Is Email Marketing REALLY Effective? Really?

Just like everything in my twenty-four year old, completely ADD mind… things come and go. I have been up on traditional direct mail and then I have hated it. I have loved email marketing and then hated it only to return to love the form again.

I was reading a post by Jason Baer at Convince and Convert about email marketing. He had listed some interesting statistics that came out of a panel discussion at the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer. He has a list of 15 Email Statistics That Are Shaping The Future.

I decided to take the top five out of the post and list them for you. This should help facilitate the discussion around email marketing.

1.  69% of email recipients report email as Spam based solely on the subject line.

2.  Email lists with 10% or more unknown users get only 44% of their email delivered by ISPs.

3.  84% of people 18-34 use an email preview pane.

4.  44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on promotional email.

5.  35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device.

I have always been slightly troubled the way email marketing has been conducted the past two years. With all the talk of pull instead of push marketing it would be assumed that businesses large and small would be making conscious efforts to increase the effectiveness of this online medium.

I have never been a major believer in one hit email marketing. The concept of sending a weekly to monthly email newsletter for marketing purposes seems a little contrite. The majority of the email newsletters I receive are not necessarily marketing efforts as much as they are blog posts within an email. They are announcing a new break through at the company or industry specific news.

There is a big difference between informational email and marketing email. Marketing email should be catered directly to a specific group of people and it should be set up through a drip email campaign. I am a big believer in drip email campaigns because it is measurable and you are constantly changing the message based on the action of the reader.

Sending one email out every month to the same base of subscribers can be a waste of time. Instead of sending out a monthly email why not write a blog? Sign your email list up on your blog subscription email. They will get your blog in their email and you will be killing two birds with one stone (maybe even three or four birds!).

As you can tell by the stats email marketing is still working but what I have seen from small businesses have been less than satisfying. Take some time to reevaluate your email marketing. Should you be doing something different? Maybe you should invest in a measurable system where you can cater specific messages to different users?

In the coming years different forms of more attractive and 1:1 communication mediums will take the place of email. Social Media strategies will be combining (if not replacing) push tactic email marketing.

I would like to think your client or potential customer wants a dialogue… They want communication! An email marketing campaign is a trumped up traditional direct mail strategy with a different method of delivery.

Do something different! Do something unique! Do something noteworthy.