% of their total sales to the email marketing channel, with 18% of respondents stating that email accounted for over 30%.
The Email Marketing Census looks at the amount and type of email marketing carried out by organisations, the way that email marketing is conducted, issues affecting the industry and the effectiveness of email compared to other digital marketing channels.
Almost two-thirds (61%) of marketers rate their email campaign performance as ‘poor’ or ‘average’, while just 4% would rate themselves as ‘excellent’.
The findings come from the new Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2013 which looks at the amount and type of email marketing carried out by organisations, the way that email marketing is conducted, issues affecting the industry and the effectiveness of email compared to other digital marketing channels.
Over 1,300 agency and client-side respondents took part in the 2013 census. Some of the key findings are highlighted in this infographic.
While companies appreciate the importance of mobile email, they are a long way away from implementing best practice, with just 25% currently optimising emails for mobile.
The seventh annual Econsultancy Email Marketing Industry Census, sponsored by Adestra, finds that mobile email is a key area for improvement.
For the past six years, Econsultancy and Adestra have been asking marketers on both the client and agency side for their opinion on what is happening within email marketing.
This year we are doing the same again, launching our seventh survey to take the pulse of email marketing and to see what those at the coalface are doing to get the best results of their efforts.
Those taking part in the Email Marketing Industry Census will get a free copy of the report, worth £250/$400.
A new study from ExactTarget suggests that almost half (46%) of UK-based online consumers have made a purchase as a result of an email marketing message.
This makes it four times more effective than Facebook (which 10% of people quote as a driver) and text messaging (12%), showing that despite the buzz around social media as a marketing channel brands shouldn’t neglect more ‘traditional’ forms of communication.
The Social Profile UK report, which is based on 1,404 consumer interviews and surveys, also looked at which channels would make consumers more likely to purchase in the future.