But when do you know it is time to do that checkup? Here are 5 telltale signs that you seriously need an email marketing audit.

1) Take a close look at your statistics.

Bring up the email marketing statistics of the last couple of months. Common email statistics are opens, clicks and unsubscribes. But I want you to maily look at other performance metrics, like your subscriber list growth / health, generated revenue from email and please calculate your email marketing ROI.

Sign one: If your email statistics aren’t measured yet or they look new to you. That is a clear, clear, clear sign your email program has not been steering based on the numbers and can benefit from a review right now.

2) Working towards the right level of results

Any email marketing program should have their goals defined. What are you looking to achieve? How big is your email list? Is it (still) growing? And the conversions created from email, are they at the level they should be? An elephant in the room problem is that there aren’t any (fixed) and clearly defined goals… but after that comes delivering on those businessambitions.

Sign two: If your results aren’t close to your targets and ambitions yet, it is time to improve and review your email program.

3) Being light on resources

A typical online marketeer has many responsibilities and is quite busy with day to day business. Next to email marketing several other tasks are waiting. It takes discipline to clear your agenda. It takes a certain level of knowledge about email marketing to really dive deep into email marketing. It might even seem undoable within your perceived restrictions and resources of your team.

Sign three: If you recognize a lack of resources, it’s time for change. Scramble, beg, steal and borrow if you must, but get those resources. Once the first investment in your email program is done, increased results can turn the budget boat around.

4) The enthusiasm gap

There is only one real golden rule in email marketing. Enjoy working on your program. Once there is no joy in working on (email) marketing from the team. It is time to introduce something new. Maybe go for a new and improved email marketing strategy. It might just be the push to see what needs to be changed.

Sign four: If it isn’t bringing some enjoyment to the team, spark your email program to greater heights and improve.

5) Sign up to your email marketing list with fresh eyes.

Sign up for your email program, as if you were a new subscriber. Every thing you see should be very familiar. A check-up on the subscription process should be done at least once each few months. Does the process feel very easy to go through and is it focused on welcoming the new subscriber? Are you making the most of the subscription process? Most of the time it isn’t.

Sign five: If the subscription process is “leaky”, it is a telltale sign that your email program needs some fine-tuning and change.

Growing towards next level of email maturity and see your program take off.

Research by Marketingsherpa shows that 74% of email marketing programs is stuck in the trial or transition phase of their email marketing program. Note that they define maturity by the way processes are set up and probably more marketers could benefit from some professional email marketing flair.

It is easy to start an email marketing program, or continue a program once it is running. But it’s a lot harder to make it grow to a next level of email maturity, especially if you haven’t grown email program programs before. Often there is a plan somewhere, but it has been a while since anybody has seriously looked at it.

Conducting an email marketing audit will bring valuable insights. And if it is professionally done you will have a concrete plan with improvements points at the end of the audit. That kind of review can seriously help to get you over any speed bumps in your email marketing strategy.

5 telltale signs it’s time to review your email marketing

Ik ben door uitgeverij Haystack en Frankwatching gevraagd een boek te schrijven over e-mail marketing, hij komt uit als ebook en fysiek. En dat wordt erg interessant….

Een e-mail marketing boek

Een e-mail marketing boek, zeker nu erg relevant. Ieder bedrijf kan vandaag met e-mail marketing beginnen, een nieuwsbrief versturen. Maar daarna….. begint het pas echt. Het is de uitdaging om ervoor te zorgen dat jouw bedrijf de e-mail verstuurt, waar de ontvanger wél op zitten te wachten. E-mails die geopend worden, activeren en resultaat opleveren.

In het boek komen onderwerpen terug waar iedere (email) marketeer van kan leren:

Wat je uit het boek leert:

• E-mails schrijven met impact
• Opt-ins en toestemming verzamelen
• De beste email optimalisatie en tests doen

En nog meer:

• Slimmer segmenteren
• De roadmap naar meer volwassen van email marketing
• Veel voorbeelden van Nederlandse en internationale bedrijven

… en nog veel meer, als je alles wil weten, dat staat natuurlijk in het boek zelf. Verwacht begin 2013.

E-mail marketing tips en updates

Iedere dag via mijn nederlandse twitter (@emailmonday) een email marketing tip met de Hashtag #email60.

Als onderdeel van een serie over online marketing.

