Email marketing 2012 Sample email-in-action

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2012: Email in Action

A US study by the Email Experience Council of the DMA and Econsultancy SAMPLE ONLY. Please download the full report from:

http://econsultancy.com/reports/2012-email-in-actionn


2012: Email in Action

Econsultancy New York

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New York, NY 10003

United States

Telephone:

+1 212 699 3626

http://econsultancy.com

[email protected]

Econsultancy London

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London EC1M 3LN

United Kingdom

Telephone:

+44 (0)20 7269 1450

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Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2012

Published February 2012

2012: Email in Action A US study by the Email Experience Council of the DMA and Econsultancy Page 3

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and

retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2012

Contents

1. Introduction from the Email Experience Council of the DMA ................................................................................ 6

2. Executive Summary ........................................................ 7

3. Email in Action ............................................................... 9

3.1. Challenges to Email .................................................................. 9

3.2. Email and Social ...................................................................... 11

3.3. Testing and Tracking ............................................................... 13

3.4. Budgeting and Financial Metrics ............................................ 18

3.5. Email Benchmarks .................................................................. 22

3.6. Personalization & Segmentation ............................................. 28

3.7. List Size and Growth ............................................................... 32

3.8. Automation ............................................................................. 34

3.9. Improving Email Performance................................................ 36

4. Methodology and Respondent Demographics .............. 39




Table of Figures

Figure 1: Challenges to Future Success in Email ........................................................... 9

Figure 2: Clients‟ Use of Email: The Agency View ...................................................... 10

Figure 3: Social and Email Integration ......................................................................... 11

Figure 4: Social and Email Integration (B2C) .............................................................. 12

Figure 5: Social and Email Integration (B2B) .............................................................. 12

Figure 6: Email Factors Tested ..................................................................................... 13

Figure 7: Email Factors Tested (B2C) ...........................................................................14

Figure 8: Email Factors Tested (B2B) ..........................................................................14

Figure 9: Email Metrics Tracked .................................................................................. 15

Figure 10: Email Metrics Tracked (B2C) ......................................................................16

Figure 11: Email Metrics Tracked (B2B) ....................................................................... 17

Figure 12: Email Budget Distribution .......................................................................... 18

Figure 13: Email Budget Distribution (B2C) ................................................................19

Figure 14: Email Budget Distribution (B2B) ................................................................19

Figure 15: Financial Metrics Tracked .......................................................................... 20

Figure 16: Financial Metrics Tracked (B2C)................................................................. 21

Figure 17: Financial Metrics Tracked (B2B) ................................................................. 21

Figure 18: B2C Lead Generation – Newsletter Benchmarks ...................................... 22

Figure 19: B2C Lead Generation – Sales Email Benchmarks ..................................... 23

Figure 20: B2B Lead Generation – Newsletter Benchmarks...................................... 23

Figure 21: B2B Lead Generation – Sales Email Benchmarks ..................................... 24

Figure 22: B2C Direct Sales – Newsletter Benchmarks .............................................. 24

Figure 23: B2C Direct Sales – Sales Email Benchmarks ............................................ 25

Figure 24: B2B Direct Sales – Newsletter Benchmarks .............................................. 25

Figure 25: B2B Direct Sales – Sales Email Benchmarks ............................................ 26

Figure 26: Definitions of Inactivity .............................................................................. 27

Figure 27: Factors in Personalization/Segmentation ................................................. 28

Figure 28: Factors in Personalization/Segmentation (B2C) ...................................... 29

Figure 29: Factors in Personalization/Segmentation (B2B) ...................................... 29

Figure 30: Preferences Offered to Subscribers ........................................................... 30

Figure 31: Preferences Offered to Subscribers (B2C) .................................................. 31

Figure 32: Preferences Offered to Subscribers (B2B) .................................................. 31

Figure 33: Changes in List Size .................................................................................... 32

Figure 34: Changes in List Size (B2C) ......................................................................... 33

Figure 35: Changes in List Size (B2B) ......................................................................... 33

