Email Marketing in 2011: Industry Facts and Statistics

Posted on May 14, 2011 by admin
  • According to Direct Marketers Association, email marketing has an average return on investment of $43.52 for every dollar spent which is expected to reach $44.25 by the end of 2011.
  • Forrester Research reports that investment in email marketing will grow from $1.3 billion in 2010 to $2 billion by 2014.
  • A survey conducted in December 2009 by ExactTarget indicates that more than 50% of consumers make purchases as a direct outcome of email. It also drives more ROI than any other channel including social media and PPC advertising.
  • In its 6th Annual Consumer Email Study, DoubleClick revealed that as many as 90% of consumers go online to send and receive emails everyday. At present, the average US consumer receives 361 emails every week which is a 20% increase since 2004.
  • At an average, each US Internet users engages with 11.8 brands via email, compared to 9.4 brands through facebook and only 7.9 brands through twitter. –-ExactTarget “Subscribers, Fans, and Followers: The Social Profile” (2010)
  • As many as 42% consumers said that they preferred receiving promotional emails from companies. Econsultancy “How We Shop in 2010: Habits and Motivations of Consumers” (2010)
  • In 2010, a leading marketing research firm, Merkle reported that consumers who received direct mail as well as email on average contributed $17 in revenue and $4 in margin per household.
  • Smith-Harmon in a study titled “Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study” reports that Friday is the most popular day of the week to send out promotional emails. About 42% of the US Online Retailers send at least one promotional email on every Friday.
  • At least 64% of US and UK internet users want marketers to demonstrate knowledge of the types of products or services they like in email marketing messages. Most of the consumers showed concern on receiving irrelevant or poor quality emails.  -e-Dialog “Manifesto for E-mail Marketers: Consumer Demand Relevance” (2010)
  • Disregarding popular belief that email marketers were offended by the strong presence of social network channels, MarketingSherpa in a study called “Email Marketing Benchmark Survey” reported that as many as 80% of marketers believed that social sharing extended the reach of email content to new markets and 78% believed it improved brand reputation and awareness.
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Not Just Plain Email Marketing

Posted on April 19, 2011 by admin

Email is not just an ordinary form of marketing; therefore should be taken seriously and given due and fair consideration. Email marketing must use every vehicle, idea and methodology to create a buzz, creating interests among prospects and engaging existing customers to sustain sales growth.

Today, email marketing is much more than just sending out the right message to right people.

Each Email campaign should achieve one or more of the following:

  • Increase website traffic
  • Generate new leads
  • Retain old clients
  • Keep your customers updated about your products and services
  • Form communication channel and encourage customers to participate
  • Strengthen client relationships
  • Promote and build your brand awareness
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Email Marketing: As Effective As Ever

Posted on April 9, 2011 by admin

With growing number of people spending time on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more; there is a lot of buzz around email marketing and its relevancy in the year 2011. Little do I wonder why some businesses have got caught in the world of Twitter and Facebook and thinking of emphasizing more on social media than email?

Irrespective of what some people are talking about, the point is, email marketing is as effective as ever and there remains no legitimate reason to neglect it. Over the years, some of the top market research agencies such as Forbes, Exact Target, Aberdeen Research, Direct Marketing Association, GI Insight etc. have been closely monitoring the movements of email users and they indicate that sending messages directly to customers’ inbox is as effective and relevant as ever.

A recent report published by Exact Target under the title Subscribers Fans and Followers reveals that as much as 93 percent consumers are willingly receiving messages from companies. Moreover, as the report further suggests, 58 percent people begin their life by opening their inboxes every day.

While Facebook and Twitter posts have short life spans, there is a great deal chance for consumers to use email and therefore read the marketing messages. The research further reveals that 83 percent of consumers cast a glance at the messages receive in their inboxes. This makes marketing messages highly likely to be opened.

Exact Target further reveals that email messages are far more likely to reach mobile users than other marketing outreaches. As much as 28 percent of non-Smartphone users admitted to check their emails at least twice a day. On the other hand, up to 45 percent of Smartphone users open their inbox several times a day.

