by Wikus Engelbrecht - GraphicMail Marketing Team
5. October 2010 04:42
Marketing Sherpa recently published their 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report and shared some of the findings on their blog. I thought I’d give you a little insight into the highlights – perhaps you can apply some of this to your own campaign.
1) Not surprisingly, great focus was put on the integration of email, social and mobile marketing – a finding I support wholeheartedly. I’ve had a lot to say on the matter in the past, so for now I’ll stick to telling you to watch this space later this week for social integration news – and keep an eye out for some more mobile tools in the near future!
2) I was really pleased to see that they reported that email marketers are focusing on segmentation more than ever – a good indication that they’re becoming serious about providing relevant content (a practice that’s becoming increasingly important). It mirrors what we found in our own client survey: It seems subscriber segmentation is the most popular power tool among GraphicMailers. Marketing Sherpa suggested that we also narrow our segmentation practices, so that we don’t just segment by product, interest or demographical categories, but also by behavior. We do that with our own company newsletter by creating separate lists for subscribers who don’t open our newsletters, and those who do. It makes it easier to measure interaction, so we know whether a newsletter appealed to our lists or not.
3) Another valid point raised was that the growing demand for relevance, along with the growth in email volume, is creating a greater need for automated communication. Sending out automated email series is becoming more and more popular. “The growing sophistication of product suggestion and other personalization technologies has given these messages a personal, tailored touch,” – ideal for creating sustainable individual customer relationships. (Did anyone say “TriggerMail”?)
Interestingly, they found that most organizations have increased their email marketing budget for next year. Seems like more people are placing integrated digital as a priority for their marketing teams…
Hopefully this gives you some insight into what to focus on in your own campaigns.
