According to a study by Internet security technology company Commtouch in Q3 of 2012, nearly 74% all email sent was spam. Over 87 billion spam/phishing emails are sent around the world every day and 1.9 billion of those messages was sent with malware attached.
Despite those disappointing numbers, email marketing is still a leading tool for B2B digital marketers looking to create and maintain a one-to-one relationship. A highly targeted, well constructed and uniquely valuable email is still a great way to communicate with your audience.
As with nearly all digital marketing channels, successful email marketing is not easy. Four major hurdles, and their applicable metrics, that marketers have to manage include:
- Email list quality (bounce rate)
- Opening of the email (open rate)
- Take action within the email (clickthrough rate)
- Take action on the landing page (conversion rate)
Misjudge your target in any of these four stages and you’re out of luck. A recent study by marketing services provider Epsilon indicated that the average email open rate was 25.6% for 2012 Q2 while the clickthrough rate was just 4.4%. Certainly these numbers can fluctuate a great deal across industries and due to a number of additional factors.
However, the real takeaway from these figures is that the need to test and optimize each individual component such as subject lines, body copy and calls to action is more important than ever. B2B email marketing is still an excellent tool when used with a disciplined, pragmatic approach.
