Email “still most popular marketing channel”

Sep 1, 2017 | Email marketing

Email marketing: Open rate increased by over a quarter compared to March
Brands are under further pressure to meet the demands of European consumers as their email habits continue to evolve, but the medium remains the most popular marketing channel, according to new research.

The survey, from Adobe, shows that, while email remains the most popular marketing channel, fewer professionals are checking their work and personal email than last year.

This is as a quarter wait until they get into the office, and there’s a drop in people checking emails in bed.

A significant proportion of professionals will still be checking work emails while on holiday though, with over a third admitting to doing so in the UK.

This is an important trend for marketers as, despite 65% of respondents saying that they prefer to be contacted by brands on email, 34% of personal emails are going unopened in the UK.

As marketing emails from brands provide about one third of recipients with an interest to purchase products, and personalisation remains key to prevent customers from feeling frustrated, the pressure is on for brands to understand their customers more.

Ensuring emails remain responsive and seamless on smartphones is also a priority, with the devices remaining popular for checking emails. 55% of UK respondents said that they use smartphones as their primary method to check personal emails, with 61% saying that they were most interested in receiving special offers and promotions.

With this in mind, Adobe have unveiled new email innovations to help brands create personalised marketing emails without adding unnecessary noise to the inbox of consumers. Adobe Campaign’s new capabilities will enable email marketers to:

  • Predict the best images for emails – Using Adobe Sensei users will be able to select the most relevant image to include in an email to drive conversions.
  • Predict customer churn – By analysing changes in customers’ usage and engagement of Adobe Campaign, Adobe can proactively help customers to increase their productivity and gain better results
  • Quickly and easily act on insights – Adobe Campaign’s reporting function presents actionable data in real-time and quickly determines high-performing email campaigns and those that need adjustments
  • Create multilingual email campaigns – Adobe is helping marketers seamlessly scale their campaigns across the globe with an integration between Adobe Campaign and Adobe Experience Manager
  • Send beautiful emails – With 20 new out-of-the-box templates, Adobe is making it easier for email marketers to design emails. Mobile-optimised and customisable with brands’ content, these new templates include new customer welcome and reengagement emails

The email habits of European consumers are undergoing a fundamental shift, according to Adobe’s third annual email survey, putting increasing pressure on brands to make sure that marketing emails are richly personalised, rapidly responsive to reader analytics and seamless on smartphone – which is now the preferred method to check personal emails by the vast majority (48%) of European email users.

The survey of 3,000 white collar European professionals shows that email remains a popular marketing channel – 63% of European respondents say that it is the most effective channel for brands to reach them (up 5% from 2016) and 51% say that they are interested in receiving special offers and promotions from brands. But with fewer respondents checking their work and personal email than last year (down 17% and 25% per week respectively) and 35% of personal emails going unopened by European consumers, the need for marketing emails to stand out has never been more important.

The survey comes as Adobe unveiled new email tool that help brands lead with experience and avoid adding to the noise of the inbox. Adobe Campaign in Adobe Marketing Cloud, part of Adobe Experience Cloud enable marketers to send hyper-personalised, engaging emails based on customer knowledge and interactions. Artificial intelligence and machine learning through Adobe Sensei powers Adobe Campaign’s predictive capabilities. Adobe was recently recognised for its email and campaign management capabilities in Gartner’s Critical Capabilities for multichannel campaign management.

Stephan Dietrich, vice president, Adobe Campaign, said: “As brands continue to embrace email marketing as a pivotal component to build delightful, holistic experiences, many struggle with meeting customers’ heightened demands. Our new email innovations further cement our leadership in helping enterprises provide well-designed emails that enhance customer relationships, brand awareness and ultimately sales.”
Consumer email survey report: adobe.ly/EmailReportUK

www.adobe.com

Methodology

Data collected from July 10 to July 24, 2017. Results are shown for EMEA only (n=3,028)

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