Email may not have the pizzazz of the latest tech trends, but it’s still the major workhorse of digital marketing. That’s for good reason – it remains one of the most cost-effective and powerful tools for getting your message to interested prospects.
It’s therefore worth taking a look at the data surrounding email marketing, to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your campaigns. The Huffington Post partnered with well-known digital campaign management company HubSpot to analyze an incredible array of aggregated email data and identify seven key understandings, depicted in the infographic below.
Those key pieces of information are:
1. Email client diversity. People use a very wide array of different email clients for monitoring and managing their email, the differences in which present a challenge for anyone seeking consistency in their campaign. iOS dominates here, with 39% of the total share.
2. Engagement varies by client. Presenting further challenges, the client that your recipient uses is a factor in how likely that person is to engage with your campaign. Unfortunately, iOS – the largest target – also scores the worst on engagement, with almost half of users simply throwing out email unopened.
3. Mobile is the future. Mobile use has increased a shocking 400% since 2011, and among the key 18-44 demographic, 70% are using mobile to check email. Any successful email campaign needs to take that into account and optimize for mobile viewing and engagement.
4. Don’t forget to format. While half of those 50 and older prefer raw text-based emails, the other half want full HTML formatting – meaning you can include bold, italics, and colour text. Meanwhile, with the younger generations, a full ¾ prefer HTML formatting.
5. Expect a filter. Filters such as Gmail’s “priority inbox” are becoming an increasingly common part of the email landscape, and are designed expressly to weed out certain types of commercial email. Furthermore, more than half of email users maintain a separate commercial email address.
6. You won’t be completely ignored. Most users engage in some fashion even with unwanted marketing email – although it’s typically to delete it (68%), unsubscribe (58%), or mark it as spam (49%).
7. A good subject matters. A subject line that’s eye-catching, short, and imbues a sense of urgency will offer a much better click-through rate. Take the time to think your subject line through.
By keeping these facts in mind, you can craft a more powerful, visible, and effective campaign for your prospects and truly unleash the power of email.