Het slimmere e-mail marketing boek (#email60)

These emails might look as if they are made in a minute. That’s how natural they seem. Yes, Achieving a balanced, clear and persuasive message takes some extra work on the marketers side, but it is worth it, for the result is a more effective email.

Aligning your email marketing message

Now what main elements does an effective email consist of? Think of it as is a stairway with logical (although often subconsciously taken) steps.

Of course there is more to the anatomy of an effective email, such as the footer. A footer can contain social, preference, unsubscribe links, etc. But they are not important for the main click and conversion. Second rate elements you might call them.

The easiest way to remember that some elements in your mail have priority:
We are not trying to get someone to click on your privacy statement.

We are getting them to say yes and click on your main call to action.

Logical steps

Now think of those elements as steps on a stairway. You need to go from one to the other, in order to get up the stairs. So from name and subject line should entice to open. (micro-yes). The header and headline should explain what is in your email and entice to pay attention (micro yes nr 2). Then we come to the body of the message: text and images to convince the reader to click (micro-yes 3) and then the Call to Action to proceed to the landing page (Yes number 4).

Make it more than a consistent message, make it a persuasive message

Human nature defines we want to stay consistent. In all areas of our life. Work, deeds, opinions, it’s a shortcut easily made. Once you (sub)consciously decide on something it is easier to repeat that than it is to reevaluate each and every time. Once a person takes a stand, or performs an action, he strives to make all future behavior match this past behavior. It’s hard wired into our brains. And one of cialdini‘s Principles of Persuasion

For persuasive emails, that are geared to elicit a sale, the consistent thought pattern should be “yes”. E-mails that have all their elements aligned to mirco-yes their readers towards the next step in their purchase path, outperform their brothers and sisters that don’t. The message should lead up to the action. Growing from small yesses to bigger yesses.

Clear email promotions get better results, is it that simple? Explaining where necessary, but not overly informative or chatty. Or as Mr. Myagi might say “Focus Email marketer-San, Focus”

Avoiding misalignment

Now what often happens is that a message is broken and the yesses don’t add up. This is called email misalignment. The fastest way to lose someone in your march to email results is to offer contradictory information.

An example:
In the subject line we present “great sales on dresses this week”.
But the headline says “all products 30% off”. With a mixed assortment of clothes being presented.

Is the email factually wrong? No. Does it feel disconnected? Yes.

The first yes (open), isn’t confirmed in the email and headline. Everytime we have to think to make the connection between elements, we lose a part of our audience. So that is a big email marketing No-No.

Your message is much more powerful if “Click-killing” obstacles are removed.

Making images say “yes” too

Your images play a big part your path to yes, too. Promising an exclusive service and showing a stock image. It just doesn’t say yes. Make sure your images reinforces the main message and keep them consistent and reappear on to the landing page. That way people feel that they have landed on the right page and can easily continue in their flow. More about the flow and placement of ”yes enabled” images next time.

Sequential versus parallels or enforcing yesses

We mentioned yesses. And how they work together in guiding your reader towards the action. There is one ever important factor to be very aware of. Sequential versus parallels or enforcing yesses.

Sequential yesses would work like this:

First this yes -> then this yes -> then this yes! -> Call to action

The problem with sequential yesses in email. Some people might read your email, but most scan.
So the email elements, should ideally enforce each other but also be approachable without sequential context.

In other words, Let your headline be understandable for people who didn’t read the subject line.
Let your CTA be as self-explanatory as it can be. Keep in mind that every time an element makes a reader go back, you are losing conversions too.

If your email doesn’t deliver, go through the elements and see if you are getting the right yesses and taken out all the no’s.

The product and the presentation layer

It’s not only about the product or service. Of course a great deal and a great product help, but just a great product is not enough for people to recognize it as such. Let alone grab their attention. You need to have an inviting presentation layer to make your offers have *The Zing*.

Compare it to a shopping widow, the more inviting the display, the more people will enter the shop. Let’s see how you can improve the flow of your email and let the Micro-yeses add up to your audience acting on that email.

Skip into great email marketing with Micro-yesses

Not a bad idea to combine the two and craft a compelling e-mail program this Mother’s Day. Here are a few e-mail marketing strategies and tips to Make Mom proud.

