What companies expect of email marketing over the next five years

Everyone’s doing it

Email marketing: we know you do it. Econsultancy, and online platform for marketers and ecommerce professionals, takes a yearly Email Marketing Census to check in with businesses about their email marketing habits, and to track trends.

Its 2015 census asked businesses, as well as marketing firms that build campaigns and make recommendations for other companies, to report on their email marketing goals for 2016, as well as to predict how email marketing will change over the next five years.

How brands are hoping to improve this year

Survey respondents were asked to identify the top areas that they will be focusing on to improve their email marketing campaigns in the next year. Ranking highest at 29 percent were automated campaigns, a 12 percent increase from last year’s census. Businesses indicated a desire to “automate communications with individual customers” for higher personalization.

Three other areas tied at 25 percent: strategy and campaign planning, data quality, and measurement/analytics. Although only 17 percent of respondents said they wanted to focus on design and copywriting for their email marketing campaigns in the upcoming year, this was a 42 percent increase from last year’s census, indicating that companies desire better looking and better written email marketing materials.

And what about the future of email marketing over the next five years?

Only nine percent of respondents felt that email marketing would become redundant, while three quarters of marketers still believe that email marketing provides the highest return on investment when compared to other marketing channels.

Respondents were optimistic that within five years email marketing would become more “fully integrated” with other forms of marketing, and that email marketing will become increasingly personalized. This means that customers will receive emails not only with personalized content, but also that the emails will address their particular needs and preferences, will match their preferred device, and will arrive in their inbox at just the right time.

Email marketing is far from redundant. It is only become increasingly personalized and integrated with other marketing channels.

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