Email continues to reign as one of the least expensive and most cost-effective marketing techniques. In 2021, 4.03 billion people around the world use email. Experts expect that number to grow as high as 4.48 billion by 2024. No other marketing channel even comes close to the potential reach of email.
Take a look at some of these statistics showing just how effective email marketing can be:
- 73 percent of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email. (HubSpot)
- Sixty-one percent of consumers prefer to be contacted via email when communicating with brands (Statista, 2021).
- More than 50 percent of U.S. respondents check their personal email account more than 10 times a day, and it is by far their preferred way to receive updates from brands. (HubSpot)
- Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (HubSpot)
- 59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions. (HubSpot)
- >59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI. (HubSpot)
- Cart abandonment emails are most effective after one hour (SaleCycle)
- 51% marketers agree that email segmentation is the most effective technique for personalization in email marketing. (Ascend2)
- Welcome emails are incredibly effective: on average, 320% more revenue is attributed to them on a per email basis than other promotional emails. (WordStream)
- Consumers who purchase products through email spend 138% more than those that don’t receive email offers. (WordStream)
- 80% of retail professionals indicate that email marketing is their greatest driver of customer retention (the next closest channel? Social media, identified by just 44% of those same professionals). (WordStream)
- 77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email (versus direct mail, text, phone, or social media). (WordStream)
- 21.5% of an email campaign’s opens occur within the first hour after being sent. By the sixth hour post-send, half (50.6%) of opens have occurred, while nearly three-quarters (73%) of opens take place within 24 hours. (Get Response)
As with any marketing strategy, techniques are constantly evolving and marketers must stay atop the latest trends. We are well aware at this point that simply sending mass “spray and pray” emails have very little effect and we have moved beyond to embrace newer techniques built on data insights and technology platforms. Here’s a checklist of some of the most important marketing strategies you should be paying attention to this year.
Email Personalization
The importance of personalization can’t be emphasized enough. Personalized communications drive results – generic emails don’t. Consumers expect to have relationships with their favorite brands and want to feel recognized and appreciated.
Greeting your customers in email by their first name is a must but personalization in today’s day and age goes well beyond that. Studies have shown emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened than those without, and revenue is 5.7 times higher in emails that employ personalization. (Campaign Monitor)
In a survey by Campaign Monitor, marketers were asked about their top goals and biggest challenges for their email marketing strategies – 38% said improving email personalization was their number one goal, and 36% of marketers listed email personalization as their biggest challenge.
In research study by Evergage, marketers are using personalization in the following ways:
- 76% – Tailored messaging or promotions by audience segment
- 51% – Product or content recommendations by audience segment
- 49% – Email messages personalized at spend time
Triggered Email Journeys
Journeys are series of emails triggered from an action, whether that’s placing an order, abandoning a cart, or signing up for a newsletter. Using a marketing automation system, marketers can send automated emails based on an individual’s behavior.
Studies show that triggered emails received 70.5% more opens than other types of emails.
Source: Webpagefx
Brands may be using some types of triggered emails such as a welcome email or account-based emails such as password updates. Here are examples of other types of triggered emails to use:
- Milestone Email – These are congratulatory messages for subscribers who have reached a milestone with your brand.
- Real-time Triggers – These are based on real time events like weather, location, some event, etc. to engage the customers in a better way.
- Early Activation – These are for subscribers who might have activated their accounts but not yet engaged. They can be given some offers to act upon something.
- Reactivation Email – If a subscriber has not responded or clicked through within the purchase cycle, this email is to re-engage them.
Mobile Emails
Many brands underestimate the importance of optimizing emails for mobile. However, this is vital to the success of your email campaign.
81% of consumers check their email on smartphones, 74% on desktop/laptop, 21% on tablet, 2% on a smartwatch (Adobe). However, nearly 1 in 5 email campaigns aren’t optimized for mobile (Super Office)
- 50% of the messages that don’t display correctly on a smartphone screen are deleted, 25% of such emails are saved until they can be read on a desktop (io)
- In 70% of cases, if the message doesn’t display correctly, it’s likely to be deleted within 3 seconds (Adestra)
- 52% of B2C brands’ emails and websites aren’t both mobile-friendly (Litmus)
- 57% users say they won’t recommend a poorly designed mobile site (socPub)
- 88% of smartphone users regularly check emails on their mobile devices (Pew Research Center)
- A mobile offer is 10 times more likely to be used than the same one in print form (Omnicore)
- Mobile-friendly email is the second most-used tactic email marketers to improve their performance. (HubSpot, 2020)
If your email campaigns aren’t mobile-friendly, chances are you are leaving revenue on the table.
Email continues to reign in importance in the marketing mix. Marketers must implement strategies to stand out in the inbox to boost ROI and set themselves apart from the competition.
Download the Email Marketing Best Practices Guidebook and start rocking your emails today.
Our Email Marketing Best Practices Guide outlines standard best practices that enhance email communications, including recommendations to ensure your emails stand out in crowded inboxes and generate ROI.
