This post is part 1 of a 2-part series on email marketing best practices. This week, we’re focusing on the current landscape of email marketing. Next up, best practices for creating effective emails.
Email marketing has become rather humdrum in the marketing world, with many questioning whether email campaigns yield results and if email is overused as a marketing vehicle. Despite marketers’ misgivings, email marketing is alive and well. Read below to get a sense of the current landscape in email marketing – information we hope you can use to make your email campaigns more effective.
Email by the numbers: According to Forrester Research, spending on email marketing in the US will balloon to $2 billion by 2014 — a nearly 11 percent compound annual growth rate. As a result of this spending, consumers will be deluged with more than 9,000 email marketing messages annually.
Common email mistakes: Weak subject lines, too much or poorly selected content, poorly selected email lists, lack of integration with social media, and poor timing of emails rank among the top email mistakes. Learning from others’ mistakes will help make your email campaigns more effective. (Stay tuned for part 2 in our series for our list of email marketing best practices.)
Some email insights: The majority of email actions (i.e., opens, forwards, deletes) occur within the first 12 hours of deployment. 50 percent of opens occur within 12 hours of deployment. 86 percent of opens occur within three days of deployment. Initial emails are opened more quickly than the second in the stream.
