How to sell something online? Best by email!
E-mail marketing returns to the favor of marketers. The marketing industry agreed that in uncertain times, certain solutions work. Mailing strategy is one of the most well-known and at the same time the most effective promotional solutions for companies.
Why e-mail marketing?
According to the report Interactively.com over 60 percent. Poles are owners of e-mail addresses. In 2019, according to the European Statistical Office, there were almost 38 million people living in Poland, which results in 22.78 million potential customers using email. In Poland, this result, although still impressive, is still lower than the EU average, which the same office calculated at almost 73%. of mail users. Almost 23 million recipients is a large number, but we should remember to segment the message, as a result of which the potential funnel factor will drastically decrease.
Still, email is not a very popular solution in our country. Most of us treat it as a must have for college or work, not as a practical utility tool. In Poland about 83 percent. population are internet users, and this gives an ok. 20 percent. gap in interest in owning mail. Higher results in this aspect are achieved by the Czechs, who use mail in 82 percent, or the Lithuanians, who fall by 10 percentage points. Worse than the Czechs. Interactively.com states, that in the world 4 billion people have an e-mail address, which is equivalent to half of the people on the globe, and in the following years this result will surely grow.
Email services market in Poland
Gemius presents Gmail’s eco mailing system as the most widespread and popularized in Poland. Less than 11.5 million people will use it in 2020. This is an increase compared to 2019 of more than 20 percent. The second place is held by the so-called. WP, that is Wirtualna Polska’s email service, is used by 3.8 million Internet users less than Gmail, and in third and last place comes Onet. The latter player has recently reached 3.7 million people. Interestingly, according to these data, Alphabet’s system is so popular in Poland that even after the merger of Onet and Wp.pl still won’t be able to catch up with Gmail.
E-mail marketing is back in favour with marketers?
A not-so-distant report prepared by IAB Poland, in collaboration with PwC AdEx, showed that last year’s spending on email marketing grew by 4 percent. in relation to 2019. This is a clear reversal of the downward trend that this type of campaign has been struggling with for almost 5 years. In 2017, we saw a drop from 140 million to 120 million from 2016, a 20 percent. less, but the following year was still the hardest year, which brought another, this time 19 percent. scarcity and lowered the value of e-marketing to 97 million in 2018. The giants’ study also showed that the growth in email spending occurred during the height of budget cuts and pandemic uncertainty. Email marketers have decided to invest in their own databases to help them create multi-channel communications and more personalized content.
Why at home and not outside?
First of all, RODO. The provision on the protection and processing of personal data can be very burdensome for entities that use this data as a bargaining chip. Secondly, IAB together with PwC agree that own base is more effective. It can deliver a much higher return on investment for the company. This means that with the same or smaller share of money, and sometimes even more (everything depends on the degree of logistical sophistication of a given solution), the profitability ratio will be incomparably better in comparison to sending to external databases. Even if the rates of return are only prospective, it seems to be quite tempting for marketers. And thirdly, the internal database allows for better optimization of content. Optimization has a big impact on building ongoing relationships with customers and provides an opportunity to communicate beyond just email. Multichannel is the wet dream of every marketing specialist, as it generates the most conversions.
“Despite the dynamically changing world of digital marketing, email is still one of the most effective sales channels in the e-commerce industry. Low costs and high conversion rates allow to achieve the expected results. These are not the only advantages of this form of contact with customers. In the era of the pandemic, the e-commerce market has particularly benefited, and with it e-shops that have been able to reach potentially interested people and establish a long-term relationship with them. To ensure a loyal customer base, thoughtful email communication is necessary, including, for example. a series of welcome autoresponders (e.g. for newly created accounts), follow-ups to those who have not opened (e.g. with the end of the promotion), segmentation-based mailing (better matching of the offer = higher conversion rate), and above all, focus on the human, or hyper-personalization” – says Michał Serafin, head of the e-mail marketing department at Szkła.com
Trends in the mailing market
The report details the need for action in four areas. The first area is standardisation of communication, i.e. working out such a mailing model which will be compliant both with brand standards and its entire visual communication. It’s so much more difficult in the context of personalization, which mandates changing the nature of the message, and that can be a challenge. We are talking about standardization of marketing messages as well as transactional ones. Among the factors included in this activity are m.In: quality content, speed of sending, segmentation and personalization of messages – the creators of the report just pay attention: more on the principle of matching topics to the expectations of recipients than using a personal phrase in a vocative – which is a reference to the custom standardization above.
The second field of interest is of course the development of forms of authentication. The IAB mentions prominent technologies such as. SPF, DKIM and DMARC. SPF technology allows messages to be recognized and prevented from finding their way to inappropriate places, most often to spam. It is also protection against phishing. DKIM allows for identification and linking of messages with the brand’s domain, which will allow the brand to take responsibility for the content of which it is the issuer. The technology is supposed to prevent impersonation of an organization, which is very often used by online fraudsters. DMARC technology is supposed to make hacking attacks on websites more difficult. Development of these technologies will influence higher deliverability rate.
The third aspect is mailing lists. Marketers are trying to eliminate mailbox spamming by developing reCAPTCHA, which, for us recipients, may be more widely known as clicking on the appropriate images whose description is above them – in my experience, these are hydrants or traffic lights. This protection is supposed to protect recipients from mass mailing.
And the last, equally important circle of interest for marketers is to be the development of usable audience segmentation, while changing the way you treat and understand your customers. The report’s analysts consider it crucial to switch from standard demographic models to those based on automation, supported by data on how often emails are opened by given users.
Popularity of e-mails
Although mailing in Polish society is not taken very seriously, In general, the marketing community is of a different opinion and values this form of communication. Smartinsights service.com argues that 35%. marketers rate it well, with 18 percent. very good. This means that more than half of those surveyed have very positive associations with this work tool. The sheer number of potential recipients in a well-crafted campaign can be impressive, but beyond that, emails enjoy a high open rate, a significant return on investment put into their execution, message personalization and testing, e.g. The marketing community is of a different opinion, as it highly values this form of communication through AB testing, and can contribute to acquiring new customers.
Most effective in..
Mailchimp.com points out that industries related to hobbies, leisure, sports, religion have the highest open rate. According to data from campaignmonitor, very small conversion funnels are formed by the automotive and aviation industries, and more likely to be opened are emails from government organizations, local government and those non-governmental public benefit organizations.
It seems that e-mailers have not yet said their last word and it is quite possible that this segment of marketing will still surprise us in the future. I just wonder how the 606 amendment and further pandemic situation will affect its further fate.