Events and special days as a part of your e-mail marketing calendar

First off, it is a great idea to plan your e-mail activities up front using a (e-mail) marketing calendar. This can be as simple as writing down all the events and topics and putting them on a timeline. That makes it easier to look ahead and plan for the coming months, some campaigns are the most effective a few weeks before the date is there. And it also helps to keep track of your new and improved e-mail marketing strategy.

Setting the right mood

You can make the first steps into a segmented Mother’s day e-mail campaign with a combination of age and gender. Dads tend to spend more on this holiday, much more than their wives or younger generation. They also tend to give other types of gifts. A great reason to split your Mom campaigns and craft the most compelling message you can.

But not all e-mail lists will have this profile data at hand. Yahoo! has a lot of female subscribers but were they daughters, mothers or grandmothers? Their e-mail newsletter was not about giving gifts, they changed the perspective and made the message about things to do on Mother’s Day. Increase the match with the e-mail subscribers by changing Perspective.

Inspiration for Mother’s day e-mails

Now that we have decided if we are going to create a broad or a very targeted e-mail campaign, it is on to the creative part. Not every Mother’s day e-mail has to be the top of e-mail creativity, to get you started a few ideas:

Free entrance / products / etc for Mom.
Don’t forget about mom. (to create awareness about the day)
Things to do on mother’s day.
Discounts on moms dream products.
7 places to go instead of your mother-in-law and matching excursuses.
This year’s most popular mother’s day gifts.
A free Mother’s Day gift with your order.
Find the perfect mother’s day gift.
Create a special mother’s day product / service package.

The mother’s Day e-mail campaign that came too late, but still is great

E-mail driven transactions peak two weeks before the day of Mother, according to a report by Experian. The same e-mail marketing study showed that e-mails with the term “Mother’s Day” in the subjectline in the week AFTER the holiday had a 44% higher open rate than the e-mail campaigns in the week leading up to it. Thinking about it, it might be very interesting when you do a small Mother’s Day themed series, also send a post-Mother’s Day e-mail!

The question is why these post-holiday e-mails get that much attention. Of course there are people that visit their family after the official day. It could also be that the original gift wasn’t the expected hit (and a replacement should be found). Gifts weren’t brought, but was promised. Or maybe just because it seems a bit “off” to send a Mother’s day e-mail AFTER the event. The last reason might spring some more original ideas. Catching readers with the theme, but taking that attention and give it a different spin.

More on Mother’s Day e-mails:
Mother’s day email ideas

Mother’s Day: E-mail Marketing to make Mom proud

Includes lots of examples of actual real life birthday emails. What makes them good or bad. And tips for the active marketer.

Sign up for our newsletter and get the Birthday Whitepaper Now

PS: All praise, hate, comments, feedback,tips and of course birthday wishes are welcome in the comments below.

I hope you will enjoy. Stay sharp and be sure to connect if you want to party more!

Greetings, Jordie

Birthday email whitepaper with examples

Most marketers have customer engagement listed as one of their top priorities. Engagement might even be the core of their email marketing strategy. But at the same time there is never been a clear definition of what email engagement actually is. Let alone what the most profitable way is to increase it.

Engagement email marketing

To actively improve email marketing email engagement we have to define what engagement means in the context of your business. And step two: find the best ways to improve it.

What defines customer interaction and engagement?

First let’s have a look at the stages of email marketing engagement.

The DMA discusses the different stages of email marketing engagement in their latest email marketing discussion paper. The stages shown here are (primary) Interest by subscription, Attention by opening emails and Action by clicking. Conversion is shown across all stages, because sales can happen even when not (measurably) engaged via email.

The email engagement stages are concentric circles for a reason. You cannot get to the highest stage of engagement without first passing the outer stages. Think of it as a funnel, but seen from above. A customer first needs to opt-in before they can receive your emails and open and click.

A better way to look at email engagement

Marketers tend to use the most easily accessible metrics, same for statistics that indicate email marketing engagement. The question is, are these the right metrics? Spoiler alert: not quite. Most often email marketers look at:
* confirmed open rate per send,
* click through rate per send,
* conversion rate per send.

Problem with these is that we should be measuring customers, not campaigns. So what is the alternative? The DMA proposes different metrics called open reach and click reach when measuring concerning email engagement. (download the email engagement white paper here)

- If it is customers we want to engage, then it is customers we must measure – not campaigns.

