There’s huge potential for email to drive lead generation and engagement among this demographic, but key differences that marketers should be aware of in order to successfully target millennials – including ideal email content and device of choice.
Email research shows that marketing channel is thriving, but senders must be more relevant and provide more interesting content to meet consumer demands.
Every 5 seconds, the sound of thunder travels one mile. Every 5 seconds, the average person blinks. Every 5 seconds, 17 million emails are sent and 205,000 Facebook posts are posted. It‘s a busy planet – so how do marketers cut-through to make an impact? Find out here . . .
The average consumer receives 500+ marketing messages every month, but fewer than 7 per cent are actually opened. External factors can significantly influence the impact of email marketing campaigns and there are a number of ways to optimise a business’s chances of emails landing safely in a consumer’s inbox and catching their attention.
Email marketing certainly isn’t dead, but needs a bit of nursing by brands wanting to connect with millennials – research shows. The stats reveal we should take particular note of two words: targeting and relevancy.
Take three marketing channels: email; mobile apps; social media. The greatest of these is email, with 96 per cent usage, says The Digital Customer Engagement Index from Mapp Digital.
One of the largest independent digital marketing technology companies in the world, Mapp Digital analysed the digital marketing methods of the top 50 ecommerce brands in the UK in 2016. And despite the large uptake of email communication, the study found that relatively few companies are truly harnessing user preferences, personalisation and optimisation across devices.
The analysis revealed that only 26% personalise emails, 60% personalise the web experience, and a mere two per cent use a personal approach in their mobile apps – despite most brands asking for customer names and other identifiable information.
Rolf Anweiler (pictured), senior vice-president marketing, Mapp, said: “All data no action summarises the broad approach we’re seeing from the UK’s top ecommerce brands.”
He continued: “But broad is no good when it comes to marketing in a digital revolution, when customers’ relationships with brands are changing to an ‘always on’ culture and you explicitly ask for information about them.
“Many brands are still more 9 to 5 than 24/7 when it comes to marketing. With the proliferation of channels, devices and technologies comes a great opportunity for marketers. At the moment, though, most are being bland, formulaic and not quite delivering.”
In mobile app marketing, where 92% of brands have a mobile app, most seek permission to send notifications. Despite this, only 17% actually delivered a message across the duration of Mapp’s study – which ran for a month in spring 2016.
The study also looks at how brands are orchestrating cross-channel engagement, noting that only 25% of the top brands with bricks-and-mortar stores are using technology to drive engagement when potential customers might be passing by. This indicates that most are wasting a huge opportunity to grow the mobile channel and engage with customers, especially mobile-savvy millennials.
Key findings:
Anweiler added: “In an era when brands are pushing for more personalised, individualised marketing, some of the largest ecommerce brands in the UK are still failing to create meaningful engagements due to inconsistent use of digital channels.
“Never has having a consistent strategy been more important, nor has combining the data from the multitude of digital channels to create a holistic view of the customer. It is – or should be – simple to deliver highly bespoke messages. Marketers today have all the tools to achieve this.”
A UK survey showed that 82% of marketers believe email personalisation results in an increase in open rates, 75% believe it produces higher click-through rates and 56% see a positive impact on sales. So yes, artificial intelligence might be all the rage right now, but marketers should not forget that assets they have already in their marketing arsenal (such as the data in their CMS and marketing platforms) can really help their ROI.
As today’s marketers are under increasing pressure to capture the attention of an ever more demanding audience, researchers have focused a study speci fically into the use and effects of personalisation in email and across the marketing mix.
With the right tools and knowledge, and following these tips, brands can make sure that their engagement with customers via carefully created email campaigns remains on track.
From May 2018, email marketers in the UK and EU will not be allowed to market to any data that has not given explicit consent. The industry must take notice and start building high-value, opt-in data immediately.