The report may surprise some of the readers as it says that checking email is a more common mobile web activity than visiting social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

However, the report warns email marketers against sending irrelevant content to their customers. The report says that over 53 percent respondents felt that organizations were not sending them relevant messages and also that they’d love to receive emails with better and exclusive content. In addition, over 63 percent of respondents wished to communicate (send feedback and suggestions) with business organizations.

Email will continue to be one of the cheapest and proven forms of marketing tool to communicate with customers. As another survey report from Aberdeen Research suggests that 45 percent marketers associate emails with high-quality leads and another 38 percent believe emails drive revenue gains.

Social network channels are certainly valuable but at the end of the day it is email that ‘pays the bills’.

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Top Ten Email Marketing Mistakes

Posted on March 13, 2011 by admin

Email marketing is one of the cheapest and fastest forms of online marketing. If planned and handled correctly, it could be highly productive. Unfortunately, there are a very few marketers who spend time and effort to create a well-thought-out plan and most of them end up failing miserably.

Following are some of the common mistakes which you can easily avoid:

  1. Shoddy Email Copy: Spend some time over your email copy and make sure it doesn’t contain spelling or typo errors. Redundant words and poor sentence structure must be avoided.
  2. Poor Email Coding: It is highly crucial to avoid poor coding. Do not include CSS coding in your html coding and avoid horizontal users scroll. Moreover, giant images must not be added in your email.
  3. Ineffective or confusing subject lines: Keep your subject line short and precise. Ideally, it should not exceed 7 words or 35 characters. Words such as free, coupon, guarantee, assure, gift, credit card, sex etc.
  4. Inadequate Call To Action: Place your call to action in a way it easily gets noticed by the recipients. It should be in text format and placed in the topmost or the leftmost part of the email.
  5. Using vague name in ‘From’ field: Do not confuse your recipient about your whereabouts and use the name that your recipients are most familiar with.
  6. Not including unsubscribe option: You are not supposed to torture your recipients by keep sending them emails against their wish. Therefore, don’t forget to add unsubscribe option; and place it in a way that it is easily visible.
  7. Sending emails from different addresses: Stick to one address to communicate with your recipients and inform them for future changes. And don’t forget to encourage your subscriber to include you in their contact/whitelist.
  8. Not adding sharing options: Social media is the future of internet marketing. Don’t forget to add ‘share it’ and ‘forward-to-a-friend’ links to build your list and take advantage of social media marketing.
  9. Multiple Links: Adding too many links to an email is likely to compete with the call to action; therefore, the number of links should be minimized.
  10. Sending emails without testing them first: Prior to sending your email to the entire list, you must test out different subject lines, the body of the email and a couple of design templates on a small number of people. Depending on the feedback you should bring changes and then only send it to the entire list.
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Why to use video in email marketing?

Posted on March 12, 2011 by admin

Today, acknowledging the effectiveness of email marketing, businesses of all types and sizes use it to communicate and exchange information with their existing and prospect customers. Over the years, email communication has evolved and is not limited to sharing information in text. Now, it includes the features of social media and contains pictures, videos, bookmarking, sharing and much more. As a result, email open rates have dramatically improved and so has the participation of people.

Video, among all mass media technologies, has influenced email marketing the most. There is a popular saying, “If a picture is a worth a thousand words, then a minute of video is worth a million words.”

In a recent survey, Forrester Research concludes that an email with video has a hundred times more lasting impact on recipients’ mind. They further say that such emails encourage recipients to take suggested action.

Following are some of many great reasons why you should be adding video in your email marketing:

  1. A one minute video is worth a million words: If you send lengthy emails to your customers, they get bored and tend to discard them. On the other hand, in a minute long video, you can give them a lot of valuable information.
  2. Video is more enjoyable than texts and images: There is no denying the fact that people love to read. But the point is how many of them love to read marketing messages?  Video, on the other hand, is welcomed even if it is meant for promoting a product or service. People love to watch videos whether they are shown on TV, movie theatres, computer or mobile phones. In fact, as comScore reports, the average U.S Internet user watches 186 videos every month.
  3. 3. Video gives your organization a face: Unlike text messages, video gives your email a human face. In general, we don’t remember much of what we read. On the other hand, a video made of putting people in front of camera makes a long lasting impression and they easily connect themselves with your message.
  4. It doesn’t take much to create a video: Many people believe that making video is a difficult and expensive phenomenon, which is far from truth. Making a video clip does not entail buying a thousand dollar camera. You can buy the Cisco Flip or Kodak Zi8 easily available online for less than $150. You can even shoot great video with your iPhone or mobile phone. Moreover, there are hundreds of free websites that teach you how to shoot video in easy steps. The point is creating video is very simple.
  5. Double or triple your click through rates: According to the surveys conducted by Forrester and Direct Marketing Association, email communication that includes video is more likely to double or triple the click-through rate.
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Tips to Improve E-mail Deliverability

