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Email volume rises 18% in 2017; percentage of new subscribers declines
A study by Yes Lifecycle Marketing of more than 30 billion emails sent last year indicates that while email volume rose 18% in 2017, the number of people signing up for email subscriptions continued to decline, reports Amy Gesenhues at Marketing Land. “Brands are sending more and more emails, but new subscribers’ share of their lists continued to shrink last year,” she writes.
The study looked at several other aspects of email marketing, including mobile conversions, which continued to rise. “Yes Lifecycle Marketing’s data revealed mobile email conversion rates have caught up to desktop conversions, with both at an average of 3.3 percent for the year,” Gesenhues reports. “(The report) also claims email adoption on mobile may have hit its peak: With mobile opens and clicks making up 53 percent of all email events over the last two years, email adoption on mobile has plateaued.”
The report is available for download here: Email Benchmark Report: A Marketer’s Guide to 2018.
Focus on lifecycle marketing seen paying off for email marketers
“Email marketers…know how to use advanced tactics such as personalization, email automation, and behavioral marketing to get results. But today’s email marketers do a lot more than write and schedule emails. They’re focused on lifecycle marketing,” writes Phillip Storey at Business 2 Community.
“The tide is moving away from simply focusing on acquisition and retention as marketers find way to improve the customer experience at every touchpoint,” Storey reports, citing data from Adobe indicating that for every 1% of customers who become repeat customers, a company’s revenue will increase by 10%.
Storey describes five phases in lifecycle marketing: the acquisition phase, the consideration phase, the customer excitement phase, the retention phase and the win-back phase.
“Lifecycle marketing works to guide potential customers through identified milestones in the sales funnel or brand relationship,” he writes. “Ultimately, when a prospect or customer does something or feels a certain way or needs something, it’s our responsibility to listen and respond.”
Email marketing strategies for startups
“Email campaigns have the potential to be highly customized, making those that are done correctlyone of the most effective ways to acquire and retain customers,” writes Yoav Vilner at Entrepreneur, in an article that shares email marketing advice for budget-conscious startups.
“While users might not care about a message that blatantly promotes your great new product, they will care if the message feels personal and brings them value,” Vilner writes. “Give them that value and show them they have a reason to keep your emails rolling into their inbox.”
Vilner advises startups embarking on an email-marketing campaign to create buyer personas, engage in micro-segmentation of their target audience, keep content brief, and offer customers “extra value,” in the form of, for example, promotions or giveaways.
Email marketing “is the most direct way to reach customers,” Vilner writes. “It’s tremendously effective if you do it right.”
**Targeted promotions and discounts seen as preferred form of personalization
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When it comes to personalization, consumers have a clear preference, according to a report based on data from a recent survey by Dynamic Yield of 550 consumers from North America, Europe, and Asia age 18 and older.
“Consumers say the types of retail-email personalization that they value most are targeted promotions/discounts (55%) and tailored recommendations (37%),” writes Ayaz Nanji at MarketingProfs.
The report indicates that retailers – especially those in North America – have an opportunity to better capitalize on personalization. “Just 25% of shoppers in North America say the emails they receive from retailers are truly personalized,” Nanji writes.
“A much higher share of shoppers in both Europe (62%) and Asia (77%) say the emails they receive are personalized.”
**Execs bullish about achieving email marketing priorities
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Email marketers are on a roll, with 79% of executives surveyed saying they are achieving their top priorities and 34% claiming they are best in class,” writes Ray Schultz, at Email Marketing Daily, reporting on study results released earlier this month by the market-research firm Ascend2.
The results are from a survey 273 executives — 46% in B2B, 36% in B2C and 21% in both, Schultz reports.
Fifty-five percent of those surveyed indicated their top goal is improving email engagement, which was also cited as a “challenging barrier” by 43% of the survey’s respondents.
“Of all the types of email tactics, single-topic campaigns are the most effective at improving engagement, specified by 46%, followed by new-subscriber welcome emails (39%),” Schultz writes. “Automated event-triggered emails are third, with 37%.”
The survey results also showed that 34% of the executive polled think that their email effectiveness is increasing significantly, with 52% say it is only marginally improving, Schultz reports.