Figure 36: Effectiveness of Automated Triggers ......................................................... 34

Figure 37: Effectiveness of Automated Triggers (B2C) ............................................... 35




Figure 38: Effectiveness of Automated Triggers (B2B) .............................................. 35

Figure 39: Word Cloud – “What‟s the Key to Effective Email?” ................................. 36

Figure 40: Respondent Organizations by Type ........................................................... 39

Figure 41: Size of Respondent Organizations .............................................................. 40

Figure 42: Target Markets of Respondent Organizations .......................................... 40

Figure 43: Respondents‟ Primary Conversion Goal .....................................................41

Figure 44: Respondents‟ Database Size (B2C) .............................................................41

Figure 45: Respondents‟ Database Size (B2B) ............................................................ 42

2012: Email in Action Page 6



1. Introduction from the Email Experience

Council of the DMA Email marketing is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. The changes in the way people

communicate with each other have generated some valid questions about the future of email. Is it

still as relevant as it once was before the rise of social media and the mass penetration of

smartphones? How can it compete with other media that are always on, ready to provide instant

feedback from friends and companies? Are younger people less likely to read email regularly?

DMA’s Email Experience Council and Econsultancy set out to find out how marketers are answering

these questions. What we found is that concern about email is widespread, but gloom about its future

is not. For most marketers, the challenge is not to find out whether or not to use email, it’s more

about rediscovering how to use it. Virtually every marketer remains an email marketer.

This ubiquity, however, has generated one of email marketing’s greatest weaknesses. Everyone gets

too much email, which has reduced the impact of all email. Clutter is a major problem, especially in

the face of competition from social media. As a result, providing relevant email that works with social

media is a high priority for marketers. Marketers are increasing the relevance of emails through

personalization and better matching of behavioral data with content.

Even so, most marketers want to do more, and more quickly. With consumers online continuously

with their smartphones, email needs to move faster. As a result, automated response email systems

that smartly use data have grown in popularity.

Email does not seem to be in decline, but it is changing. We invite email marketers to use this report

to see where their colleagues expect email marketing to go in the future.

Yorum Wurmser, Ph.D.

Director, Marketing & Media Insights

Direct Marketing Association

The Email Experience Council of the Direct Marketing Association celebrates and empowers

marketers around the globe to create amazing subscriber experiences, follow and improve email

marketing best practices and, by their example and dedication, demonstrate the critical role email

plays in integrated marketing. Our mission is to invest in, educate and bring together innovative

email and digital marketers who understand the critical role email marketing plays in integrated,

multi-channel marketing.

The Council provides a broad series of initiatives that illustrate the importance of email marketing as

a communications vehicle. We accomplish this through stellar education at our conferences, relevant

research, legislative advocacy and member roundtables and advisory committees. We continually

partner with innovative companies who positively impact our community and represent the voices of

our members. Sign up for our free newsletters and gain access to a wealth of information:

www.emailexperience.org.

.

www.emailexperience.org




2. Executive Summary Email will always be a tactic that suffers from averages, because it is really two channels – one that’s

precise, highly effective and unique, the other a blunt instrument that attempts to compensate for

relevance with volume.

At organizations that practice the first, email continues to rank as the tactic with the highest return

and as the best way for communicating with customers and prospects over the long-term. For

organizations still “batching and blasting” the results have ebbed, deliverability has dropped, and list

growth is slowing.

But by the standards of digital marketing, this is an old phenomenon and these are old arguments.

Perennial articles drum up interest with the claim that “email is dead” and far flung defenders come

together to repel the attack. There’s self-interest, but also passion in the defense, because saying that

email doesn’t work simply isn’t true. It does and for some, it works better than anything else.

At the same time, the industry has to acknowledge that online behaviors are changing in a profound

way and on a massive scale. It’s not yet clear whether the new social and mobile Internet is more or

less friendly to the use of email, but for certain, it means rethinking email strategy, and optimizing

the subscriber experience for this new world.

