9 Shocking Facts About Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a strategy that will never go out of fashion. Here are 9 shocking facts that prove email marketing will continue indefinitely.

What's up guys! It's Engaging World.

I heard from many of you who liked my articles, so I'm back with another awesome article for your reading pleasure.

In this article, I will be sharing some awesome facts about email marketing that all copywriters and marketers should be aware of right now.

In the midst of all the conversations about new and amazing ways to influence and reach customers, email still looms large in helping buyers make a purchase decision.

The fact is, there are an estimated 3 billion active email users right now (a number that is expected to grow even further). Well, that number is a bit hard to quantify since some people own more than one email account.

But whatever the metrics may be, one thing is for sure: email is on the rise.

Definitely, other factors are required: like writing great topic lines, knowing your target audience, and providing valuable and relevant content. All of these are critical steps to consider in your email marketing campaigns.

Fact 1: 24% of subscribers click on emails based on the preview text

This is ture, it seems the subject line alone may not be helpful in getting subscribers to read your mails.

The preheader or preview text is approximately 100 characters of email content which you can view right in your inbox, just after the subject, without needing to open the email. It is often referred to as meta description, it gives you the chance to summarize your mail to your readers.

In a survey, more than 1,300 American adults were asked what they looked at first before they decide to open an email... 34% said the subject, 42% said the name of the sender, but 24% surprisingly went for preview text!

Though the actual number of characters depends on the email provider or device your subscriber uses, writing a well-crafted preview text for your emails is worthwhile.

A lot of email marketing platforms offer the feature of a custom preview text field. If you choose not to add a preview text, the first sentence of the email will be used as the default sentence, but if you're not careful, it can sometimes be key text like a link to unsubscribe.

Fact 2: List segmentation raises revenue by 760%

Gone are the days of depending on "bulk" email campaigns. Email marketing in the future will depend on behavioral emails.

There really is no ideal length for an autoresponder email series. 80% of your automated sales will happen in the first few weeks after a subscriber signs up. So, though it doesn’t hurt to have a long autoresponder series, the most important thing is to scan, tag and segment your subscribers to make sure to personalize them and deliver intense content depending on behavior.

So consider: Multiple ARs that are parallel, instead of one long one.

When compared to non-split campaigns, split email marketing campaigns realise 15% more email opens and 60% more clicks.

The fact is, 78% of consumers say that personality-related content is a critical factor in their purchase decision. Lack of relevance in marketing messages results in a massive 83% drop in engagement.

·        What is Email Marketing?

·        Why Your Business Needs Email Marketing

Fact 3: Engagement is increased by 73% with interactive emails.

To have all the fun, there is no need to wait for the landing page! You can play the game a little early inside the subscriber's inbox to let them know about the main event.

According to science, interactive emails increases click-through rate, by 73%.

Hence, you need to begin to think creatively about how you can grab the attention of your subscribers or get them to make some sort of micro-engagement in your email, rather than just linking to a sales page or clicking a button.

Including videos, slides, animated GIFs, collapsible menus, or accordions, can encourage engagement to a large extent in your emails.

A creative ways to do this is by asking "yes" or "no" questions, where each answer is a button that points to a different content.

This not only creates early engagement, but offers a more personalized and relevant experience for the reader.

This should not be done in excess. Always test well and use good judgment. Using too much media in your email won't solve all your email problems. So always keep your content crystal clear, valuable, and relevant.

Fact 4: Though Plain Text Emails Work Better, People Say They Prefer HTML Emails

According to a study conducted by Hubspot, about 64% of respondents say they prefer HTML image-based emails to plain text emails.

However, ironically, every A/B test done revealed that emails with fewer HTML elements performed better.

They realized that HTML emails got lower open rates than their counterparts in plain text.

This may be due to one of the following reasons:

HTML layouts may look better, but can be too busy or commercial, while plain text layouts look more personalized.

Broken HTML images or tags not only look ugly in your inbox, they can also be tagged as spam and also by your email provider.

In the end, nothing can beat the old plain text emails. Let's face it, it's the closest thing these days to a handwritten romantic letter.

This does not in any way suggest you do away with HTML altogether. Test your audience to see what they prefer, and as an option be sure to offer an enhanced plain text version of your email.

·         Use Email Marketing Services to Increase Leads and Profit 

·         Your Business Can Be Successful With Email Marketing

Fact 5: 50% higher open rate is recorded for personalized subject lines.

Keeping a personalized subject line, such as addressing individuals by their first names, remembering their birthday, or asking about campaign activities and previous commands goes a long way!

Show your subscribers that you're taking steps to personalize their experience with you. It makes them feel important and special.

Fact 6: 69% of email recipients report emails as spam solely on the subject line.

69% of email recipients according to a report by Invesp, will see an email as spam without even clicking on it.

In another OptinMonster survey, 54% of respondents reported feeling scammed, cheated, or misled when they opened a promotional email because of the subject line.

The truth is that the line between deceptive click behavior and actual email marketing is blurring as marketers use more irrelevant or totally irrelevant subject lines and spammers get smarter with their messaging in an effort to stand out and get a click.

At first glance, this makes it tricky for subscribers to tell one from another, particularly if they previously had a bad experience.

So keep your subject lines to the point and simple, be transparent, personal, and most importantly, relevant.

Try experimenting with emojis. One study by a consumer reporting agency, Experian, observed that email subject lines containing emojis increased open rates by 56%. It is most likely due to the personal sentiment they add to the message.

Fact 7: Poor looking Emails on mobile are deleted in three seconds

Mobile devices now account for nearly 60% of email read worldwide, according to Adestra.  And if the email isn't optimized for mobile viewing, regardless of how great the content is... in about 70% of cases, it's probably deleted in less than three seconds!.

Suppose your audience reads your emails on mobile. Get a responsive email template and give it a try. Ensure that any media or graphics you use look good on a small screen.

Rather than rely solely on hyperlinks, campaign Monitor recommends adding a call-to-action button. This is because it can be a bit difficult to click on links on your mobile phone, particularly if you have a big thumb.

·         Email Marketing Tips That Work 

·         Email Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Fact 8: 21% of permission-based emails still get sent to the spam folder

Yes, according to a study by ReturnPath in 2015, only around 79% of messages sent by legitimate email marketers make it to the inbox. I think that number is much lower today.

So, in addition to writing transparent, personal, and relevant subject lines, you need to ensure your emails are spotless when it comes to words that trigger spam.

Spam criteria are becoming stricter and are based on a whole set of rules, such as formatting, missing footer information, image-to-text ratio, subject line, etc. Assessing all of these in one email gives the overall spam score.

Before sending an email, there are many tools that can be used to check your spam score. The only problem for copywriters is that many of these tools require either the sender of the customer email to send a physical TEST email, which we do not always have access to, or a feedback loop in real-time to see if an email will "get through". So, to be fail-safe, I like to keep handy a list of spam trigger words that I can refer to as I write.

The good news is that with this simple but often overlooked step added to your email composition process, you greatly increase your chances of reaching the inbox of your subscribers and increasing the success of your email campaigns. This will make you look like a genius before your customers.

Fact 9: By 2020, 50% of all searches will be done by voice

What does this mean for email marketing?

The bots are basically taking over. Thanks to the advent of digital assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google, people no longer want to read their emails.

They prefer to have their emails read out loud to them.

According to Juniper Research in the UK, by 2023 there will be in use an estimated 8 billion digital voice assistants! There will be more voice assistants than human beings.