The rationale is that customers exist for a longer period of time, receiving a series of communications and interacting multiple times. This means we should move away from campaign (single shot) based process metrics like confirmed open rate to gain insight into this longer relationship and the activity of the database as a whole.

Engagement Email marketing is more than just activity

As we see email engagement is about the activity in the customer relationship, including conversions. Therefore the different stages in email engagement can be used in the context of customer loyalty email marketing and taking a staged approach to improving email marketing conversions. More activity does not always mean an equal increase in revenue, but it is still often perceived to be.

Open Reach en Click Reach

So we want to know the level of activity across the complete email marketing base and gauge email marketing engagement. The DMA proposes a metrics a marketer can use to increase activity of his / her email database, called open reach. The same can be calculated for clicks called click reach.

I would have used a more descriptive name for the metric, so you instantly know what it means. Like for instance: cumulative unique confirmed opens. That way it would be in line with the SAME standards, but that is just a small detail. (Are you reading this Tim?)

Example of Open Reach versus confirmed opens

The open reach looks a lot like the open measurement per campaign. But the difference is that it is measured for a period of time. This totally changes the way we are going to optimize the open reach. You will be aiming for at least one interaction per customer, instead of the highest number of activity per email – a big difference. For instance steps can be made to improve the match between email and audience for the non-responsive part of your email database.

In this example from the DMA paper, you see the number of opens. Dark green are the new opens, light green are the ones that have opened before. Although some of the campaigns do have a higher open rate, the increase in open reach is minimal

By sending that email, you are not increasing the email engagement of your total database, but are engaging more intensely with the same people over-and-over. If your goal was to increase engagement of the complete database, other action is needed. Especially on the inactive part, like for instance changing to a better email send time.

Defining activity based email marketing engagement

Marketers have been using activity based analysis in email marketing, most commonly to signal the “super inactives” or “sleepers”. But the discussion about how to measure and increase email marketing engagement is long overdue. The writers of the DMA paper Tim Watson, Kath Pay, Skip Fidura and Dela Quist deserve all credit for making people scratch behind their ears about the email marketing practices they have been using.

As Tim put it: “The need to overhaul email metrics is long overdue. Whilst email has involved massively in volume and sophistication metrics have not moved on. Classic open and clicks campaign metrics are no longer adequate. To move email forwards needs the industry to define a better measure of engagement.”

How are you measuring email marketing engagement? Do you agree we need to change and use other our metrics? Be sure to leave a comment below.

Image via flickr

Has engagement email marketing finally arrived with open reach?

Maybe you could even even get some inspiration for your own digital marketing efforts. Read, share and tell me what you think.
 

10 fantastic email marketing quotes

1. About A/B split-testing: Your “winning” version may still suck. (tweet this)

2. Treat your email program like the movies – give a preview so they know what to expect (tweet this)

3. Email has an ability many channels dont: creating valuable, personal touches – at scale (tweet this)

4. Perhaps not surprisingly, cash is still the #1 driver for consumers to share their information (tweet it)

5. Set a target goal for how many email subscribers you’d like to reach every month. (tweet this)

6. Segmentation on past activity greatly outperformed demographics for Obamas’ emails (tweet this)

7. There is no formula for the perfect email – Authentic and honest messaging works. (tweet this)

8. Open, click and unsubscribe rates are pretty poor measures for email engagement. (tweet this)

9. Email is easy…if you want it to be. Simplify before you get complicated. (tweet this)

10. Signing up is a powerful signal of intent to buy. Send them email until they do (tweet)

Ten ideas, ten quotes, ten thoughts to share. Click here to share them all at once

Thanks to @DelaQuist @davidatlas @ogilvydigital @swerd @JennaL15 @thebfce and @emailvendors for sharing and tweeting these great email marketing quotes from the MPEIS email marketing conference. Also great accounts to follow on twitter (except for @delaquist, he only likes email).

The success of email marketing quotes

Email marketing quotes or any kind of short content does well on the web. The do especially well on social media. Quotes are short enough to tweet, share and snack. A bite of content with just enough information to convey a message. There is a lesson to be learned there. Not every post article or blog has to be long-copy or very elaborate.

Effectively using long copy

If you want it to be “the ultimate post about X”, yes, you have to make it long. Because an ultimate post about X gives you a lot to say.

Search engines also like long, informative copy. Lots of words makes them easily crawl and easily identify what your article is about. And if it is exceptional content, it will also be shared. My ultimate list with all mobile email statistics is pretty popular. The thing with long copy is that not everybody will read it completely, but people will scan. That makes your headlines extra important.

