Concerns with Email Marketing

Email is one of the older marketing channels that is still being used today. In fact, it is more than 20 years old, but it is still relevant and will continue to be a tried, true and healthy channel for brands and marketers. In 2017, 58% of US marketers are planning to increase their spend on email marketing because they truly think that email works. Looking at the demographics of people who access emails, today, 76% of US population (roughly 240 Million people) is using email and this number is estimated to increase to 79% of the population in 2020. There are a few concerns with email marketing that typically comes up in every conversation.

The first concern is that whether millennials or younger generations engage with email in the same way as the other generations? Studies have shown that Snapchat and other messaging platforms don’t cannibalize the email channel. Those channels are for one on one communication but to receive messages from a brand, email is still the preferred channel because it is less invasive than messaging.

The second concern is how relevant are the email benchmarks for marketers who are thinking of holistic performance of all marketing activities. Typically, email performance metrics are things such as open rate and click rate. Studies have shown that although the volume of email is increasing day by day and is it is now bigger than the size of audience open rates have also increased. Click rate, however, depends on the industry and there hasn’t been a clear trend. So while these are still important metrics, marketers should consider the context of the metrics. For example, time of the day that the email is sent has an implication on the open rate and click rate. 

The third concern is how to look at email in a holistic way of omnichannel marketing. Marketers are more and more using the data that they have from different channels (e.g., CRM, location data) to improve email marketing. They are also using technology in new ways to interpret this data. Although most companies are at the early stages of using holistic marketing data to improve email marketing, we will see more and more companies focus on doing this.

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Listen-In-What-Future-Hold-Email-Marketing/1016569