Posted on March 8, 2011 by admin

Almost all e-mail marketers find email deliverability a nuisance. A couple of years ago, they would just focus on avoiding spammy words, template design and content. Today, since all email service providers are emphasizing on reputation based SPAM filtering; even the best practices, permission based email, and ethics don’t guarantee that your email will land into the customers’ inbox.

It’s time we overhaul our email deliverability strategies. Following are some of the proven tips to ensure your email lands right into the inbox:

1. Put unsubscribe link somewhere at the top: Most of the email marketers deliberately put the unsubscribe link at the bottom or somewhere in the middle, which irritates the unimpressed first time readers and the unhappy subscribers. If they find the link visible on the top, they click and unsubscribe. A small change can help you reduce spam complaints.

2. Avoid the following:

Red texts
DO NOT use red texts in your email. It is considered a shrill color and often hard to read. Moreover, red texts fail to trip email filter.

Spam-like words
Free, Free Coupon, guarantee, assure, gift, credit card, sex etc.

All Capital Letters
All Capital letters are difficult to read and look irritating and intimidating. Such emails look spammy and are easily filtered.

Unnecessary Punctuation
Don’t use excessive punctuation and make your message look real. Use them wherever required and not everywhere. One or two inverted phrases are acceptable but not more than that.

Incomplete or misguiding information
By law, you are supposed to let your audience know who you are and where you are located. Don’t forget to include your physical address, email address, phone number and website URL (if you have one).

Avoid Excessive use of “click here” and hyperlinked texts especially in all capital letters

Misleading (or missing) subject line
Make sure that the subject line matches with your email content. Tactics such as leaving the subject line empty or using ‘Re: to trick recipients so that they think it is a reply to their mail’ must be avoided. It is not only illegal but also highly irritating to recipients as they feel duped into opening an email.

3. Use a reputable email marketing service
Do not do it yourself if you are new to email marketing. Choosing an experienced vendor improves email deliverability manifold. Email marketing is not very costly and one can go for it under tight budget depending on the number of target audience. Most of the packages are inexpensive and available for non technical users.

4. Static IP Address
If you usually send emails from your own server, make sure that you send them from the same IP address. On the other hand, if you use email service provider, better get a dedicated IP by paying some bucks. It dramatically improves deliverability because on shared webhost, there are many clients/websites on the same IP address. In other words, you are likely to be affected by other clients’ email marketing activities and reputation.

5. White List Reminder
There are some ISPs who count the number of recipients who added your email address to their address book or white list showing sign of faith and trust. Therefore, start encouraging your recipients to add you to their address book.

6. Analyze your bouncebacks
Don’t forget to spend time on analyzing and managing your bouncebacks. Correcting noticeable typos in your list (e.g. “.con” instead of “.com”) and removing hard bounces is highly recommended.

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Facebook CAN NOT Bring An End To Email

Posted on March 3, 2011 by admin

There is a buzz around that Facebook will make email extinct! Some even claimed that it was quite likely to happen by the end of the year 2011. Most of us don’t realize that whenever there is buzz around a brand or a company, it becomes globally recognizable overnight. When Mark Zuckerberg said something like that he knew he was going to draw global media’s attention.
As a matter of fact, as applicable to all e-technologies, email is also going to evolve just like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Facebook, even if they want to, can’t bring an end to email for many reasons:

1. No matter what, you still need an email account to create a new Facebook account. Even if Facebook comes with a feature that enables people to get a message account prior to signing up for it; the theory that email will die is doubtful. Most importantly, a majority of people will NOT like to completely rely on Facebook. They will continue to have one or more than one email accounts for their own safety.

