Email marketing tools still not being used adequately by most businesses

Brands are still not adequately email marketing

The way companies are using email marketing these days leaves much room for improvement, according to a study by marketing research and consulting firm, The Relevancy Group.

The study revealed that email marketers are not adequately using consumer data to segment and target audiences, using mostly demographic and geographic data and ignoring other important data attributes.

The survey found that marketers are relying solely on unsophisticated metrics for customer segmentation, even though more advanced metrics are available. For example, tracking customer email clicks and email open rates is relatively simple, and yet most marketers surveyed are not using this kind of data to inform new marketing campaigns.

Half don’t even maintain centralized data

As a matter of fact, far less than half of respondents to the survey maintained a centralized data repository for all client data. Of marketers maintaining centralized customer data, only 28% of those used data from across multiple channels to create records for each customer.

A similar study by Adobe for the Direct Marketing Association found that less than half of North American digital markets use information from channels other than email to inform their email campaigns.

Priorities are still out of whack

While most respondents to the Relevancy Group study said that they were making segmentation and targeting a high priority for 2015, only small percentages of respondents made the same commitment to other useful email marketing tools, such as analytics, centralizing customer data, and making customer data actionable.

The Relevancy Group gives the overall impression that most email marketers are not taking advantage of the most up-to-date marketing techniques, data sources, and analytics. The Relevancy Group encourages the use of predictive analytics, segmentation, and other practices that contribute to better email targeting and personalization.

Although these techniques are currently being underutilized, the report also indicates that these techniques are relatively simple. Browse AGBeat to find many helpful articles about marketing tools that may help improve your next email marketing campaign.

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