For a Dead Channel, Email Marketing Shows Surprising Proof of Life [Infographic]

Video may have killed the radio star, but just like radio, email marketing is alive and well – and solidly in first place when it comes to buyer preferences and return on investment.

Email Marketing Infographic Shows Email Isn’t Dead, Its Evolving

While you may not be under the mistaken impression that email marketing is dead, you might not be realizing the return that you want to get from your firm’s email marketing efforts. Here are some tips that might help you get more leads and sales from your next email marketing campaign.

This morning we Googled ‘email is dead’ and got about 452,000,000 results (250,000 as an exact phrase). While for most of us, the sheer volume of email messages we receive – and open – every day provides anecdotal evidence to the contrary, it might be helpful to cite some empirical proof as well.

Number of Business Emails to Increase 7 Percent a Year Through 2018

As a marketing tool, email provides one of the highest return on investment (if not the highest) of any marketing tactic. It’s one of the best ways to get a marketing message in front of leads and prospects. And it’s the marketing channel most customers indicate as their preference for brand communications. Consider the sheer volume of business emails sent and received in data from The Radicati Group’s Email Statistics Report, 2014 – 2018:

• There were 4.1 billion email accounts in 2014, representing 2.5 billion individual users
• In 2014, more than 108 billion business emails were sent every day
• By 2018, the number of business emails sent daily is projected to exceed 139 billion

Even though consumer-to-consumer email is decreasing (due to new options such as social media, text messaging, instant messaging, video chats, etc.) the number of business emails sent is on the rise. In fact, the number of business emails sent daily is expected to continue to increase at the rate of about 7 percent each year between 2014-2018, while growing at a rate of 0.3 percent or less year over year for consumer-generated emails.

Do Consumers Really Want Brand Emails?

For anyone still concerned that their customers and prospects will unfollow, unfriend, disconnect or otherwise defect as a result of receiving a brand’s promotional emails: take heart. Here are some email statistics published by marketingsherpa.com that should set your mind at ease:

• 91 percent of Americans want to receive promotional emails from the brands they follow
• 86 percent want to receive brand emails at least once a month
• More than six out of ten American adults want to receive brand emails at least once each week
• 15 percent want to receive daily promotional emails from brands they are interested in

There is no one right answer to the question: How often should a business send marketing emails? The frequency of your email marketing program should be guided not only by how often US consumers want to receive promotional brand emails in general, but based on the expressed preferences of your followers and fans as well as your business type and buying cycle.

Asking subscribers to indicate their preferences at the time of subscription or to update their preferences periodically is a great way to gauge customer preferences and to reengage subscribers who may not have engaged with your brand emails recently.

4 Email Marketing Strategies to Deploy Today

Think Mobile Design First, But Not Only

Depending on your target audience, anywhere from 15 to 70 percent of your emails will be initially opened and read on mobile devices. (emailmonday.com) For consumers goods or services with a short buying journey, the entirety of the transaction could occur via mobile devices; however, for consumer goods and services that have a longer buying cycle and for business buyers, it’s more likely that mobile will play a part in the buying cycle. You should expect for your emails to be opened on a variety of devices, sometimes on multiple devices by the same email recipient, and design accordingly.

Personalize for Max ROI and Engagement

The more that email marketing can be personalized to the recipient’s interests, wants and needs, the more likely it is that they will engage with (open, click, visit, etc.) and convert as buyers. The more often they encounter brand emails that are not relevant to their interests, the more likely they are to ignore them, delete them without opening or unsubscribe altogether.

Make the User Experience as Seamless as Possible

Emails that act like landing pages and whose design is indistinguishable from web sites will reinforce the brand in the mind of the customer/prospect and be more likely to create a seamless experience. Decide what one or two things you want the email reader to do next and make it easy for them to do so directly from the email.

Integrate with Social

Integrate social sharing buttons into your email content as well as forward to a friend links. Not only will you make it easy for readers to take actions you want them to take (sharing and forwarding your brand email content), but you will also be more likely to generate trackable links and data that you can use to evaluate your email marketing effectiveness and ROI.

Sources:
Infographic / Stats via http://webmag.co/email-dead-or-alive/
Email frequency study via Marketing Sherpa at http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/how-often-customers-want-promo-emails