Email Marketing is Alive and Well for 2023
Contrary to popular notions social media did not kill the email star, email marketing is alive and well in 2022. It is without a doubt the age of social media. The question for companies is does the marketing budget get put all in the social media basket or does email still have a place in a cohesive strategy.
First think about email. It has not disappeared. It has become an ingrained part of almost everyone’s life. This is not anecdotal data. It is tracked by independent statisticians, data aggregators as well as marketing managers and digital marketing agencies that have skin in the game.
Digital marketing agencies keep their pulse on the use and receptivity of email. It is important for the digital marketing agencies to be able to show their clients a return on investment that exceeds their ability to market themselves. If the digital marketing agencies did not have numbers to back up their policies of keeping email as part of the marketing mix their ROI reports to clients would be dim.
The Use of Email is Alive and Well
It’s easy to see if email alive or is a thing of the past by looking at data. Statista.com is an independent data aggregator, tracker and analytics firm that bills themselves as the Global No. 1 Business Data Platform. They supply insights and facts across 170 industries and 150 plus countries.
In a recent examination of active global email accounts published on March 19,2021, the Statista.com Research Department said “In 2020, approximately 306 billion e-mails were sent and received every day worldwide. This figure is projected to increase to over 376 billion daily e-mails in 2025. “Clearly email is not dead even in the age of social media.
Email received a blackeye from the Blackhat tactics of maverick SEO “specialists” who became practiced at spam in the early days of digital marketing. This turned users as well as marketers away from email. Long before the advent of social media, marketing specialists solved the negative for email with the opt-in solution. Lobbying for laws to be changed and educating the consumer directly on the opt-in option for email from companies made it a favorable means of communication with customers and clients once again.
The Past is Gone
Email users today might not recall the time when email had to invent spam filters to control the influx of hundreds of “junk” emails a day. Those that do remember those days learned to be wary of unsolicited emails and fear opening them or clicking on links. Like their younger counterparts, they do however welcome the opt-in email.
In talking about malicious email in the March 19, 2021, report the Statistia.com Research Team said, “Overall, consumers are pretty aware of the dangers of unknown e-mails and according to a global survey in February 2019, 45 percent of internet users reported that they avoided opening e-mails from unknown e-mail addresses.”
Rumors of the Death of Email Marketing Are Greatly Exaggerated
Fortune 100 companies know that email provides an excellent ROI. They employ analytic firms to track their ROI across all marketing outlets. This data shows them that email marketing is a performer based on ROI. Litmus, a premium email analytics firm employed by 80% of the Fortune 100 companies reported in 2019, “Brands that always include an A/B test in their emails generate an ROI of 48:1.”
Fortune 100 companies who have marketing budgets in the hundreds of billions of dollars are still willing to commit to email marketing as a major mix in expenditure distribution. This is living proof that the rumors of the death of email marketing are greatly exaggerated.
