Ask anyone about their inbox, and they will tell you that they receive quite a few emails each day from companies that include advertising content. A lot of people will tell you that they are annoyed by the amount of marketing content they receive through emails, while even more may tell you of the benefits that these marketing emails delivered them. Those who do enjoy receiving these marketing emails are the reason that email marketing thrives still today, even with quite a few alternative digital marketing methods becoming more popular. In Econsultancy’s new “Email Marketing Industry Census 2013,” the company reports that at least 66 percent of marketers are quite impressed with email marketing today in that they are seeing the return on investment that they want.
In what is arguably the most informative chart in the report, it is reported that 44 percent of marketers rated their email ROI as “good,” while another 22 percent rated their ROI as “excellent.” With 27 percent reporting an average ROI, only 7 percent said that their ROI was “poor.” When compared to other popular advertising platforms, SEO ads were the only advertisements that marketers reported higher ROIs using, with 75 percent rating them at least “good.” That puts email ahead of paid search, content marketing, social media, offline direct marketing, affiliate marketing, online display, and mobile.
The report shows that even though marketers are seeing quite substantial success through email marketing tactics, most marketers are not spending enough time preparing their email content. The problem lies in optimization, something that most marketers are not giving enough attention to.
More than a quarter [of marketers] (27%) state that they spend no time at all internally on optimizing their email campaigns, a figure that has increased from 21% in 2008.
And even those that do optimise aren’t spending a significant amount of time on it. Just 19% of responding companies spend more than two hours a week on optimisation, compared to 62% who dedicate the same amount of time to design and content.
There are many who are doing everything right though, but still run into issues here and there. This is inevitable with any type of advertising. According to the report, in 2007 the more common issue that email marketers faced was “lack of skills and training,” with 42 percent reporting it as a major barrier. However, in 2013 it seems that the most common barrier has changed, with 50 percent stating that the quality of the email database being used is the biggest issue. In 2012, this was also the largest barrier, with 55 percent reporting it as an issue.
Econsultancy’s report, which was mostly composed of information from a survey of 1,300 digital marketers, is released annually, keeping businesses up to date with the most current portrait of email marketing. For 2013, things look good, but with more and more marketing options coming to light, this could very well change. It seems fewer people are spending time learning the right skills and methods of training for using email marketing, and that could become a bigger problem than it already has in coming years.
