EmailMarketingStrategyOutlookReport

7/25/2019 EmailMarketingStrategyOutlookReport

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Email MarketingStrategy Outlook ReportWhat email marketing successwill look like in the year ahead andhow marketers plan to achieve it.

Client Connection Research conducted by Ascend2 in partnership with Research Underwriters


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Email Marketing Strategy Outlook ReportClient Connection Research conducted by Ascend2 in partnership with Research Underwriters.

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You may adapt, copy, distribute and transmit this work. However, you must attribute the work as produced by Ascend2 and its Research Underwriters butnot in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.


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Email Marketing Strategy Outlook Report

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Table of Contents

The email marketing channel is strong but strategies are weak 4

Differences between Superior and Inferior email strategies 5

What the average email marketing strategy looks like 13

What you sell determines strategy that works best for you 21How the size of your company influences email strategy 28

Actionable advice for developing a Superior Strategy 35

Survey methodologies and demographics 37

About Ascend2 39


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Differences between Superior and Inferior email strategies

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In this section, the disparity between companies with a Superior Strategy for email marketing and their InferiorStrategy counterparts is clear. These benchmarks are provided to show you what email marketing success lookslike, and how those companies with a Superior Strategy plan to achieve it.


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The difference between a Superior Strategy and anInferior Strategy is success achieving objectives.

Determining which email strategies are worthemulating requires identifying characteristics ofthe most successful marketing organizations.Performance criteria, based on the success ofan email marketing strategy to achieveimportant objectives, is used to differentiatebetween companies with a Superior Strategyand those with an Inferior Strategy for thepurpose of this report.

The highest performers (12% of respondentsrated Very Successful) are identified in thissection as having a Superior Strategy. Thelowest performers (17% of respondents ratedNot Successful) are identified as having anInferior Strategy.

Marketers rating their companys emailmarketing strategy as only SomewhatSuccessful (71%) are not represented in thecharts in this section.

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Increasing email marketing ROI is the objective of morethan twice as many marketers with a Superior Strategy .

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Relevancy (right content to right person at right time) isyour greatest challenge if you have an Inferior Strategy .

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Creating relevant and compelling content is the mosteffective tactic at both ends of the success spectrum.

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Creating relevant and compelling content is also themost difficult tactic, especially with an Inferior Strategy .

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Marketers with a Superior Strategy are integratinglanding pages with email more than twice as often.

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Counting leads and subscribers is more useful to anInferior Strategy than tracking important CTR metrics.

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What the average email marketing strategy looks like

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The charts in this section represent the aggregate of all responses. The data has not been segmented, as it hasin all other sections of this report, so results represent the overall average. It is a high level view of the emailmarketing landscape so you can examine how your strategy compares with the industry average which can beexpected to produce average email marketing results. But who wants to settle for average?


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Most important objective to increase subscriberscontradicts least important to reduce unsubscribes.

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Getting the right content to the right person at the righttime the most challenging obstacle to email success.

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Overcoming the most challenging obstacle requires thecreation of relevant and compelling content.

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But creating content to overcome the most challengingobstacle is also the most difficult tactic to execute.

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Tactically, creating relevant and compelling content isworth the time and expense to achieve email success.

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Not integrating email with the timely and relevantcontent blogs provide is a missed opportunity.

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Once critical issues to closely track, delivery rates, spamcomplaints and unsubscribes are now low on the list.

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What you sell determines strategy that works best for you

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The chart breakouts in this section are by the primary type of products or services the responding companysells. The survey questionnaire was segmented by three types of products or services: Business-to-Business,Business-to-Consumer and Marketing Services. The following charts represent responses from B2B and B2Cmarketers only, and do not include responses by the providers of marketing services.


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Lead generation and nurturing are more important inB2B channel. B2C focus is on direct sales from email.

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B2C marketing generally requires larger lists, makingemail list growth and subscriber retention essential.

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The larger the list, the greater the value of email testingand optimization, especially for B2C marketers.

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Smartphones and mobile devices are prevalent, andemail optimization for these platforms will increase.

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B2B channel is much more likely than B2C channel tointegrate email programs with online and offline events.

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Click-through rate (CTR) is the most useful metric fortracking email performance in B2B and B2C channels.

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How the size of your company influences email strategy

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The charts in this section breakout survey results by company size in terms of number of employees. The threesegments represented in this section include:

Small companies with 10 to 100 employees

Medium companies with 101 to 1,000 employees

Large companies with more than 1,000 employees

Micro companies with fewer than 10 employees are not represented in this section.


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Small companies are much more likely to prioritizedirect sales and disregard ROI as email objectives.

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Mid-size and larger companies more likely to integrateemail data with other systems a challenging obstacle.

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Email autoresponse and drip campaigns are surprisinglyunderutilized tactics for companies of all sizes.

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Small companies are making more of an effort to engagesubscribers via social media than larger counterparts.

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Small companies are three time more likely to linksubscribers to blog content than large companies.

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The larger the company, the more likely to track openrates and less likely to track lead conversion rates.

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A Superior Strategy is the goal, and developing onebegins with an email marketing SWOT analysis.

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The process of developing a Superior Strategy begins with a SWOT analysis of your companys email marketingprogram. This is accomplished by applying the questions asked in this survey to your company, then comparingyour analysis to the top email marketing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of companies with aSuperior Strategy (shown here). Or compare your analysis by company type or size as reported in this research.

Tactical

S trengths W eaknessesMost Effective Tactics Used Most Difficult Tactics to Execute

1. Creating relevant and compelling content2. Integrating email with other tactics3. Segmenting email database4. Personalizing email messaging5. Testing and optimizing email messaging

1. Creating relevant and compelling content2. Segmenting email database3. Engaging subscribers via social media4. Integrating email with other tactics5. Delivering autoresponse and drip campaigns

Strategic

O pportunities ThreatsMost Important Objectives to Achieve Most Challenging Obstacles to Overcome

1. Increase new leads or subscribers2. Increase email marketing ROI3. Improve lead nurturing4. Increase direct sales5. Increase website traffic

1. Email list growth and subscriber retention2. Integrating email data with other systems3. Right content to right person at right time4. Achieving or increasing email marketing ROI5. Segmenting lists for targeted campaigns


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Survey methodologies and demographics

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Ascend2s Client Connection Research surveys are conducted online from a panel of 50,000 US andinternational marketing decision-makers and practitioners representing a range of roles, company sizes, regionsand industry segments. Survey findings are examined in a quantitative context by experienced analysts andreported objectively.

An important goal of Client Connection Research is differentiating the performance of companies with aSuperior Strategy from those with an Inferior Strategy. To identify these groups, performance criteria is usedbased on the success of a companys marketing program in accomplishing its objectives. This model forsegmenting Superior Strategy is then used to analyze and present for comparison marketing performance inthe form of charts and a Marketing Program SWOT Analysis by topic and, for Research Underwriters, byindividual respondent. The questionnaire is standardized to incorporate these methodologies across all studieswhile maintaining the proven 3-Minute Survey format.


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Survey respondent and company demographics

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Ascend2 Client Connection Research(tm) Process.Connecting agencies to clients with the power of research.

The goal is to make new business development moreaffordable for marketing agencies and marketingSaaS firms by integrating research, content creationand demand generation. This proprietary processgenerates richly qualified and profiled leads at boththe research survey and content download stages.

Strategy Outlook Reports and leads are available for:

Social Media Marketing

Lead Generation

Content Marketing

Email Marketing

Organic Search (SEO)

Website OptimizationMarketing Automation

Mobile Marketing

Marketing Analytics

Paid Search (PPC)

Documents

EmailMarketingStrategyOutlookReport