April Mullen, director of strategic insights at SparkPost, is an award-winning digital marketing leader and adjunct professor.
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2020 has been a turning point for everyone, both personally and professionally. Covid-19 has forced us all to rethink priorities in every facet of our lives, as the way of life as we know it has been upended. The last several months have made way for us to focus on survival, the essentials and forced the re-examination of how we’ve done things to date. For many marketers, 2020 has presented unforeseen challenges, but also breathed new life into marketing strategies that likely were in need of re-imagining.
To better understand how Covid-19 changed the market, my company launched a global marketing leaders survey. The survey looks at the pandemic's effect on how 1,000 senior marketing leaders — and 200 email marketing practitioners — from across the globe have weathered the uncharted waters of Covid-19 — and how they view the future.
Our research found that Covid-19 has forced 61% of participants in marketing leadership to change the size of the teams while 75% of companies adjusted budget. These leaps are likely connected to the rapid change in consumer adoption of digital technologies that occurred earlier in the pandemic.
While email may seemingly lack the shiny object appeal of other solutions in digital marketing, it's clear email marketing has driven tangible business value. It accomplished this all while remaining an affordable, reliable and strong-performing part of the digital marketing mix. Since the start of Covid-19, marketing leaders have had to lean more on email than ever before, which is reflected in investments in the channel — 44% of leaders surveyed note they have increased their email marketing budget in 2020. A large email platform provides a clue into the uptick in email marketing budgets. On their platform, open rates rose beginning March 9 with click rates also rapidly increasing from the same starting point.
But my company's data shows senior-level buy-in of important matters related to email marketing is still somewhat cloudy. Given email is the primary channel for branded communication, the industry is evolving rapidly to meet the demands of 2020 and beyond.
Businesses that have embraced email and digital marketing in new and emerging ways have positioned themselves to survive and thrive in current conditions. In my company's survey, nearly 60% of practitioners agree email is a main source of revenue for their organization and 58% of global leaders note email marketing efforts have driven value and positive impact. Supporting the findings further is a survey from another email marketing platform. In capturing results from over 200 marketing professionals in 2019, they show 59 of respondents see the most ROI from email. Even in less turbulent times, email provides a solid return for marketing teams.
Both Covid-19 and the ensuing economic fallout has created a variety of challenges for practitioners and leadership alike — and on a broad level, for businesses. However, optimism and success are steady and even growing. As the future of digital marketing may not show any signs of slowing, this is the critical time to start re-examining email strategies and invest in solutions that push your organization to the next level. Here are two that show incredible traction and potential:
1. Google-powered Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for email allows senders to enhance messages with interactive as well as data-driven features. These features can potentially transform the way recipients respond to and interact with messages. According to an October 2020 email marketer survey from my company, 33% of practitioners anticipate investing in AMP for email technology in the next year. Some of the reasons for the investment include the rich components provided to email developers. These include carousels of content, form elements that are responsive and the ability to retrieve fresh content dynamically updated after an email is sent. The recipients of these emails can not only view AMP components directly in the email, but interact with them without ever leaving the primary experience. This helps organizations deliver multiple stages of a customer experience within one email. In turn, this provides email analytics to inform engagement rates while influencing future email marketing efforts. These dynamic and personalized experiences happen within the inbox, paving the way for more seamless experiences that can be highly valuable.
2. Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is a feature allowing recipients to know a message received is legitimate. It does this by displaying the brand's logo within the inbox. As data privacy and consumer protection continue to ramp up in years to come, organizations are faced with having to distill data strategies but continue to use what they have to tailor messages so they resonate with recipients. Some could argue that less is more for data isn’t such a far-fetched idea, that being more intentional with what data consumers allow you to have is enough to build dynamic and engaging communications and relationships. BIMI is one way of getting there, and early data shows there is interest and traction for it, with 28% of practitioners surveyed by my company looking to adopt BIMI in the coming year. A firm with one focus on email security showed in a recent report (download required) an increase in firms adopting BIMI.
BIMI is one way brands are continuing to invest to ensure their messages land as intended while avoiding the spam folder. Beyond helping with spam traps, it ultimately builds consumer trust because recipients know that the messages they receive to be legitimate.
As organizations continue to dissect and investigate their digital marketing investments in 2020, they are clearly making investments to improve experiences and protect both the business and customers. Email marketing is an important cog in the digital marketing wheel — often the most reliable, affordable, consistent and flexible channel to ensure future email marketing efforts resonate the way they’re intended.
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