But if you are going for the share, quick top-of-mind message, shorter IS sweeter. And more visually is also sweeter. Pretty sweet.

10 fantastic email marketing quotes you should share right now

We compiled all (useful) available statistics and compiled the ultimate mobile email stats overview with insight into the current state of mobile email usage.

These numbers will keep on changing, almost every day. So I will be updating them, feel free to share these stats with everyone.

Ultimate mobile email usage statistic

The ultimate mobile email usage stat, this is all you really need (party disclaimer at the end of this post).

More detailed mobile email statistics

90% of smartphone owners access the same email account on mobile and desktop. ExactTarget – “The 2012 channel preference survey” (2012)

More email is read Mobile than on a desktop email client or via webmail. Stats say 43% of email is now opened on a mobile device Litmus –”Email Analytics” (March 2013)

See the september 2012 graph

23% of emails with images loaded comes from mobile, 69% from desktop and 5,5% from tablet – LiveIntent “Opens by device Jan 2012 vs Jan 2013″ (2013)

45% of holiday season emails are being opened on mobile – up slightly from before the season began – Experian – Hot holiday trends (2012)

68% of UK smartphone owners used their device to check email in the past 30 days. Only text messaging was more popular (92%) Nielsen – “The mobile Consumer” (Feb 2013)

The percentage of people that use on E-mail on their smartphone is very different per country. Ranging from 75% in the last month in US, to 17% in India Nielsen – “The mobile Consumer” (Feb 2013)

78% Of US Email Users Will Also Access Their Emails Via Mobile By 2017 – Forrester Research “Email Marketing Forecast 2012 – 2017″ (2012)

Mobile purchasing decisions are most influenced by Emails from companies (71%) only surpassed by the influence of Friends (87%). – Adobe “2013 Digital Publishing Report: Retail Apps & Buying Habits”

The financial industry consistantly shows less mobile opens than other industries – Inbox Marketer “Mobile vs Desktop” (2013)

The total (non-unique) Mobile Email open and click rates differ very heavily per industry, with relative differences over 200% and more. Consumer services has the highest average total opens on phones with 40.14%. B2B (14.56%), Health Care (16.16%) and Associations (17.78%) display the lowest mobile open rates. – Knotice “Mobile email opens report 2nd half 2012” (2013)

See 2nd half 2011 stats | See 1st half 2012 stats

17.71% of users will open email on a mobile device once or more per month. With iOs devices like iphone, ipad and ipod account for 16.01% and Android for 1,70%. These are non-exclusive stats, as many people use more than one emailclient. Campaignmonitor –”Email client popularity” (June 2011)

79% uses their smartphone for reading email, a higher percentage than those who used it for making calls. Adobe – “2013 Digital Publishing Report: Retail Apps & Buying Habits” (2013)

There is probably an Android smartphone email user in your database for each iOS smartphone user you identified. 52,5% of smartphone users own an Android device – Brightwave Marketing “Ignore Droid at your own Risk” (2013)

82% of smartphone users check and send email with their device. Google – “The Mobile Movement” (April 2011)

52% of companies let people sign up for email or text Alerts about products and offers as a path to purchase in mobile. Chief Marketer – “2012 Mobile Marketing Survey” (2012)

Did you know that there are differences per gender in how they treat their mobile email?

74% of women use Gmail for Android, 62% of men instead of their default Android email client – Brightwave Marketing “Ignore Droid at your own Risk” (2013)

Men open 20% more emails on mobile, but WOMEN click 10% more often on mobile e-mail TailoredMail – “It’s time to wake up and mobilize!” (2012)

5.3% of Mobile phone time is spent on Email/ IM if devided by Function. Nielssen – “State of the Media” (2011)

With 38%, an interesting subjectline is the most important reason for opening email on your mobile phone, while saving time is least important with 23% STEEL – “Are your emails ready for mobile devices?” (2012)

Users who have recently read email on their mobile will do so again about 45% of the time – Litmus “Saving Email for Later: Opens Across Devices & Environments” (2012)

43% of mobile email users check email four or more times per day, compared to 29% of those who do not use mobile email. – Merkle “View From the Digital Inbox 2011″ (2011)

