Moving from Transactional to Conversational Email Marketing

This is the most critical question email marketing to address. After all, "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" Companies are short-staffed, budgets are shrunken, and there's a world of pressing issues. So undoubtedly, you're asking, "Why should we try to improve CRM email marketing?"

Good question. The bottom line for email marketing is that those significant improvements can be gained with minimal time or effort, so why not? 

Email marketing is so inexpensive and easy. It's simple and quick to blast out an email marketing campaign at the end of a quarter. We get a handful of responses, so we pat ourselves on the back. But email marketing is also straightforward to bring dramatic improvements.

Email marketing is so popular that standing out in the inbox is more complex than ever. Here are a few shocking statistics about lead generation (fun to share at parties too.)

• 320 billion emails were sent each day this year. 
• In the time it takes to read this sentence, some 20 million emails are sent.
• $13.4 billion - the number of direct marketing dollars forecasted to be spent on email marketing in the USA this past year. 
• 81% of all email traffic is spam.

With the explosion of email marketing, users have gotten smarter. They ignore or unsubscribe. And they want it personal.

E-Dialog found that more than half of US and UK email recipients said they would be more receptive to emails from marketers if they were more personal and highly targeted. 85% of consumers surveyed want their preferences set at registration. When such large majorities speak, we ought to listen.

It's clear that if your business is going to stand out in this chaotic world, you need to move differently with email marketing. Let's look at how to do it.

Segmentation, personalization, email preferences, social networks, testing - there are many ways to break through the noise, engage your buyers and earn trust via email marketing. Let's examine them. 

59% of US and UK Internet Users said the reason for not regularly opening/reading email marketing messages is that they come too frequently.
E-Dialog "Manifesto for E-mail Marketers: Consumers Demand Relevance" (2010)

Today's keys to success in email marketing are relevance and simplicity, along with making communication easy. Another critical element of email marketing is knowing when NOT to send an email.

John Rizzi, CEO of e-Dialog, said the decision NOT to send an email is one of the most difficult for marketers today. But it is essential. (The data bears it out. 6 out of 10 say the reason for not opening/reading emails is they come too often.) When you do decide to send me an email, I want more than just any email. I want it written just for me. That means the email is registered to me and me alone. (At least you make me think that.)

You've adapted it to a person’s personal preferences. You've watched their behavior (clicks, offline, and website visits) to adopt email marketing efforts to what they were doing. It's simple and just for them, so they can quickly scan it and understand it, and can continue the conversation with you on Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms via CRM lead management.

What happened? What changed? What made changing the way we do email marketing imperative?

Three key things:
1. The explosive growth of mobile, including Smartphones
2. Popularity of social networks
3. Online Video/Broadband connections

Smartphones, capable of a robust email marketing experience, have gained in popularity in recent years. Smartphone users can control their whole lives with automation thanks to always having a portable internet connection on them. Therefore email marketing can be more relevant. 

A report from the Radicati Group suggested 139 million mobile email users. It expects this number to rise to over 1 billion mailboxes.

The Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index revealed that 36% of Australian mobile phone users accessed email via phone. 

Based on a number, there are 4.6 billion mobile phones, expected to surpass 6.5 billion. 

Morgan Stanley predicts that the phone will be the "first screen" in the future - mobile web applications will overtake desktop internet use. Social networks are the fastest growing app on Smartphones, with 240% yearly growth - up to 14.5 million users. And people use Smartphones to share.

Email Marketing Would Be Best If You Were On Mobile.

But being on mobile also means new rules of respect. Smartphones mean near-instant receipt of an email marketing email regardless of time or day of the week and thus have significant ramifications for email marketers. Send an email at dinnertime on Sunday. These savvy email marketing recipients are among the first to opt-out. So caution's the watchword.

Email marketing growth on smartphones means you must be more careful with email marketing than ever before.

The Popularity of Social Networks

Twitter continues to be a part of our regular lives despite all the controversy it has experienced. This has enabled Twitter to become a trailblazer in setting trends worldwide,

Other popular social media marketing platforms used are Facebook and Instagram, which also continue to dictate email marketing trends.

Online Video/Broadband Connections

In 2008 121.4 million people viewed online videos at least once a month. That's 59.7%. But by 2022, that's forecasted to jump to 5 billion. 

The world is undergoing rapid change. Broadband penetration in the USA is over 95% at home and over 98% at work. 

Improvements in 5G speed have led to dramatic video growth, which has significant ramifications for email marketing today.More than 1.7 billion people access email on their mobile phones. This is compared to fewer than 200 million in 2009.
- The Radicati Group (2022)

Compare the best CRM platforms to streamline your business’s email marketing efforts to get the best results.