Email Marketing: The State of Marketing with Email

By Michelle Glennie, The Partner Marketing Group

Email marketing may seem outdated but, how often are you bombarded with so many email offers on a daily basis? You could make the assumption that Email as a marketing tool is not effective but, you could also make the opposite argument that it is the last 1:1 touch between businesses and customers. According to this report from Get Response The State Of Email Marketing In SMBs. 2011 Report we can assure this marketing tactic is alive and well. What this report is showing is that most companies now understand that there is a legal obligation to follow.

• 79% use sign-up forms to grow lists
• 71% provide unsubscribe links in their newsletters
• 72% use a confirmed opt-in subscription model

Through the use of sign up forms and including appropriate subscription links for opting in or out of email correspondence business are reaching their target audience more effectively.  A large portion of the respondents in this report indicate that their emails are reaching their audience with very little complaints of spam.

• High Deliverability (62%)
• Low Complaint Ratio (69%)

One of the areas that still need attention is in the list development and maintenance. This report is showing that most businesses are doing little to reach out to inactive subscribers only 36% are re-engaging past subscribers. It also shows that only 38% of the companies are purging outdated contacts that they haven’t opened an email in the past 6 months from their list.

Marketing using email campaign’s isn’t just about having a large email list and peppering it with non-targeted information. It is about growing your list by though sign up forms, social media sharing and other relationship building activities. By adding the right contacts instead of just any contacts you will get a better response from your email marketing campaigns by reaching the appropriate audience with the correct message.  As an exercise look through this report and see how you would answer the questions. You may be surprised at the information that you find.

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