Three reasons you should look again at your email campaigns

New research from the DMA and dotmailer shows that if consumers choose not to take the click in your emails (and they often don't) then two things need to happen

The latest edition of the DMA's Consumer email tracking report 2015 contains advice for those planning to use email to talk to customers.

This means you.

What we already know

Emails need to be mobile, but we already knew that. Half of respondents now curate their emails on a smartphone or tablet. This is significant because this activity had until recently been done on a desktop or laptop. This activity is sliding towards smartphones and tablets.

But, while the email activity is increasingly done on the mobile device, the buying hasn't made this transition - that is still done on the desktop or laptop.

What we didn't know

The survey also checked what the most popular choices were when checking an email that appealed.

The top three choices were as you might expect. First was to click, chosen by 58%, up from 48% last year. Close behind was saving the email for later at 57%, up from 45% last year, and then bearing the information in mind for later on 48%, up from 38% last year.

This is all well and good for marketers. More troubling are the next three responses, which provoke activity in another channel.

• 47% would go to the company’s website via another route, up from 35% last year
• 40% would go to the shop, up from 30% last year
• 23% would go to a price comparison website, up from 15% last year

This means significant numbers opt not to take the click at all, and choose to do something else instead as a direct result.

Two consequences

Be multichannel. If an email prompts an action, then multichannel messaging has to be right or the activity is wasted. This is true online and offline.

If a consumer sees an email, likes what he or she sees and then decides to buy, but not from the click, they have to know how and where. Make life easy for them. Make the SEO fit, make the in-store and point of sale experience matches the campaign.

Then, get attribution right. If the consumers are not clicking through, then attribution will be a problem.

Knowing the consumer journey will be crucial, and using consumer data and conducting the right research to map this journey will help you know what your marketing really achieves.

This is doubly important because if significant numbers of people choose to bypass the email click, then your email budget might actually go towards search or other channels.

Knowing how customers use your email will mean you can approtion these budgets correctly. It could be your need more budget to email, or email ROI could be higher.

Creative answers

The third component is creative. Overwhelmingly, consumers want 'interesing subject lines' in their emails. While brands are investing in clever new technologies to pick data apart, personalise and automate emails, customers or potential customers want more.

Investing in copywriters that can develop creative approaches to your campaigns will be effective, particularly if this is coupled to the new technological solutions out there.

Consumer email Tracking Report 2015

Enjoyed this? View our infographic showing how important email is to marketers.