2. Now let’s have a look at the Facebook message platform. How do you find it when compared with hotmail, yahoo and Gmail? Doesn’t it look primitive and poorly designed? What makes them think that they are “Gmail Killer”? People use these emails for a variety of reason and not just for sending messages. Facebook has a long way to go!

3. Most of the studies have concluded that less than 8% people might think of making the switch if ever such opportunity was to come. Does that sound stunning? Of course not. Facebook will have to overhaul its design and think a lot for deliverability. Even Mark is not sure how he is going to do that.

There is no denying the fact that Facebook is a giant network of 5oo million people and Mark deserves to make such pure marketing statements.

Posted in Email List, Email Marketing Facts | Tagged , | 1 Comment

E-mail vs. social media: which has taken over which?

Posted on February 19, 2011 by admin

“E-mail vs. social media” has now become the hottest topic ever to discuss. A number of people amplify on social media for its effectiveness in comparison to email marketing. On the other hand, some people have defended email marketing and acknowledged its victory over social media. Some call social media to be the most modern communication tool and some are in favour of email marketing for its reliability in reaching business organizations and professionals. The point is, both have their own significance depending upon communication intent and targeted audience.

Who are your targeted audience?

1. Recognize your audience first: If you are targeting youngsters or people under 30, you may try reaching them through social media. They prefer spending time in popular social networking platforms like twitter, LinkedIn, facebook and many more. On the other hand, if you are searching for business people, working professionals and organizations; then you have to exclusively depend upon email marketing. They are closer to emails rather than social networks; therefore, it grabs their attention quicker.

2. Consider the category of targeted people. If you target housewives or people who mostly stay at home, social media works better and faster but that doesn’t mean they don’t use email. A number of surveys have concluded that the people under this category check their emails at least once a day. On the contrary, when it comes to targeting working people and business organizations, email marketing is the best answer.

Make sure what is your communication intent?

1. Email marketing and social media both work efficiently for e-businesses provided you track your targeted audience in right time and at right place. Youngsters respond faster if they are contacted through social media and people over 30 or 35 get back through emails as they prefer it to be more reliable.

2. If you need quick reply, social media is the answer. But, if you need reliable answer and have patience, email marketing is undoubtedly the best because people respond to your email only after considering over the subject.

In conclusion, social media and email marketing both are equally important to fulfil your marketing objectives. Neglecting the significance of their togetherness is getting the half result of your expectation.

Posted in Email Campaign, Email List, Email Marketing, Email Marketing Facts, Email Marketing Tips | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Email Marketing helps uplift small businesses

Posted on February 19, 2011 by admin

If you are running a small or start-up company and thinking of getting highest return on investment, email marketing is the solution for you. If planned and executed well, it is one of the most effective and quickest ways of reaching large audiences of a given geographic location. Email marketing is not only cost-effective but also one of the easiest ways to engage potential customers into communication channel and develop a lasting relationship with the existing ones.

A number of surveys have concluded that marketing is the biggest challenge in front of small business owners; a majority of them fail to knock at the doors of their target audience and stand up against the giant sized companies. The traditional ways of advertising on newspapers, magazines, television, and billboards have highly exorbitant rates which they can’t afford. Consequently, they face severe obstacles and work harder to show up themselves to their customers. In such circumstances, email marketing has proved to be one and only affordable and effective tool for their survival in the competitive marketplace.

They can start up with permission-based email campaign, which is efficient in establishing a loyal relationship with their existing customers. In permission-based email marketing, recipients do not throw incoming massages in to electronic dustbin; rather they feel engaged and an important part of your business family. On the other way, small companies get the opportunity to enlighten the growing customers about the updates, products and services, special offers and developments taking place in their organization.

Today, there are a number of certified vendors offering permission based email lists. The lists include the data of people who agree to be informed about a specific set of products or services. They can build their own list in a variety of ways which include creating fan pages on social networks; blogging and micro-blogging on twitter, facebook and LinkedIn; and asking customers to fill out contact forms.

In conclusion, it is significant to remember that smaller companies have better opportunities to make more trustworthy customers than larger companies do. It is because they are focused, and their contacts are more personalised than that of larger ones. Therefore, their chances of reaching a greater height of success consistently grow with each email campaign.

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