3.3% of users view a single email in more than one environment (both mobile and either desktop or webmail) – Litmus “Saving Email for Later: Opens Across Devices & Environments” (2012)

More than 35% of UK smartphone users check their work email address in their free time. 10% do so while on holidays – Firstsource Solutions (July 2011)

57% of smartphone and tablet owners checked email while watching a TV program. 59% during commercials Nielssen – “State of the Media” (2011)

41.09% of emails are opened on a mobile operating system or device. – Knotice (2013)

24% of companies aren’t optimizing their email creatives for mobile viewers in any way. – Experian “Acquisition and engagement tactics” (dec 2012)

12% of companies use media queries to optimize email creatives for mobile. – Experian “Acquisition and engagement tactics” (dec 2012)

18% of companies have changed the dimensions of email creatives to optimize for mobile. – Experian “Acquisition and engagement tactics” (dec 2012)

75% of marketers are planning to add mobile to their marketing mix.  This is not specifically email or advertising related.  Forrester Research – “2011 Mobile Marketing prediction” (2011)

77% of consumers without a Smartphone checks their email first thing in the morning. 61% of consumers with a smartphone does the same – Exact Target “Subscribers, Fans, & Followers part 20″ (2013)

10% Of Ipad users say Mobile is their preferred device to read email and 9% for sending it. – Perion “iPad Owners Survey” (2013)

24% of companies uses email and non-mobile sign-ups as a metric to gauge mobile marketing success. Chief Marketer – “ 2012 Mobile Marketing Survey” (2012)

48% of marketers don’t know what percentage of their emails are read via a mobile device eConsultancy – “Email Marketing Industry Census” (2012)

39% had no strategy for mobile email. eConsultancy – “Email Marketing Industry Census” (2012)

More than one-half (56%) of US consumers who have made at least one purchase using their smartphone have done so in response to a marketing message delivered via mobile email -  ExactTarget “Mobile Dependence” (2011).

Redemption rates for mobile coupons are 10 times that of mail- or newspaper-distributed coupons. Borrell Associates – “The 2010 U.S. Local Mobile Advertising & Promotions Forecast,” (april 2010)

Overall, some 16% of US smartphone owners say they have complete at least one purchase as a direct result of a marketing message they received on their smartphone (including other channels like sms and aps). -  ExactTarget “Mobile Dependence” (2011).

Mobile Email usage varies with the day of the week. With more than average number of opens on Friday, the mobile email is most often used in the weekend. – Return Path “The future of mobile messaging” (2011)

80% of consumers finds reading marketing emails on their mobile less easy than on a PC.
- Edialog “The future of mobile messaging” (2011) Most common complaints were:
* having to scroll across a page to read all the information (15%),
* too much textual content (9%),
* images not rendering properly (8%)
* and a failure for all the information to download (7%).

Special offers (27%), vouchers (21%) and realtime tracking (21%) are most preferred email types to receive on mobile. Newsletters are the fifth most preferred type with 12% of respondents saying they like to view that email type on their mobile the most. - Edialog “The future of mobile messaging” (2011)

If an email does not display correctly, 69,7% wil delete it immediately. BlueHornet “Consumer Views of Email Marketing” (2012)

Optimization

14% of companies and 24% of agencies are designing emails specifically for mobile – eConsultancy “Conversion Rate Optimization Report” (2011)

Despite the fact 13% of execs are now primarily checking their email via a mobile device, less than half of websites/emails are optimized for customers to view or respond to via handheld resources – MarketingSherpa “Email Benchmark Report” (2012)

58% of marketers see Mobile smartphones and tablets affecting their email program in the next 12 months. Up from 46% a year earlier. – MarketingSherpa “Email Benchmark Report”(2013)

Party disclaimer:

Be sure to share at parties, but know that there are multiple ways of measuring the number of opens and marketsize of mobile email. You could measure all opens, unique opens or opens during a period of time (e.g. during a month)

Also the the average use of email on mobile devices isn’t the same as the use of mobile email for your target audience or email list. The only discussion and party safe mobile email stat, compiled out of all stats available is noted below.

Additional stats about email on mobile from 2010 / 2011

16 to 26% of Europeans will check email on a mobile device once or more per day, depending on country. 26% (NL, DE) to 40% (UK, Italy) of Europeans check email on their mobile at least once a month. eCircle – “European Social Media and Email Marketing Study” (Dec 2010) See chart

Iphone (71.98%), Ipad (14.95%) and Android (8.24%) are the biggest in the Mobile Email market.  See chart Campaignmonitor –”Email client popularity” (June 2011).

