In terms of profitable marketing channels, email takes home the gold. According to the Experian Marketing Services “2013 Email Market Study,” 99% of marketers surveyed say that their company currently uses email. And while marketers place email at the top of the podium, many also place customers’ email preferences at the bottom. For instance, 60% of marketers don’t offer customers the opportunity to select the types of emails they want to receive. Likewise, just over one third of respondents (35%) let customers determine how frequently they want to be mailed.
Furthermore, many marketers aren’t using personalization to compete for customers’ attention. In fact, 70% of marketers surveyed say that they don’t personalize emails sent to subscribers. But sitting out of the game presents a missed opportunity. According to the study, personalized promotional emails have 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher unique click rates than non-personalized emails. In addition, personalized trigger emails have 25% higher unique open rates and 51% higher unique click rates than non-personalized trigger emails. Even small changes can have a big impact. For instance, emails containing personalized subject lines experience a 26% lift in open rates compared to non-personalized emails.
But if personalization seems too out of reach, marketers can still go for the silver and send more targeted emails through segmentation. This tactic is a bit more common. According to the study, 83% of marketers segment their email campaign audiences by past activity data. Other common segmentation criteria include demographics (72%), past purchases (70%), and time on list (68%).
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