email marketing survey
July 2008
in conjunction with emedia
survey details
This survey was carried out online during June-July 2008 in conjunction with emedia. Only fully completed submissions were used for this survey, totalling 82 out of 120 replies. 93% of respondents were UK based. Feel free to use this data in your publications. We simply ask that you reference The Escape and emedia. Further comments on the results can be found at: www.the-escape.co.uk/reference/email-marketing-survey/
respondent details
Job title
13% 2% 6% 71% 7%
Marketing Sales Technical Management Other
Market
23%
Business-to-business Business-to-consumer
77%
email marketing overview
The majority of our overall marketing is focussed online
15% 40%
Our business currently uses e-mail for marketing
8% 22% 70%
45%
Email marketing has enabled our business to develop sales (or leads)
23%
We plan to use email for marketing within the next 12 months
61%
15% 5%
16%
80%
Agree
Disagree
Neutral
buying data lists
Have you ever purchased a database of email addresses?
57% 33% 2% 41%
Those who have purchased: Was it a worthwhile - Did you see a return on your investment?
29%
38%
Of the people who HAVEN’T purchased a list before, would you consider purchasing a list in the future?
32%
34%
Of the people who HAVE previously bought a list, would you consider purchasing a list again
29% 3%
68%
34%
Yes
No
Unsure
building subscriber lists
Do you currently have a mechanism to develop an email database, eg. newsletter subscription on your website.
34% 66% 94%
Of those who replied yes, is the list building permission based? ie. The subscriber needs to sign-up.
6%
Of those who replied yes, do you incentivize your subscribers to sign up? eg. free gifts / white papers, etc.
Do you sell, share or rent out your collected data?
52% 48% 87%
13%
Yes
No
example incentives
• B2B - 25.4% respondents offered a ‘sign-up’ incentive
18%
18% 65%
White Papers / E-Book Competitions/Draws Free Gift
• B2C - 10.5% respondents offered a ‘sign-up’ incentive
25%
Competition Free Vouchers
75%
subscription form
How many subscribers to you get per month? (more relevant to business / website profile, rather than based on number of fields) How many fields does your sign-up form have?
15% 29% 22% 7% 3% 5% 15% 47%
23%
Less than 10 11-50 51-100 101-200 201-1000 1000+
20%
15%
1 2 3 4 5+
Do you segment your database?
7%
36% 57%
Yes No Unsure
e-mail messaging
What kind of email campaigns do you send? What regularity do you send campaigns?
16% 1% 35% 18%
E-Newsletters Sales Messages Value Add Content Company News Other
15% 3%10% 10%
Daily Weekly Bi-weekly Monthly More
31%
61%
Preferred day of the week for sending?
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday No preference
Are you campaigns sent on a regular date/time?
31%
Yes Ad-hoc dates
69%
sending method
What method do you use for sending your email campaigns?
26% 40%
Online web application In-house CRM system / email software send using email client (such as Outlook)
34%
What format do you send your email campaigns
10%
15% 15%
Text only PDF/IMage Attachment Multipart Unknown
60%
testing and personalisation
Do you send targeted campaigns from a segmented database
3% 32% 65%
Do you personalise the content of your emails?
49%
4% 47%
Do you check your content through spam filters before sending your email?
51% 49%
Do you test your email in different mail clients (Outlook, GMail, Yahoo, etc.) before sending?
46%
54%
Yes
No
Unsure
unsubscribers
How do you allow recipients of your campaigns to unsubscribe?
1% 7% 21%
No unsubscribe ‘Unsubscribe here’ link ‘Reply to this e-mail’ - subject line Other
70%
Do you confirm the unsubscribe?
25% 47%
Yes
No
Unsure
28%
campaign actions
Do your campaigns usually require a response of some sort?
18% 1% 51% 25% 4%
Click-through to additional sales message on website Registration of form Direct contact - telephone/email Other No direct call-to-action
Do you measure the open rates of your sent HTML messages?
11%
Do you specify and measure a key performance indicator for your campaigns?
17%
33%
56%
Yes No Unsure
51%
32%
Yes No Unsure
measurement statistics
<10%
11-20%
21-30%
31-40%
41-50%
51-60%
61-70%
71-80%
80-100%
Open rate
Conversion rate
message testing
Do you split test your campaigns?
17%
Yes
No
83%
Do you measure campaigns against previous versions?
Yes
43% 57%
No
legal obligations
Do you comply with legal regulations regarding your e-mail marketing data and messages?
31%
69%
Yes No Unsure
Do you know what your legal obligations are?
23%
9% 68%
Yes No Unsure
Notes
• Feel free to utilise this data. We simply ask that you reference The Escape and emedia.
about The Escape
The Escape are a web and creative agency based in Hampshire combining design with proven digital strategies that offer effective communication channels for B2B and B2C clients. We regularly publish whitepaper articles and data for online marketing techniques. www.the-escape.co.uk
about emedia
emedia are pioneers in business-to-business email marketing since 1999, publishing opt-in email bulletins covering a range of markets: From Technology to general business management areas covering Small Business, Finance, HR and Marketing as well as more specialist areas such as Education, Public Sector, Construction and Healthcare. www.emedia.co.uk