Email â itâs never been so important, but marketers struggle to demonstrate its value

The DMA releases the latest version of the Marketer Email Tracker, following the trends, experiences and attitudes of email marketers in 2016

Email remains the bedrock on which the majority of marketing campaigns operate. Those rating it as either ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to achieving brand goals has increased from 89% to 93% between 2012 and 2015. The vast majority (95%) of email marketing is carried out in-house.

Despite making healthy returns – an average of £29.64 for every £1 invested in email - marketers struggle with messaging, skills and calculating returns.

The DMA found that marketers tend to rely on ‘we’ messaging that focuses on the company and its activities. We know that consumers overwhelmingly want ‘you’ messaging that focuses on benefits for consumers. But they are not getting these messages. There is a clear opportunity here for brands.

ROI is a growing problem for the industry. Those able to calculate ROI has fallen steadily since 2012. In 2015 half of marketers could calculate the ROI on their marketing. For B2B marketers, the proportion unable to calculate ROI rises to 60%.

When compared to the results of DMA’s Customer Email Tracker 2015, which monitors customers’ perceptions of email, both groups rated ‘trust’ very highly – the top choice for marketers and the fourth choice for customers.

DMA MD Rachel Aldighieri said, “Both marketers and consumers agree on one thing – trust is important. If customers, whether B2B or B2C, don’t trust you then your marketing is going to be more difficult, regardless of any other factor.”

Skills are at a premium, with email marketers struggling to keep up with the growing range of techniques and technologies on offer. In addition, marketers routinely overestimate their skills.

The DMA found a strong correlation between email testing skills and email performance (measured by ROI), but no correlation between ROI and reported skill at email. Testing should therefore be the benchmark for email skill.

Finally, email automation, which is a growing buzzword, seems to be performing less well than many might anticipate. Our results suggests low uptake of marketing automation, and low returns. This may be due to investments yet to pay off, lack of competence, lack of data, difficulty in calculating ROI, or a combination of these factors.

Skip Fidura, client services director at sponsor dotmailer said, “Investment in marketing automation software could clearly free up marketers’ time to conduct more sophisticated methods of targeting or execution, and provide some outstanding returns. It is alarming for me to see that almost a quarter of those who took the survey don’t conduct testing as part of their work.

Contact:

Ed Owen, PR and Content manager

T: +44 (0) 207 291 3324 |M: +44 (0)7813 664656 |E: ed.owen@dma.org.uk

About the DMA:

The DMA is a UK trade association for the one-to-one marketing industry - those companies that speak directly to their customers and those companies that help them achieve this. The DMA provides best-practice guidelines and legal services for its members, who are typically marketing, advertising and data-driven organisations.

More than 1,000 companies in the UK are DMA members. The DMA also holds industry events, conducts research and publishes reports, lobbies for legislation to support its members’ business practices and has a close working relationship with the Information Commissioner’s Office. All DMA members must comply with the DMA code, which is available to read here: http://dma.org.uk/the-dma-code.