The Evolution of Email Marketing

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 relevance of email

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?

Should B2B and B2C be Compared?

The editor of B2B Marketing, Joel Harrison, recently attended a round table with the Marketing Society, where the main topic was based on creativity. Delegates questioned if the level of creativeness achieved in B2C campaigns can be transferred to B2B marketing, as this was thought to be an issue. Key examples referred to as B2C successes were the ‘Compare the Meerkat’ campaign for Compare the Market and Cadbury’s Gorilla campaign.

As Harrison describes in his blog “B2B doesn’t need to ‘do a meerkat’ – it would be irrelevant and unnecessary. B2B needs and does focus on driving relevant, appropriate, timely and salient marketing activities to its niche audiences”.

Harrison clearly identifies how B2B marketing is crucially about timing and relevance, in order to generate sales. Businesses can integrate marketing automation solutions to improve the effectiveness of both of these elements. The technology enables marketers to tag and track website visitors, with information about their activity being relayed directly to marketers in real-time. Marketers can use this information to send automated, targeted emails relevant to prospects’ interests at a time when they are ready to buy. Consequently this improves lead generation and allows sales to achieve their targets while businesses can identify a clear ROI.

Visit Profunnel for more information on marketing automation.

Integrating Social Media Proves Powerful For Customer Engagement

A report by Virgin Media Business highlights how more companies are realising the success they can achieve through the use of social media for customer engagement.

Reported by Computer Business Review, the study, which surveyed over 5,000 companies, reveals that businesses are focussing on just one or two social media channels – selecting the tools which work best for their strategy. British businesses are becoming more aware of the benefits of social media to engage customers with 43% of the respondents reporting they use this form of communication, an 8% increase on last year.

Incorporating social media into a marketing strategy is certainly proving to be a beneficial tool for businesses, however integrating this with traditional methods, such as targeted email marketing, means the overall marketing activity can be more effective. Profunnel offers a platform which includes various marketing solutions, such as social media tracking, to assist sales and marketing teams in building relationships with prospects, and to generate more sales.

Visit Profunnel for more information on demand generation

UK falls behind when it comes to customer engagement

Research by the Epson Business Council has found that small businesses in the UK are falling behind its European counterparts when considering the importance of customer engagement.

As inspiresme.co.uk reports, only 29% of the small businesses taking part in the research believe customer service is an integral factor in differentiating from competition in the current economic climate. Comparatively, 84% of Spanish and 77% of Italian small businesses rate customer service more importantly. A similar pattern is found for customer engagement as three quarters of some European countries highly regard technology as a way to engage their customers while only 49% of UK small businesses believe this.

In B2B marketing and sales, it is essential to build a rapport with prospects while making the effort to maintain relationships with existing customers.  As the results from this survey show, technology is an effective way to improve customer engagement, however UK businesses are either not aware of its benefits or the return on investment it can deliver.

Profunnel offers marketing automation solutions which allow businesses to conduct their entire marketing activity from a single platform. With this technology, companies can integrate their email marketing and set tailored, automated messages to be sent in response to website activity. Additionally, prospect and client behaviour is incorporated into the CRM, the information provided here improves communications as sales people can discuss interests with potential buyers and nurture them more closely through the entire buying cycle.

Visit Profunnel for more information on marketing automation.

Email Marketing Provides Greatest ROI

The annual Email Marketing Census 2012 published by Econsultancy this week shows marketers believe email marketing delivers a better ROI than most other channels.

With results compiled from over 800 respondents, the census finds that 70% of the companies considered email marketing to generate either an “excellent” or “good” ROI. The findings also highlight how using an email service provider for more than just “basic broadcast” has had a positive effect on businesses’ ROI. By putting effort into segmenting their email campaigns and integrating email marketing with CRM and web analytics, marketers are 32% more likely to find their ROI to be either “excellent” or “good”.

The census also highlights how many marketers are not taking advantage of more sophisticated forms of email marketing – only 28% said they would send a trigger email to a sign-up or site visitor. These figures clearly identify the benefits of installing technology to assist with lead generation and increase customer sales. Profunnel offers intelligent email marketing solutions to work with other business functions such as web analytics, social media and CRM. The platform can assist company owners with complex marketing campaigns by placing focus on only warm leads. This improves productivity of marketing and sales teams meaning a greater return on investment is achieved.

Visit Profunnel for more information on email marketing.

Focus on Email Marketing Design for 2012

The results from the latest reader survey produced by Marketing Week indicate that good design is an area many businesses are concentrating on this year.

80% of respondents believe design is an effective area for improving brand perception while over half of the businesses questioned think that design is “very important” in giving them an edge over their competitors. In general, 91% of respondents said design is effective for improving customer experience while 82% believe it is effective for increasing sales.

When asked how design was implemented last year and in which areas it was used most effectively, 44% of businesses said it had the biggest impact on their email marketing and 72% said they will be making this a priority in 2012.

As these figures show businesses are realising that design is important for their overall success and know that strong email is a way of generating good sales. By incorporating email marketing solutions into your strategy, marketers can be assisted with email design and content. Profunnel offers a wide range of email templates, which can be tailored to suit particular interests, therefore increasing customer engagement with your business.

Visit Profunnel for more information on email marketing.

Over Half of Businesses Plan to Increase Marketing Spend

The latest survey by research group Mindmetre shows a growth in confidence from businesses when planning their marketing budget for 2012.

As reported by the BBC, 57.1% of the 2,000 firms questioned said they are looking to invest more in marketing while only 18.6% plan to make cuts. By comparison, the same survey in 2011 showed only 41% of companies wanting to increase their marketing budget and 42% had to prepare to cut back. Although there are worries over the UK being hit with another recession, these figures reflect how business owners understand the importance of spending in the right areas to encourage company growth.

One way to improve marketing productivity while seeing a clear return on investment is by integrating demand generation technology. A platform such as Profunnel’s will assist marketing and sales teams with their B2B lead generation, by increasing lead quantity, quality and conversion rates. Sales people are alerted of the activity and interests of warm allowing them target prospects with automated emails, tailored to suit their interests in specific services and products. This level of communication allows sales people to engage with leads who are at the final stages in the buying cycle - creating a greater rate for securing sales.

Visit Profunnel for more information on demand generation.