Every channel has a certain quality that brings a twinkle to marketers’ eyes. But when it comes to generating engagement, email is simply a cut above the rest. According to Ascend2’s “Email Marketing Trends” report, 63% of marketing, sales, and business employees list increased engagement as their top email marketing objective. Other goals include increased lead generation (51%), improved customer acquisition or retention (43%), and enhanced lead nurturing (35%). But these objectives aren’t just glitz and glamour. Oh no. Employees are actually meeting their goals. In fact, 89% of respondents consider their email marketing somewhat or very successful in terms of achieving important objectives, compared to just 11% who view their email marketing somewhat or very unsuccessful.
But no matter how radiant the channel is, it still isn’t perfect. Consider the following: 73% of respondents list click-through rate as the most useful metric for measuring email’s performance, with conversion rate (71%), ROI (42%) and open rate (40%) falling behind. However, more than half (53%) of the professionals surveyed also cite low click-through rates as the most challenging obstacle to email marketing’s success. And, more than one third of respondents say their click-through rates aren’t changing at all. Other hurdles include lack of an effective strategy (41%), lack of quality content (32%), and lack of internal resources (31%).
Still, these challenges aren’t dulling employees’ sparkle. Indeed, they’re experimenting with different methods to increase their click-through rates. For instance, 65% of respondents claim that including a meaningful call-to-action offer is the most effective tactic for boosting click-throughs. List segmentation for targeting (47%), message personalization (42%), and testing and optimization (35%) were also deemed effective. But once again, the most brilliant methods prove to be the most difficult. According to the report, 41% of respondents say list segmentation for targeting is the most difficult method for increasing click-through rates. Other complicated tactics include featuring meaningful call-to-action offers, running drip/event-triggered campaigns (32%), and personalizing messages (31%).
That’s why many propose sharing the load with third-party resources. Only 28% of respondents rely solely on in-house marketing resources, compared to 59% of employees polled who use a combination of in-house and outsourced resources. Just 13% turn solely to outside companies for their email marketing needs.
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