Dive Brief:
- GetResponse, an email marketing provider, found in recent research it conducted that many marketers weren’t taking advantage of tactics such as personalization, testing and otherwise optimizing their emails.
- The “State of Email Marketing By Industry” report found 42% of surveyed marketers send everyone the same email, one-third don’t optimize their email marketing, and only around half test subject lines.
- The research included surveys of 1,831 marketers, mostly in the U.S. and Europe, and analysis of more than 700 million emails.
Dive Insight:
The survey also found that 75% of marketers were using email automation software, but that might actually contribute to some of the basic tactics used by surveyed marketers, according to report co-author Magda Ciszewska who spoke with Marketing Land about the research.
Ciszewska told Marketing Land that a large number of respondents to the survey were “newbies to online marketing” and that the report’s authors suspected that email automation was being used at a basic level by many of the respondents.
According to the report, the top benefits of email marketing include generating more leads, identifying better quality leads, improving conversion rates and improving sales. More than half (57%) of respondents reported intending to increase the email marketing budget in 2016 with 28% expecting to keep the same budget as last year.
Personalization is a crucial tactic marketers need to take in the year ahead. David Johnston, Aimia Group COO, told Marketing Dive in December that the sooner brands put the customer experience first, the better off their efforts will be.
"To be successful, brands must use the information that their customers are sharing with them to give them something meaningful back – whether that’s a more personalized offer or a more relevant experience – or risk being cut off for good," he said.