Sometimes I think we get so caught up in the latest, biggest, tech-iest thing – augmented reality!Slack! artificial intelligence! – that we forget to look at tested tactics that may not be as shiny and new, but they are effective. Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about email marketing.
I can feel the collective “ugh” in the room.
Email is spammy. I get too many emails every day. Email is so… 1995.
Well, the ‘90s are back. And email marketing is still here – for good reason.
Email is still here – for good reason.
Email is a Huge Part of Our Day
According to an Adobe survey, consumers overall are checking their personal email an average of 2.5 hours per day and they are checking their work email an average of 3.1 hours per day. Half of all respondents said that when it comes to receiving offers from marketers, they prefer being contacted via email.
Even respondents born in the ‘90s spent a staggering amount of time in their inboxes – 18-24-year-olds spent 5.8 hours of their day checking their email.
Why do we use email so much? Adobe had a few ideas: “Why is email so ingrained in our lives? One reason may be that it’s so manageable—we can sort, file, filter, and generally get things done. It’s also a known, safe quantity. We’re familiar with how to make email work for us, and we feel confident about the privacy of our data.”
Email is Owned Land
A strong mix of marketing channels is important to any marketing plan – social media, paid media, direct mail, etc. – but email is one of the few channels that can be considered “owned land.”
FaceBook could fall of the face of the earth tomorrow, but you still have your email list.
Emails are Customizable
Email segmentation gives businesses the opportunity to tailor their message to their customer – whether that’s segmenting by demographics or by a trigger, such as recent website activity or a recent purchase.
Segmented emails perform much better than non-segmented emails. When compared to their non-segmented counterparts, segmented emails have a higher open rate (14.31%) and unique open rate (10.64%). They also have a lower bounce rate (4.65%) and unsubscribe rate (9.37%).
Emails are…. Intelligent?
Remember when I mentioned AI earlier in this post? In the future, artificial intelligence could help make your email marketing be even more effective. Machine learning could take a lot of the guesswork and time out of A/B testing, personalizing content, timing emails, and finding new audience segments.
It’s safe to say, email is here to stay. Which is a great thing – emails are customizable, they are data a company owns, and are a big part of consumers’ everyday lives.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go check my email.