EMAIL MARKETING STRATEGY
Strategically, increasing engagement with prospects and customers is a critical email marketing priority.
But what tactics are marketers using to achieve this goal?
To find out, Ascend2 and our Research Partners fielded the Email Marketing Strategy Survey. We thank the participants of this survey for sharing their valuable insights on this important marketing topic with us, and you.
The data in this edition of the study titled the Email Marketing Strategy Survey Summary Report represent the average of all market segments responding to the survey. Specific segments from the survey are reported on separately and exclusively by our participating Research Partners.
This research has been produced for your use. Put it to work in your own marketing strategy. Clip the charts and write about them in your blog or post them on social media. Please share this research credited as published.
Enjoy!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Most important goals
- Rating email marketing success
- Significant barriers to success
- How sales cycle impacts success
- Strategic goals versus barriers
- Most effective tactics
- How effectiveness is changing
- Tactical degree of difficulty
- Resources used to execute tactics
- Effectiveness versus difficulty
View the entire report with charts here!
MOST IMPORTANT GOALS
Increasing the engagement rate of email marketing is a top priority for a majority (54%) of marketing influencers. Customer acquisition and retention, which are driven in part by the personalization of email communications, are also top priorities.
RATING EMAIL MARKETING SUCCESS
Email marketing strategies are considered successful to some extent by 83% of marketing influencers. Actually, more than one-third (36%) describe their email marketing strategy as “best-in-class” when compared to competitors.
SIGNIFICANT BARRIERS TO SUCCESS
Contact data quality can be a significant barrier to the success of an email marketing strategy. Enriching data quality increases engagement by personalizing the customer experience, but often requires the specialized capabilities of external resources.
HOW SALES CYCLE IMPACTS SUCCESS
The email marketing is a valuable channel used in all types of sales scenarios, but essential when it comes to cycles that are long and complex, involving multiple influencers that require personalized nurturing during the purchase decision process.
STRATEGIC GOALS VERSUS BARRIERS
Analyzing the importance of goals worth achieving in comparison to their significance as barriers to success is critical in the development of a well balanced and effective strategy for email marketing purposes.
MOST EFFECTIVE TACTICS
The ability to segment email lists and individualize email campaign messaging are the most effective personalization tactics for 51% and 50% of marketing influencers respectively.
HOW EFFECTIVENESS IS CHANGING
A total of 88% of marketing influencers agree that email marketing effectiveness is increasing to some extent, with nearly half of those (40%) describing the increase as significant. Only 12% say email marketing effectiveness is decreasing.
TACTICAL DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY
Individualizing email messaging and landing page content are the most difficult personalization tactics to execute for marketing purposes. To execute successfully, these tactics require quality and complete contact data.
RESOURCES USED TO EXECUTE TACTICS
Individualizing campaigns for personalization is difficult to execute. The greater the degree of difficulty, the more likely a company is to outsource. That’s why 68% of companies execute all or part of their email marketing techniques using specialized external resources.
EFFECTIVENESS VERSUS DIFFICULTY
Tactics that are much more effective than difficult to execute –such as email list segmentation – are less likely to be outsourced. Conversely, tactics more difficult than effective –such as individualized landing pages – are often outsourced.
Methodology
Ascend2 benchmarks the performance of popular digital marketing technologies and strategies using a standardized questionnaire and proprietary 3-Minute Survey format.
This survey was fielded to a panel of marketing influencers during the week of August 29, 2016. The 257 respondents are representative of the following:
Number of Employees
- More than 500: 38%
- 50 to 500: 38%
- Fewer than 50: 24%
Role in the Company
- Owner / Partner / CXO: 40%
- VP / Director / Manager: 50%
- Non-Management: 10%
Primary Marketing Channel
- B2B: 51%
- B2C: 32%
- B2B and B2C Equally: 17%