Many an email marketer has proclaimed The Death of the Email Newsletter in the past – and just as many say it is very much alive. Now, who’s right? Let’s check the facts.
The E-Mail Newsletter is dead. Only it isn’t.
Fact 1: 90% Of Internet Users Use Email
Yes, that’s right: the vast majority of users – and that probably includes you – rely on good old email, and 62% use it each and every day according to a study from the Pew Research Center. Ok, this study was conducted in 2011, but here comes the surprise: despite social media, instant messaging and tools for efficient professional communication like Slack, email usage has grown at an average rate of 4% each year. In 2017, the number of worldwide email users will top 3.7 billion according to Radicati. Hold on! It get’s better:
Fact 2: Your Customers Want Email
People don’t only like to use email, they prefer it to any other means of communication – at least when it comes to marketing activities: A whooping 72% of customers state email as their preferred channel of communication. Of these, 61% say they like to receive promotional emails weekly and 28% want them even more frequently. And yes, this includes Millenials.
Fact 3: Most Emails Are Read On A Mobile Device
This is how we read emails today: on a small mobile screen, on-the-go and anytime. (Photo by stock.adobe.com)
Email is not dead – but its perception has changed. The mobile screen is the medium of choice for most of us: In December 2016, 33% of all email opens happen on an iPhone, 20% on Gmail, 13% on an iPad and 9% on Google Android. Today, people read their emails not in an office chair at their desktop, but on-the-go and on a small screen – and this is a big change email marketers need to address:
Fact 4: You Need Responsive Design
Emails that do not display correctly go into the trash. That’s a fact. With so many subject linkes crying for our attention in the inbox, no-one has time nor patience to bother with bad or broken design issues. Using responsive design, automatically adapting design and content to screens and email clients is a must. But apparently, it is not as popular as it should be: only 17% of marketers say they send out responsive emails. Please don’t be one of them!
Fact 5: 24% is a good open rate for your newsletter
On average, only 1 in 4 will open your email campaign. And this is just the open rate! Let’s say you send out a newsletter to 1000 people, and all your emails get delivered and displayed correctly: how many people will actually read it? A good measure to get that number is looking at how many readers took action and clicked on a link in your campaign. This is the Click-Through Rate (CTR), which currently is averaging at around 4% (with huge differences between industries). To see how good (or bad) your content really performs, though, you should compare the number of clicks to the number of opens to get the so-called click-to-open rate (CTOR) - and at around 11%, the average CTOR is much higher.
Fact 6: Email Newsletters Have An Excellent ROI
Fact is: of your 1000 recipients, an average of 40 open your email - and of those, 4 actually click on a link. The average success rate of your email campaign, then, is at 0.4%. Doesn’t sound like a very good investment, does it? But it is! The return on investment of an average email newsletter is currently at an impressive 44 Dollars for every Dollar spent. Depending on your industry, it might even be higher. So don’t miss out on that opportunity! Use responsive design – and, much more importantly, create hand-tailored and personalized content to make your CTOR soar.
Fact 7: Personalized Emails Perform Better
_A friendly word, a metaphorical smile, and the mention of your name: personalize your message! (Photo by sepy| stock.adobe.com)
A friendly word, a metaphorical smile, and the mention of your name: Did you know that emails with personalized subject lines increase the open rate by 26%? Over all, a personalized email is 75% more likely to be opened and read. Avoid the spam filter and segment your audience into clear focus groups – use your customer relationship management tool to help with that. Create content that really matters to the recipient, with the help of engaging copy, images and videos. And, very important: don’t forget the call to action! Like, for example, subscribe to zistemo right now!
Bonus Fact: The E-Mail Newsletter Is Dead
After everything you just read, this one might take you by surprise: the e-mail newsletter has died. Really. Because all we’re talking (or rather writing) about today is email, not e-mail: the English-speaking world got rid of the hyphen over the past few years. Not a huge change, but still: e-mail is dead – long live email!
Say good-bye to the e-mail newsletter – and hello to successful email marketing campaigns!
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