Top 10 Email Marketing Trends of 2006
Posted on June 30, 2006 | 2 comments | Filed in UncategorizedIf you are an
Here is a quick summary of their white paper on
Be Relevant – The #1 Theme!
1) Deliverability will drive email success
Make sure if you send HTML emails to have enough text in your message that if they have images turned off, they can still tell what your email is about. Don’t depend on images to tell the story.
2) Open rates are over rated
open rates will go down as images are suppressed the numbers you’ll want to know are: open rates and click thrus
3) Email metrics and web analytics will be integrated
4) Multi channel marketing will deliver winning results
5) List growth will be healthy, but takes work
FACT: “The average list turnover runs about 25 percent yearly due to unsubscribes and email addresses gone bad.”
6) RSS will start to make an impact on email marketing
7) Email will get more personalized
(they talk about creating personalized landing pages for people – cool!)
Look for rich media in email (audio and video in email)
9)
10) The new metric: return on subscriber – creating high customer lifetime value
Have you noticed any difference in the responsiveness of your list? Are your email open rates going down?
Are you sending HTML or text emails these days? Share your email marketing experiences here.
COMMENTS
2 Responses to “Top 10 Email Marketing Trends of 2006”
Give Your Opinion:
Hi, Kristie. Thanks for providing this list of trends. However, I think you really should add that Exact Target is a provider of email marketing services, and therefore, by nature, is biased towards their own business, and these trends might possibly be slanted or influenced by their own interests. I’m not saying that they are wrong or that they made up these trends, just that they have an interest in encouraging people to use services such as their own.
Are open rates overrated? When you have 25-40% open rates (average), you might start thinking about a plain text email. Or, giving readers a choice. Most people get overly enamored with HTML graphically designed newsletters that look pretty and forget the most important element of a newsletter is still relevant, valuable information that your audience needs and wants.
There is a reason that many of the huge lists of top online professionals are being delivered in plain text: there is no distraction from the message, and the delivery rates are better.
Don’t get me wrong, I love custom designed html newsletters; after all, like
Exact Target, I make my living that way (www.customizednewsletters.com). But until RSS delivery and blogs are more frequently read, newsletters will still be an important part of the online marketing tool kit, and we will have to monitor delivery rates and look for the smartest way to get our messages read.
And that might mean sending out plain text messages AND newsletters in HTML. Just my two cents, and something that Denise and I have started doing, two months into this experiment. We’ll let you know the results of our efforts.
Kristie,
Of the top 10 number 1 is in its respective place. Relavancy is by far the most important criteria for a successful email marketing campaign. I can’t tell you how many times clients refuse to segment their lists based on recipient preference with the reasoning “it’s only an email, if they don’t like it they can delete it” only to watch opt-outs chip away at their prized lists. I hate to say it, but even spam gets read if it’s relavent.
Elie Ashery
President & CEO
Gold Lasso, LLC
http://www.goldlasso.com