Email is an indispensable channel for Irish marketers to enable them to sustain relationships with their core audiences. The increasing adoption of email software to manage email marketing campaigns is reaping dividends for businesses through higher open rates and verifiable return on investment.

The popularity of email remains strong amongst marketers with over 84% describing email as either an important or very important component of their overall marketing strategy.

Some of the major findings of the 2012 Email Marketing report:

• Companies are mostly using email for maintaining customer relationships (94%), Internal Communication (70%), Building Brand Awareness (89%) and Increasing Website Traffic (84%).
• 55.3% have a database of less than 5000 email addresses.
• 67% of respondents are using some form of advanced email software to conduct email marketing campaigns.
• Since 2011, there has been a 4.2% increase in numbers using personalisation and a 3.5% increase in the numbers using dynamic content.
• Open rates and click-through rates remain the most popular metrics tracked regularly.
• Companies using dynamic content are considerably more likely to have open rates between 20% and 50% compared to those using less or no personalisation.
• The majority of respondents spend less than 5% of their marketing budgets on email marketing.
• Swamped inboxes and spam eroding trust in email are still perceived to be the biggest challenges in email marketing.
• Since 2011, there has been a 12.8% increase in the numbers using social media in their emails.
• 54.7% of respondents felt that mobile email holds the biggest opportunity for email success. Integration with social networks (44.7%) and advanced email based on integration with customer databases (34.8%) were also popular choices.

How important is email as part of an overall marketing strategy?

The overwhelming majority of respondents (84%) state that email as part of their marketing strategy is either “very important” (44.9%) or “important” (35.5%). This highlights the continued importance and effectiveness that marketing professionals give to email as a powerful channel to meet their business objectives.

Email Marketing Ireland

On average, how often are email marketing campaigns conducted?

The majority of respondents (63%) conduct email marketing campaigns at least once a month.

Email Marketing Ireland

On average, what level of personalisation is used in email marketing?

Personalisation and segmentation are key to getting the most out of email marketing. Relevant, targeted and timely email campaigns are likely to yield the best return on investment. A significant proportion of respondents (68.5%) do not personalise their email campaigns or only do so by name, an increase from 2009 (64%).

Email Markering Ireland

Since 2011 there has been a 3.5% increase in the numbers using dynamic content. On the other end of the scale there has been a 4.2% decrease in the number who do not personalise at all, showing that there is continued use and appreciation of the strength of personalisation in email.

Marketers working in the B2B sector tend to use more personalisation in their email marketing campaigns than those in B2C marketing. This could reflect the fact that B2B marketers have smaller databases and a deeper understanding of their customer base. This allows them to do more retention marketing with better data profiles.

What email metrics are regularly tracked?

Email Marketing ireland

Open rates and click-through rates remain the most popular. In fact, increased tracking across the board is evident and may be explained by the increase in use of advanced email marketing tools in which ease of campaign tracking and metrics is a feature.

Bluecast Digital Tip

Subject lines can play a big part on your open rate.

• Use A/B Split testing to test different subject lines on sample users.
• The subject line which gets the most opens will be sent to the rest of your list.
• The ‘From’ field can have an enormous impact on your open rate.
• You should decide whether your email should come from your brand, your company, or the name of an individual (e.g. an Account Manager).

What is the average Open Rate for emails?

Email Marketing Ireland

40% of respondents had an open rate between 11% and 30%. Companies using dynamic content personalisation are considerably more likely to have open rates between 20% and 50% than those using no personalisation.

Email Marketing Ireland

What is the average click-through rate for emails?

Email Marketing Ireland

While open rate is an important metric to evaluate the success of any campaign, click-through rates give a more accurate gauge on engagement with emails that are sent out.

Bluecast Digital Tip

• Include as many clickable elements within your email as possible.
• Track URLs, .pdfs, documents, backpages, Forward to a Friend, share links etc. Each is a metric that gives you something to track.

Do you use social media in your emails?

In 2011, there was an almost 50/50 split between the respondents that use social media in their email campaigns and those that do not.
In 2012 63% of respondents use social media in their emails. This is a huge 12.8% increase since 2011. Of those utilising social media, 68% were B2B companies.

Email Marketing Ireland

How much social media is used in emails?

Including links to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages are the most common ways of using social
networking in email.

Email Marketing Ireland

Looking at the differences between B2B and B2C, LinkedIn was the most popular answer with B2B businesses with 78.7% stating that they include a link to their LinkedIn page. Including a link to their Facebook page was the most popular answer among B2C companies with over 90% selecting that answer.

Analysis shows that the number one use of social media in email marketing continues to be the inclusion of links to company Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

What is the biggest opportunities for email success in 2013?

Email Marketing Ireland

We hope you found this report useful for your own email campaigns. Bluecast Digital offer a full range of email marketing services including email campaign management software.