A new report from email marketing specialists Epsilon, based on 4,000 interviews with consumers across the world, has identified key drivers of email success both in the UK and abroad.
Key findings from the company’s Global Consumer Survey include:
- What makes people open and interact with email
- The value of well known brands, rewards, discounts and vouchers in email marketing
- Use of email versus social networks and other modes of communication
- Best time of day and frequency to send email
- Concerns over identity theft and viruses are stopping consumers opening emails
- Email has replaced other direct marketing and information channels
- Email is highly effective at sparking call to action on- and offline
- Fewer consumers than thought are using spam filters
Looking at the UK in particular, the researchers found that:
- Weekends and evenings are the most popular times to check personal emails
- A quarter of people open 90-100% of permission based emails
- Email is still used far more regularly than social networking for personal communication — 79% of respondents use email as their primary mode of communication, while only 10% use social networks
Whilst being in the market for a product or service has the highest impact on the likelihood of the recipient to respond (80%), it is now closely followed by special offers and discounts at 69%.
The survey also found that the “From” line is more important than the “Subject” line, with 66% finding the content of the “From” line most influential in compelling them to open against 29% for subject line length.
The most compelling subject lines are free product offers and discounts and the most common reason not to interact with an email was cited as “Offers not attractive enough” by nearly half of respondents (46%). This was followed by “security” at 43% and “Emails too long” at 26%.
“The results of Epsilon’s Global Consumer Survey will help marketers better understand consumer email behaviour and enable them to maximise the value of their campaigns,” says Ian Hitt, managing director of Epsilon International EMEA. “By understanding consumer psychology highly-targeted creative emails can cut through from other marketing messages and directly engage with recipients — improving chances of conversion and generating increased sales at point of purchase.”
Readers can download a pdf copy of the full report free of charge from Epsilon’s website.
