As Mark Twain once quipped, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” The same could be said for email.
It’s not dead. In fact, it’s still kicking pretty well.
Recent research by Gigaom for Q2 2014 found that 86 percent of U.S. digital marketers use email marketing regularly—the highest response rate out of all programs surveyed.
The report detailing the survey results, underwritten by Extole, dubs email “the digital marketing workhorse.” The report notes that it is still effective—and often considered the single most effective—strategy for reaching marketing goals, including awareness (41 percent of respondents), acquisition (37 percent), conversion (42 percent), and retention (56 percent).
That last objective — customer retention — is an interesting one. The report indicates that email dominated other programs, leading the second-place social network marketing option by almost 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 percent) and content marketing (28 percent). Meanwhile, few marketers said they would up investments in newer digital formats such as mobile advertising (16 percent) and digital video ads (14 percent).
Email has spread its wings to mobile, of course.
Based on April 2014 polling My.com, a chunk of those dollars would be well spent on mobile-optimized email. About three-quarters of the surveyed U.S. internet users revealed that they check email on a mobile device. Android-powered devices were the most popular mobile platforms for checking email via mobile, cited by 48 percent of respondents. Next was iOS, with 38 percent.
There’s more to the story over at eMarketer. Check it out here.
