Email Marketing Still has Juice!

On top of that, the June 2014 report detailing the survey results, underwritten by Extole, called email “the digital marketing workhorse,” meaning it was effective—and often considered the single most effective—for reaching all goals, including awareness (41% of respondents), acquisition (37%), conversion (42%) and retention (56%).

When it came to that last objective—customer retention—email dominated other programs, leading second-place social network marketing by nearly 20 percentage points.

Due to these positive results, one-quarter of respondents planned to increase spending on email marketing. This was the third-highest response, trailing social network marketing (38%) and content marketing (28%). Meanwhile, few marketers said they would up investments in newer digital formats such as mobile advertising (16%) and digital video ads (14%).

Based on April 2014 polling My.com, a chunk of those dollars would be well spent on mobile-optimized email. Nearly three-quarters of US internet users studied said they checked email on a mobile device. Android-powered devices were the most popular mobile platforms for checking email via mobile, cited by 48% of respondents, followed by iOS, with 38%.

However, a June 2014 study by Ascend2 found that mobile-optimized email still had much room for growth. Around one-third of marketing professionals worldwide said they used or were planning to use mobile-optimized email in the next year, compared with 54% who said the same for mobile-optimized websites. Email ranked fourth overall, with response rates close to those for mobile apps (35%) and mobile social media (33%).