After correcting the Campaignmonitor numbers for automatic display of visuals, the corrected Email client popularity is Iphone (42,31%), Android (39,67%), Ipad (9,62%). MarketingXD – “Mobile is 4% of email, not 20″ (2011)

Year over year, we have seen a 132% increase in the number of emails being opened on mobile devices. Litmus– “Big thanks to Justine Jordan metrics”  (June 2011)

38,5% of mobile internet internet time is spent using mobile email. Nielsen – “Mobile Media View Internet” (May 2010)

Some 70 million US consumers accessed email through a mobile device, with 43.5 million doing so on a near-daily basis. Comscore– “Mediametrix”  (November 2010)

31.6% of US marketers said having an optimized mobile marketing experience for customers is important. – eROI “The Current State of Social, Mobile, & Email Integration” (2010)

22% of US marketers surveyed said that mobile marketing is “very important” to their overall marketing strategy; 26% said “important”; and 28% said “somewhat important.” Only 8 percent said mobile marketing is “not important.” -R2integrated “Mobile Media Survey” (2010)

The ultimate mobile email statistics overview

Adjust your timing to Customer behavior

Some industries have the luck to profit from mass customer behavior. At the start of the new year, new year’s resolutions are made and broken.
And one of the most heard is getting into shape. A great time of year for sports retailers.

Perfectly timing your e-mail marketing messages

Tactic one: Redemption Reminders

Remind customers about their voucher, coupon and points based incentives that aren’t redeemed yet. Especially if it is about to expire this type of email is usually appreciated. The expiration also which gives an extra sense of urgency, it can boost direct sales.

Redemption reminder emails are often used in customer loyalty programs, but they works just as well with sales vouchers or gift coupons. Redemption reminders can be set up as an event driven email, triggered to send automatically as the expiration date comes near.

Tactic two: Early or exclusive deals

Exclusivity intrigues the mind, for fear of missing out can be a very strong motivator. If you are planning to have a big sale try and announce it among the preferred or VIP customers first, or even better make a special deal which is only for your best customers (preferably not extra discount, but a product plus, addition or special edition). They will appreciate it and just like the redemption reminder it is a direct stimulant for additional sales.

Tactic three: Thank-You’s

We don’t say thank you often enough. An thank you email for purchase, being a long time subscriber or writing a review, makes sure they know you appreciate them.

You can add extra spice to the email by making it a personal note from an account manager, service center employee or even the CEO. Another way of adding value to a thank you is to add a discount for a future purchase with you.

Although, if the relation is based on charity, contrary to expectations, rewarding contributors cuts donations in most circumstances. A study called “The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving”, showed just that effect. It can work, if you reframe the Context. The study also had an experiment where they gave away a nice bag with the charity logo on it and presenting it as a means of furthering the charity’s goals. In this case by increasing awareness and promoting the cause with the bag with logo.

Tactic four: Status and perks

Think about your VIC’s or Very Important Customers. This top 5% of your customer database can account for a large part of the company’s’ revenue. You should think about giving special status to customers who spend significant amount of money with your company.

Gold, platinum or diamond if you like, but it could also mean perks like a visit to your company or customer events or extended free shipping. These tiers can be incorporated in your email marketing program. By using segmented content and crafting a design that reflects the VIP status.

Tactic five: Delighting: Do something extra nice

Doing something extra nice, like sending a great birthday email can create a moment of customer delight. You should check out the birthday email whitepaper. Especially delightful when it is not expected. But it can also be an appropriate and personal follow up or very targeted event driven email that causes the delight. This does require that all the service and product quality basics are covered, otherwise a delight email might have quite an opposite effect. Just look for moments to do something extra, or create your own “moments of delight”. They are often appreciated and extra memorable.

Increasing customer loyalty

Current and repeat customers deserve special attention. Try to determine what the loyalty drivers for your audience are. Email marketing can be utilized to both increase the number of repeat purchases and continued subscriptions. Both directly with offers and reminders and indirectly by developing the relationship and brand preference. Making customer loyalty a priority might change the way you look at your regular newsletter too.

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Boost Customer Loyalty with these five bulletproof Email Marketing tactics