There’s been a lot of buzz about the newly-released comScore study, which reveals that overall email usage is down 8%. In particular, it has decreased 59% among teens, 18% among 25-34 year olds, and 10% among the 35-54 set.
On the surface, the reasons seem obvious: media consumption is moving (and clearly has already moved) more and more to social media and mobile/text platforms, especially among the youth demographics. I’ve seen this firsthand with my tween nieces—they rarely use email, but they live on Facebook and have phones attached to their hands in non-stop texting frenzies…sometimes with each other. Clearly, the customers of tomorrow will not be email-centric, but what about the rest of us? Is the decline in email usage based on changing communication patterns or is there something larger than all of this at work here?
Email marketing can be a very efficient and profitable tactic, which is why it became so overused in the first place. The amount of email I receive at my business and personal accounts is over the top, and that does not even count the junk that gets caught in the spam filters. A cursory and admittedly non-scientific overview of my work inbox reveals that every day I get al least five webcast invites, a number of SEO pitches from website optimization gurus, and a seemingly endless supply of offers to rent lists—medical!, real estate!, dentists!—so that I, too, can be a spammer. On the personal front, I get daily emails from every online retailer I’ve ever done business with. I like Omaha Steaks, but I don’t need to order every week. Ditto to 1-800-Flowers and LL Bean. The cost of sending an email is so cheap that marketers feel there is little downside to the continuous barrage of campaigns. But there is: it’s this very approach that’s responsible for making customers immune to their messages.
How many email messages are deleted without being opened? 80-85%? Maybe more. What is the damage to the brand when seen as clogging a customer’s inbox? More and more people are using their smart phone as their primary email reader so the tolerance for unwanted messages will only decrease as it’s seen as even more of an intrusion.
Marketers are going to have to rethink their strategy going forward when it comes to email. The medium has matured and consumers are migrating to other platforms. It may be time to cut back on the amount of mail sent and increase the quality of what is being transmitted. How about adding some meaningful and useful content? Better integration with social platforms is also a viable strategy—and one that’s interactive. In addition, the targeting could be narrower, based on search interest and past buying behavior. In some cases it may be worth retracing past steps by considering direct mail and catalogs. The real world mail box is a lot emptier these days, while the virtual one is bursting at the seams. Your customer database is one of your most valuable possessions; don’t treat it like a rented mule.
I use constant contact for my monthly newsletter to clients and only about 10% open it!
Thanks for the post Gordon. There is going to be much more focus on customer engagement this year. Taking the time to find out exactly what your subscribers want and how often they want to receive it, would almost certainly help your open rates as the content is targeted and relevant and your subscriber knows when to expect your email.