Is your company’s B2B email marketing running on autopilot?
If the biggest change you’ve made to your email marketing strategy for 2015 was developing a new template to use for your newsletter, then you might just want to take a good hard look at the current research and data about email marketing, and use that to revamp what you’ve been doing.
We’ve waded through the latest statistics and pulled out the most important new data to analyze, so that you can use the information to make your email marketing strategy more effective than ever. Here’s our expert advice, based on the cold, hard facts.
1. Email marketing provides real ROI.
Not convinced that time spent revamping your email marketing strategy will pay off? Just take a look at the numbers. 40% of B2B marketers rate the leads generated by email marketing as high quality, and research shows that for every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment. Email marketing works, plain and simple – 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email, and looking at the long-term, 66% of consumers have ever made a purchase online as a result of an email marketing message. According to some researchers’ estimates, email marketing has an ROI of 4,300%. Not investing resources into crafting the perfect email marketing strategy just doesn’t make sense.
2. Mobile email optimization is more vital now than ever – but not all businesses are taking advantage.
Smartphones are everywhere. People use them constantly, whether they’re at work, at home, or on the go. And everyone knows it. So why does it come as such a surprise that 64% of decision makers read their emails on mobile devices? In fact, a full 48% of all emails are opened on mobile devices! So if you’re not optimizing your emails for mobile, you’re definitely missing out on reaching a huge sector of your audience. Here’s the thing, though – 39% of marketers have no strategy for mobile email! This means that 2015 is your chance to stand out from the crowd by incorporating email tactics specifically for mobile into your strategy. Still hesitant? Consider this sobering statistic: 69% of mobile users delete emails that aren’t optimized for mobile.
3. Subject lines are key to engagement.
Think about the subject lines that motivate you to open an email. They’re probably short and to the point; intriguing, but still informative enough that you know what’s in the email. Those rules apply to your audience, too – 64% of people say they base their decision as to whether or not to open an email on the subject line alone. Interestingly enough, research shows that subject lines fewer than 10 characters long have an open rate of 58% – and that personalized subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened. So include subscriber names and keep it snappy! Bonus tip: Including the words “money,” “revenue,” and “profit” in a B2B email subject line makes for higher open rates, too!
4. Valuable content and great deals are most effective at increasing ROI.
Wondering what to include in your email? B2B email recipients value useful content highly – 72% of B2B buyers say they are likely to share useful content via email. B2C subscribers, on the other hand, tend to look for deals – 7 in 10 people say they made use of a coupon or discount from a marketing email in the prior week. Let that be your guide in determining what to emphasize in your marketing emails.
To sum it up, rethinking your 2015 email marketing strategy to include optimization for mobile, carefully crafted subject lines, and content tailored to your audience is the way to gain the highest ROI from your email marketing efforts. If you’d like help making your marketing emails stand out from the crowd, contact our team of experts at Zen Media today. We’ll help you find the ROI you’re looking for.
Sources:
https://litmus.com/blog/48-of-emails-are-opened-on-mobile-gmail-opens-down-20-since-tabs
http://econsultancy.com/us/reports/email-census
http://convinceandconvert.com/
http://thedma.org/2013/08/03/saturday-stat-series/
http://www.earnest-agency.com/
http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/07/email-marketing-stats.html
