Email is the workhorse of marketing but it is still considerably undervalued in the industry, says Carl Chambers, regional director of email technology company Adestra.
While there is a lot of negative talk that email use is dying out, a study found 72% of Australians believe email is a fact of life. The study was conducted by Adestra to assess the use of the medium and how marketers can better connect with consumers through email.
The study, which surveyed 1200 Australians, also found that email is used not only by baby boomers, but it's necessary for teens too – supposedly the generation that is abandoning email for texting and chat apps. More than 65% said they needed email for everyday life, with only 2% of email address owners rarely using it.
The study found discounts drive email sign ups
Chambers tells AdNews the misconceptions about email marketing are out of date - a topic recently discussed by execs from Marketo, SalesForce and Adobe.
“Email is very much undervalued. Businesses are investing in social media and not really looking at the email piece – they don’t realise the ROI on email which has been revitalised in the last five years with the dawn of data driven automation,” he says.
He says brands need to be wary of infiltrating social platforms as they are being used to communicate with friends, not businesses.
AdNews ran a poll to see what its Twitter followers thought about email marketing
“Email is the number of channel for brands to be involved in. Snapchat and other platforms are used to communicate with friends and brands need to be careful if they are going to market in those channels. People don’t expect brand messages in that world and you can really lose your audiences’ trust.”
He says the same applies to the increased number of bots in messenger apps, which could deter young demographics.
“Unlike social media, email is an opt-in environment so individuals expect you because they have allowed you in. When you step into a social world and hit people with targeted advertising, people are concerned about how you got that data," Chambers says.
“Email is a permission based medium so targeting in the email world is beneficial and personalisation is accepted. We will be 100% personalised in the future."
Google’s Gmail dominates in Australia, claiming nearly half the market. Outlook/Hotmail is a distant second at one-third of the market. Due to the market share Gmail holds, Chambers calls for the service to create smarter email filtration processes.
“The inbox is a crowded place and it’s up to email providers to innovate. Gmail needs to make changes and work hard to create a better experience for users by learning the types of emails you like,” he says.
How to avoid the deadly unsubscribe
1. Relevancy – the more relevant you are and the more data you use to target, the less likely people are to unsubscribe
2. How you collect data – always be clear with the intent of data collection and communicate
3.Think about frequency – sending too many emails will lead to you being either deleted or people leaving your list
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