The evolution of email marketing
In 2012 it felt like we couldn't escape the constant
reminders by journalists, bloggers, marketers and even consumers that social
media had reached adolescence. Some even touted the idea that social could make
email marketing obsolete; a bold and presumptuous concept when you consider
that email is still the primary source
of lead generation for 9 out of 10 B2B marketers. Whilst email marketing may
not have received the accelerated public growth adopted by social, it has begun
to evolve – so what can it offer in 2013?
The aforementioned figures were revealed by Forrester and
sat alongside stats declaring that 70% of marketers see email as either
‘critical’ or ‘very important’ with more than half of them using emails as a
primary source of, (in descending order), lead generation/nurturing, enhancing
or building brand awareness, driving sales and strengthening thought
leadership.
The ultimate B2B
marketing tool
Industry wide, B2B marketers reported an average deliverable rate of 84% and a further 13% average click-through rate. Not
only are these figures extremely positive, but website forensics can provide
marketers with hitherto unprecedented access to customer analytics and
reporting which can be tied back to ROI, mainly through the process of
lead-scoring; a convention still presenting teething problems for the social
revolution.
“New and growing
businesses are stealthy in how they embrace email. You will hear marketing
automation, cloud-based marketing platforms, digital messaging, CRM, and the
like, but the companies valued highly and/or raising a ton of money or being
acquired, feature email front and centre’ (S.Jenkins, Clikz 2013)
So what’s next for
email marketing?
More and more professionals are now using more complex email
marketing systems and choosing marketing
automation platforms in order to enhance email lead nurturing
campaigns. Marketing automation offers more complex analytics, allowing marketers
to track customer behaviour which ultimately leads to more efficient output as
brands can fine tune their communications, content and daily activities by
interpreting this unique data. Furthermore, these platforms can streamline the entire process
with CRM integration, automation of campaigns and filtering mechanisms. What’s not
to love?
Marketing Automation
So why do we think Marketing Automation is
critical to the longevity and survival of email marketing? Firstly, the
adoption of marketing automation is expected to increase 50% by 2015 and thanks to
the ease in which customers now have access to the plethora of information
about your company, the average sales cycle has increased by 22% over the last
5 years - all the more reason to join the party. Moreover, to counteract this
paradigm shift in buying behaviour marketers must now adopt a more
sophisticated lead nurturing approach to keep up with this revolution in
buying behaviour.
Evolve to prepare
So in summary, it’s safe to say that email marketing is not
‘dead’ and social certainly isn't the straw that will break the camel’s back
just yet. However, to keep up with the shift in consumer behaviour email
marketing has to continue its evolution to become more sophisticated and
integrate with your existing end-to-end marketing efforts including web,
social, CRM and offline channels.
Finally, Gartner predicts that by 2020 customers will manage
85% of their relationships with an enterprise without talking to a human. If
this is the case, can you afford not to have a platform in place to ensure that
you make the most of inbound leads so that your sales teams can target the right
customers at the right time with the right content?
