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(Misc) What keeps email marketers awake at night
A review of over 500 email marketing articles published last year reveals what people were writing and worrying about in 2005. And the results are very different from 2004 (see the table below).
The highlights:
>> In 2004, the media and marketers focused heavily on the spam problem and related email marketing legislation, such as the Can-Spam Act in the USA. These issues were less important in 2005, reflecting the success of anti-spam measures and the growing feeling that inboxes are slowly starting to clear of rubbish.
(And, of course, marketers have simply learned to live with the new legislative requirements.)
>> Attention turned instead to the practicalities of email marketing, specifically strategy, tactics and list management. Over the course of the year, best practices and marketer interest shifted toward more sophisticated and successful methods for growing and using email lists.
>> Deliverability remained a key issue in the industry. The problem didn't go away like many (including me) hoped or expected.
>> Despite widespread (also including by me) predictions for interest in RSS to grow over 2005, it never happened. At least not at the scale predicted. What did happen was a growth in the acceptance of RSS and email as complementary channels for online marketing, rather than competitors for marketing dollars and attention.
Far fewer people now refer to RSS as sounding the death knell for email marketing.
Predictions for 2006:
>> Spam and legal issues will continue to fade as technological solutions to the spam problem improve further. Deliverability will, however, still be an issue as marketers seek to understand how these solutions impact on their own practices.
>> We remain on the cusp of the RSS volcano, waiting for the eruption in popularity among users. If the IT folk work out how to make it easy to subscribe to feeds through the browsers and email software that consumers are already using, then the revolution will come.
>> At the moment, few companies have the resources, skills and/or confidence to take advantage of the opportunities presented by sophisticated database tools, integrated email/website metrics and tracking etc.
In 2006, interest in advanced strategies and tactics will remain high, and implementation will start to catch up with interest. More marketers will get comfortable with the basics, and feel confident enough to move up to the next level of email marketing. Costs will fall and the holders of purse strings will be more easily convinced to free up the required resources.
Full results of the review:
(Topics as a percentage of all blog postings in 2005, with the most popular topics listed first. 2004 results are given in brackets)
* Strategy/tactics 14.69% (9.2)
* Deliverability 11.07% (12.1)
* List management 10.31% (3.2)
* Misc 7.25% (3.5)
* Case studies 7.06% (6.1)
* RSS 6.30% (5.8)
* Law 6.11% (17.9)
* Other spam issues 5.92% (12.4)
* Format/design/copywriting 5.53% (2.9)
* Surveys/trends 4.77% (5.5)
* Events 4.77% (5.2)
* State of industry 4.77% (3.5)
* Basics 4.58% (not measured separately in 2004)
* Metrics 3.05% (ditto)
* E-newsletters 2.29% (3.2)
* Email address providers 1.53% (9.6)
Note:
This is not a scientific survey. I wouldn't send it in to Statistics Monthly and expect them to nod their heads in appreciation. What I did was go through the last year's worth of blog postings here at "No man is an iland" and categorize all the articles referred to (over 500 of them) into one of 16 different topic areas.
Then I calculated the percentage of the total number of articles accounted for by each topic, and compared that to 2004. Then I filtered that through my own experiences and observations to come up with some conclusions on what that might mean for the state of the email marketing industry in 2005 and 2006.
So don't let the presence of numbers mask the fact that this is a largely subjective exercise in thinking.
A review of over 500 email marketing articles published last year reveals what people were writing and worrying about in 2005. And the results are very different from 2004 (see the table below).
The highlights:
>> In 2004, the media and marketers focused heavily on the spam problem and related email marketing legislation, such as the Can-Spam Act in the USA. These issues were less important in 2005, reflecting the success of anti-spam measures and the growing feeling that inboxes are slowly starting to clear of rubbish.
(And, of course, marketers have simply learned to live with the new legislative requirements.)
>> Attention turned instead to the practicalities of email marketing, specifically strategy, tactics and list management. Over the course of the year, best practices and marketer interest shifted toward more sophisticated and successful methods for growing and using email lists.
>> Deliverability remained a key issue in the industry. The problem didn't go away like many (including me) hoped or expected.
>> Despite widespread (also including by me) predictions for interest in RSS to grow over 2005, it never happened. At least not at the scale predicted. What did happen was a growth in the acceptance of RSS and email as complementary channels for online marketing, rather than competitors for marketing dollars and attention.
Far fewer people now refer to RSS as sounding the death knell for email marketing.
Predictions for 2006:
>> Spam and legal issues will continue to fade as technological solutions to the spam problem improve further. Deliverability will, however, still be an issue as marketers seek to understand how these solutions impact on their own practices.
>> We remain on the cusp of the RSS volcano, waiting for the eruption in popularity among users. If the IT folk work out how to make it easy to subscribe to feeds through the browsers and email software that consumers are already using, then the revolution will come.
>> At the moment, few companies have the resources, skills and/or confidence to take advantage of the opportunities presented by sophisticated database tools, integrated email/website metrics and tracking etc.
In 2006, interest in advanced strategies and tactics will remain high, and implementation will start to catch up with interest. More marketers will get comfortable with the basics, and feel confident enough to move up to the next level of email marketing. Costs will fall and the holders of purse strings will be more easily convinced to free up the required resources.
Full results of the review:
(Topics as a percentage of all blog postings in 2005, with the most popular topics listed first. 2004 results are given in brackets)
* Strategy/tactics 14.69% (9.2)
* Deliverability 11.07% (12.1)
* List management 10.31% (3.2)
* Misc 7.25% (3.5)
* Case studies 7.06% (6.1)
* RSS 6.30% (5.8)
* Law 6.11% (17.9)
* Other spam issues 5.92% (12.4)
* Format/design/copywriting 5.53% (2.9)
* Surveys/trends 4.77% (5.5)
* Events 4.77% (5.2)
* State of industry 4.77% (3.5)
* Basics 4.58% (not measured separately in 2004)
* Metrics 3.05% (ditto)
* E-newsletters 2.29% (3.2)
* Email address providers 1.53% (9.6)
Note:
This is not a scientific survey. I wouldn't send it in to Statistics Monthly and expect them to nod their heads in appreciation. What I did was go through the last year's worth of blog postings here at "No man is an iland" and categorize all the articles referred to (over 500 of them) into one of 16 different topic areas.
Then I calculated the percentage of the total number of articles accounted for by each topic, and compared that to 2004. Then I filtered that through my own experiences and observations to come up with some conclusions on what that might mean for the state of the email marketing industry in 2005 and 2006.
So don't let the presence of numbers mask the fact that this is a largely subjective exercise in thinking.
Permalink | January 04, 2006 |
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