Email Marketing: The Future’s Looking Rosy

With the recent explosion of social media, it would be forgivable to think that email marketing will suffer, possibly to the point of extinction.  However, a recent study shows that email marketing is not only alive, but set to prosper well into the future.

How Email Looks Today

92% of adult internet users maintain at least one email account with 72% of users checking their inboxes six times or more each day.  Whilst Facebook and Twitter may be popular, there are still three times as many email accounts than there are Facebook and Twitter accounts combined.

As of 2012, daily worldwide email traffic totals 144.8 billion and this is set to grow to 192.2 billion in 2016.

Perhaps more importantly than all of this, is the power that email marketing has with regard to the return on investment. Consumers who receive email marketing spend a massive 83% more when shopping and their orders tend to be 44% larger.  Additionally, they are likely to order 28% more often.  Whilst Facebook and Twitter have a high amount of users which serves as a good way to interact and communicate with customers, there is no doubt that brands still struggle to gain as good a conversion using these platforms.

Other Benefits of Email Marketing

In addition to the conversion rate, other benefits of email marketing include:

Increasing customer retention

Nurturing new prospects

Increasing website traffic

Generating brand awareness

Customer communication

Cost effectiveness

When creating an email campaign, it is important that customers are profiled and segmented so that offers and messages can be tailored to those customers who a) first show interest in the brand, b) make their first purchase c) become loyal to the brand d) lapse or fail to purchase – i.e. throughout the relationship’s lifecycle.

The Future of Email Marketing

Email marketing can be up to 20 times more cost effective than other marketing channels. This, along with the growing number of email accounts and growing traffic, shows that there is still a definitive place for email marketing. Here are some other trends that email marketing may witness in the short term future:

1. More people are reading their emails on mobile and tablet devices.  Marketeers need to ensure that emails are designed with this in mind, and can be read across all platforms.

2. Rather than focusing on the constant hard sell, emails will interact and embrace the social media platforms. Other ways to include a more human approach include using customer reviews, competitions, employee picks, etc.

Is your email marketing campaign providing you with a tangible return on investment?  If you need advice on how to get the most out of email marketing, get in touch: we have marketing strategists, designers and copywriters who can help with the whole package.