Email Marketing Still Tops Says Recent Industry Study
Although many people claim this is the age of social media, email was still selected as the top marketing channel in a recent study from Lyris. The study, which surveyed over 800 online marketers and marketing agencies, showed that the vast majority of the respondents ranked email marketing as their most used tool in online marketing.
Email Marketing Most Important to Survey Respondents
The respondents were asked rank a number of different marketing tools; including email marketing, company websites, social media, SEO and SEM. They ranked the tools based on how frequently they are used and how essential they are. Email marketing came in first at 97% with company websites and social media coming in a close second and third with 96% and 82% respectively.
Of the time spent marketing, most respondents said that they spent at least 45% of their marketing time on email marketing specifically. The email marketing consultant subgroup of the survey spent at least 68% of their time on email marketing related tasks, compared to agencies which spent about 38% of their time on email marketing. This emphasis on email marketing clearly shows that these professionals are getting better results from email marketing than other marketing channels.
Direct Mail and Email Marketing Can Work Hand in Hand
The survey also included rankings of the most popular manual marketing channel. Direct mail came in first in this portion of the survey with 65%, with emailing and text messages coming in next. Although it did not come in first for manual marketing methods, email marketing can be used in tandem with traditional direct mail methods for enhanced results, and many of the survey participants noted that they use this “combo” technique.
Email Metrics Are Vitally Important to Email Marketing Success
Almost all of the respondents (93%) cited email metrics as a critical factor in their ability to make email marketing successful for their clients or company. Understanding which emails are being opened and by whom can help an email marketer plan for better campaigns in the future. Finding an email marketing program with comprehensive metric measures, like those at Boomerang, should be a top priority. In the survey, 73% of respondents stated that email metrics is somewhat/very important.
Besides metrics, segmentation, list management tools and web analytics are the next most popular tools for email marketing. Specifically, respondents pointed out that segmenting emails according to recipient preferences and behaviors is very important. Small to midsized business marketers were the most prominent in this category.
It’s clear from the study that not only is email marketing still prominent, but advanced email marketing using metrics and segmentation is going to help businesses of all sizes use the channel effectively. If your current email marketing provider isn’t providing you with the advanced tools that you need to market effectively, check out Boomerang’s advanced tools.