Marketers should know how their target audiences use their email and how they engage with brands and their type of communications in order to execute a successful campaign.

83% of consumers still use their first ever email address as their main account, while 59% of consumers have never deactivated an email address. However, their behaviour is changing. Consumers nowadays have between 2-3 email addresses and claim that they sign up for an average of 14 mailing lists on their personal emails accounts in comparison with 2 on their work email accounts.

According to a study by the DMA, consumers say that more than 50% of their emails in their inboxes are marketing messages. This study also found that 53% of them have too many irrelevant emails, while 47% of them forgot they’ve signed up. This implies that your email needs to stand out from the crowd and you have to take different elements into account such as subject lines, design, best times to broadcast, content, personalisation etc.

Campaign Monitor conducted a report in 2017, highlighting how American consumers engage with brands and what types of messages resonate most across age groups. Millennials for example are far more likely to take action on a relevant email than any other age group. More than half of those surveyed in the U.S. check their personal email account more than 10 times a day and is also their preferred way to receive communication from brands.

An email address remains the primary gateway to online which is the key touch point between marketers and their target audience. Therefore, it’s crucial to build and grow your customer database where customers sign up to receive marketing material from your brand. It then becomes your responsibility to send relevant content to these customers on your database. Trust needs to be built between you and the customer providing them with access to set their preferences and communicate clear privacy policies. Marketers need to combine these approaches to make the most of this key touch point of email.

References:

Dotmailer: https://www.dotmailer.com/pages/email/infographic-dma-insight-the-email-account-a-stable-touchpoint/

Campaign Monitor: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/insights-research-report/