Email feels like one of those age old forms of promotion that no longer matters in SEO driven marketing. Sure, consumer apathy and spam filters have born to much frustration in email marketing however, there still remains clear evidence that it works.
On the facet, email has fallen out of favour with consumers as the granddad of the digital space. With huge investment going into content and social, email has fallen far behind in the air of excitement as firms seek to strike it rich in the emergence of web 2.0.
But what those big corporate dudes forgot is that email DOES still exist. Think about it, we all use email. If not to compose emails, we use them for our record keeping. Remember the last thing you bought online? Well that business has logged your details are waiting to send you yet more exclusive offers for you to “get your hands on”.
There are expected to be 4.9 billion email accounts by 2017 (Radicati, 2013); that’s 4.9 billion potential customer for you to convert. Let’s take a look at how email still triumphs in the digital space:
1# Email is still number one for sales
Companies attribute 23% of their total sales to the email marketing channel (Econsultany, 2014). What’s more is that email marketing was ranked as the best channel in terms of ROI, with more than two-thirds (68%) of companies rating the channel as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
This indicates that email is still an important part of a company’s toolkit and that consumers are yet to part ways with what some see as an aging platform.
Even with the emergence of social media, email accounts for more acquired customers, almost 40x more to be precise than both Twitter and Facebook combined (Forbes, 2013).
It certainly appears that the old ways are the best ways in this case – but don’t take my word for it – look how Uncommon Goods uses email testimonials to sell their ideas:
This beautifully designed email has levered user generated content as a way to sell mother’s day gifts – A common technique commonly used by Amazon and eBay – but which eliminates the need to create a sense of urgency that can often times seem pushy.
User generated content can be awesomely effective – so effective that 8 in 10 people are influenced into making purchasing decisions through eWOM (Hub Spot, 2012)
2# Over half of consumers read their emails on their phones
2014 was a big year for mobile. For the first time the number of users accessing the internet via mobile exceeded that of desktop (Smart Insights, 2015), signalling a growing trend in how consumers consume information.
With the future being in the hands of mobile, we all want to see emails being optimized for for our devises. 52% of consumer read their emails online (Pew Research Centre, 2013) making emails more accessible than ever. This only accelerates lead generation to which response rates for email are already exceptionally high (Sterne & Priore, 2000).
British airways teamed with e-Dialog to develop a mobile email campaign to promote its Executive Club mobile app:
Initially gathering mobile users from BA’s customer email database, they set out on trying to discover the types of devises people were using to access their application. They then produced four different email creatives to support iPhone, Andriod, BlackBerry and desckop and tailored content to user habits for their devises.
As a result open rates for mobile exceeded those for desktop users and were in excess of 50% for iPhone and Android devices (Econsultancy, 2013). The click-through rate was also 25% for iPhone users and signalled how email could be transferred into mobile to create devise-specific content. This reveals how email has transformed and how it can be levered in modern consumption and still receive conversions.
3# KPI Measurable
Email is versatile in what it does and what can be measured. Whatever your goal, email has it covered, which doesn’t just have to drive through your sales funnel. Here’s a quick run-through of some of the KPI’s emails can measure
- Open rate
- Clickthrough rate
- Click-to-open rate
- Conversion rate
- Price per email send
- Unsubscribe rat
- Bounce rate
Email marketing remains the best digital channel for a ROI (Fariborzi & Zahedifard, 2012). With this being the case, there are major opportunities for you to discover where your KPIs might be a bit lacklustre since this is the key to a ROI in digital channels.
Although be cautious in how you approach these. 21% of email recipients consider opt-in emails as span (Outbrain, 2014). Conversely, 35% of email recipients open emails, based solely on a subject line. Consider this as part of meeting your measurable since some KPI’s can be more worrying than others.
4# Customization Opportunities
Messages can be customised for different customers that are consistent with their profile (Fariborzi & Zahedifard, 2012). Making things personal is a gateway into loyalty and building relationships with customers and email is the perfect platform to do that since emails have quick lead generation, speed and result efficiency.
Everyone’s aware of Tesco’s data mining capabilities and it’s to this effect they created an email campaign that delivered personalised shopping list based on past consumer buys in store and online.
Having this high level of consumer intelligence allows them to deliver personalised shopping lists which are incredibly effective in getting customer emotionally involved.
Having this high level of detail is particularly synonymous with email and therefore makes it superior to social media as its limited to message customisation and content display. Creating content is also expensive and has limited customization and involvement.
References
Econsultancy, 2014. Email is not dead. Here are five reasons it’s alive and well. [Online]
Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/64860-email-is-not-dead-here-are-five-reasons-it-s-alive-and-well/
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Fariborzi, E. & Zahedifard, M., 2012. E-mail Marketing: Advantages, Disadvantages and Improving Techniques. [Online]
Available at: http://www.ijeeee.org/Papers/116-CZ02024.pdf
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Forbes, 2013. Email Marketing: Think Inside The New Inbox. [Online]
Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mckinsey/2013/11/19/email-marketing-think-inside-the-new-inbox/2/
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Hub Spot, 2012. 10 Simply Awesome Examples of Email Marketing. [Online]
Available at: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31258/Why-User-Generated-Content-Is-More-Important-Than-You-Think.aspx
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Outbrain, 2014. INSPIRING EXAMPLES FOR SUCCESSFUL E-MAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS. [Online]
Available at: http://www.outbrain.com/blog/2014/09/inspiring-examples-for-successful-e-mail-marketing-campaigns.html
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Pew Research Centre, 2013. Cell Internet Use 2013. [Online]
Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/09/16/cell-internet-use-2013/
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Roesler, P., 2014. Top 5 Reasons Why Email Marketing Still Works. [Online]
Available at: http://www.inc.com/peter-roesler/top-5-reasons-why-email-marketing-is-still-works.html
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Smart Insights, 2015. Statistics on mobile usage and adoption to inform your mobile marketing strategy. [Online]
Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/
[Accessed 30 April 2015].
Sterne, J. & Priore, A., 2000. Email Marketing: Using Email to Reach Your Target Audience and Build Customer Relationships. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
The Radicati Group, 2013. Email Statistics Report, 2013-2017. [Online]
Available at: http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Email-Statistics-Report-2013-2017-Executive-Summary.pdf
[Accessed 20 April 2015].