Email still ruled by 'batch and blast'

Email marketers are still shunning basic direct marketing techniques – such as segmentation, testing, and systems integration – as well as widely available technology in favour of old school “batch and blast” techniques.
That is one of the key findings of the Adestra/Econsultancy Email Marketing Industry Census 2012, claimed to be the largest annual survey of email marketers in the UK.
The study highlights key areas that are being neglected in making the email marketing channel produce better results and raise revenues.
While email is providing a high ROI for companies across the board, the study shows that revenue suffers by shunning segmentation, testing, and systems integration.
In addition, there is a low awareness in areas that can affect deliverability and reputation, one critical area being adapting email to Priority Inbox placement.
Those companies which are putting careful effort into their email marketing activity, however, are continuing to reap rewards – although they appear to be in a minority.
1 Companies practising basic segmentation are 95% more likely to rate email ROI as excellent or good compared to those who do not use even basic segmentation, nor have plans to do so.
l Only 31% of companies surveyed regularly test their email marketing campaigns. But 81% of companies which do regular testing for email marketing say their ROI from email is excellent or good, compared to 72% for those who do “occasional” testing, 65% for those who do “infrequent” testing and only 37% for those who “don’t test”.
l Those who have their sales and conversion data “well integrated” with their email activity are 49% more likely to consider email as offering an excellent or good ROI.
Adestra managing director Henry Hyder-Smith said: “Last year’s census clearly showed a ‘back to basics’ approach is vital to develop successful email marketing, however, it appears marketers are not heeding this advice. This year, delving deeper into the data, shows a direct result of using best practices is better ROI. So more segmentation, more testing, and integrating email with CRM/web analytics/sales data, results in significant revenue growth. Get the basics right and you will sell more.”
Econsultancy research director Linus Gregoriadis added: “This year, for the first time, we have shown that companies observing some basic best practices are reaping the rewards when it comes to ROI from email marketing.
“While one would intuitively expect this to be the case, we hope that this research prompts more companies to invest more effort in a marketing discipline which is often neglected, despite its effectiveness. Put simply, those simply performing ‘batch and blast’ techniques are less likely to see ROI benefits.”
The report states: “Simple to set up, easy to automate, it’s puzzling why marketers aren’t taking advantage of the technology available to them. Such changes can have a significant impact on open rates, but email marketers appear to have ignored this opportunity.”
Gmail priority inbox, along with similar offerings such as Hotmail sweep, in its basic sense is making “engagement” the priority. So, if a company gains a new subscriber, but does not send a welcome message, or programme, its communications automatically go to the bottom of the pile.
This is why it’s shocking that only 3% of companies surveyed adapted their email strategy accordingly. Plus, only 31% send welcome programmes and only 28% have an auto-responder to website sign up/visit, meaning they are missing a vital opportunity to have their emails delivered to the top of their new subscribers’ inbox, as soon as they subscribe.
Henry Hyder-Smith said: “With inbox prioritisation, if companies don’t change their approach, their investment in a great email strategy, powerful designs and a quality database may be for nothing – their marketing messages are simply sent to the bottom of the inbox by default. It is no longer good enough just to get delivered to the inbox, it’s now about placement.”