The Email in Action Survey, conducted with the Email Experience Council of the DMA, benefits

from the input of over 450 marketing organizations, ESPs and agencies focused on email. Fielded in

the fourth quarter of 2011, the survey explored the challenges, opportunities and changes in email

marketing.

Segmentation & Personalization

55% of client side marketers are using lead source to personalize/segment their mailings, while

53% are using demographic data.

While fewer than half of markets are using behavior for email personalization, it’s the area of

highest interest. Nearly one in four reports having a plan in place to implement some level of

behavioral analysis in the next year.

SAMPLE ONLY. Please download the full report from:






3. Email in Action

3.1. Challenges to Email

Figure 1: Challenges to Future Success in Email

Number of respondents:239



17%

18%

19%

21%

25%

44%

51%

40%

44%

50%

35%

13%

32%

27%

18%

4%

18%

10%

8%

8%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Integrating email with other marketingchannels

Young people abandoning email as aprimary channel

Measuring and proving the ROI of emailmarketing programs

Getting the budget and attention emailprograms deserve

Competition with social media for recipients'time and attention

Very challenging Somewhat challenging Easy to overcome Background noise





3.2. Budgeting and Financial Metrics

Figure 2: Email Budget Distribution




.

Email Service Provider (ESP)

31%

Content creation 19%

Lists 14%

Agency (creative & strategy)

12%

Analytics 9%

Data hygiene/ Deliverability

8%

Other 7%





3.3. Email Benchmarks Benchmarks are highly fallible. Every company and every product produce metrics that are unique to

them. To attempt to make these benchmarks as useful as possible, they are associated with three

different variables; goal, sales target and type of email.

Figure 3: B2C Lead Generation – Newsletter Benchmarks




25%

11%

1.8%

0%

6%

12%

18%

24%

30%

Newsletter Open Rate Newsletter ClickthroughRate

Newsletter Conversion Rate





3.4. Improving Email Performance

Figure 4: Word Cloud – “What’s the Key to Effective Email?”








What’s the number one thing you’d recommend to other companies to improve

their email marketing performance?



SAMPLE QUOTE





4. Methodology and Respondent

Demographics

Figure 5: Respondent Organizations by Type




39%

31%

20%

7%

4%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Client sidemarketer

Agency orconsultancy

Other type oforganization

Email ServiceProvider

Institution(government,

military oreducational)

What phrase best describes the type of organization you work for?





Figure 6: Size of Respondent Organizations


Figure 7: Target Markets of Respondent Organizations


22% 23%

19%

7%

4%

25%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

1-10employees

11-100employees

101-500employees

501-1000employees

1001-2,000employees

More than2,000

employees

How many employees are in your organization worldwide?

50%

23%

12% 12%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Consumers Small to mid-sizebusinesses or

organizations withfewer than 1,000

employees

Large businesses ororganizations with

1,000 or moreemployees

True mix of consumerand business targets

Which type of customer is the primary target of your organization’s email marketing?




Figure 8: Respondents’ Primary Conversion Goal


Figure 9: Respondents’ Database Size (B2C)


29%

25%

19%

7% 7% 6% 6%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Leadgenerated

(formcompleted)

Immediatepurchase

online

Specificaction

(phone call,used an

application,etc.)

Later offlinepurchase

Later onlinepurchase

Time on sitegoal ormultiplepagesviewed

Other

Which of the following best describes the "conversions" or primary goals of your email programs?

5%

12%

15%

26%

41%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Fewer than 5,000 5,000 to 24,999 25,000 to 99,999 100,000 to500,000

More than500,000

How large is your total email database of names?




Figure 10: Respondents’ Database Size (B2B)




20%

31%

24%

9%

15%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Fewer than 5,000 5,000 to 24,999 25,000 to 99,999 100,000 to500,000

More than500,000

How large is your total email database of names?


Email marketing 2012 Sample email-in-action

Technology

financial

word cloud

total email

email metrics

email experience

email budget

respondents

email factors