In a global survey of more than 2,000 consumers in the U.S., UK, France, Germany, and Spain, Sinch Mailgun explored the current state of email marketing. It may come as no surprise that email is still the preferred channel for consumers to receive promotional (75.4%) and transactional messages (74%). However, what may come as a surprise is how significant this preference is compared to more real-time channels, such as text messaging (19.2% for promotional messages and 27.8% for transactional messages) and social media (15.8% for promotional messages and 15.2% for transactional messages).
Despite these preferences, consumers indicated that they still want to receive messages through text, social and other channels. As a result, businesses should think about their communication strategies more holistically. Let’s explore other key takeaways from the research:
Takeaway 1: Always be mobile-friendly
Most respondents (71.5%) said they most often view emails on smartphones and other mobile devices. As a result, you should always ensure the layout and formatting of your messages are optimized for mobile screens. While you may feel tempted to fill your campaigns with a lot of creative bells and whistles, it may not make for the best reading experience, so exercise some caution and do a lot of testing.
Takeaway 2: Consider your frequency
Let’s face it, no one wants to be bombarded by emails. In fact, 19.8% of respondents said that was the most common reason they unsubscribed from a brand’s emails. But it is clear that very few businesses acknowledge and respond to these sentiments: 63% of consumers indicated that they received more than 10 emails from brands every day. Less than half of consumers (49.2%) said they only open a few of those emails. You may think you need to send a lot of emails to stand out but these results reaffirm that sometimes it’s more effective to be strategic with your sends and creative with your design and copywriting.
Takeaway 3: Win the opt in
Many businesses purchase lists to build their databases, but exercise caution with this approach. After all, 19.9% of consumers noted that if they receive an email from an unfamiliar sender, they will quickly mark it as spam. (This will ultimately impact your deliverability rate.) Instead, aim to organically build your list with inbound marketing tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), social media and in-person data collection.
There are plenty more findings to explore. Click here to download the research and learn how to level up your email strategies.
