Report: Email Marketing Accounts for 15% of the Average Marketing Budget

Email continues to be a mainstay for businesses, despite the onslaught of social media and all things mobile.

A report from iContact affirms this and finds that 83 percent of small and medium-size businesses say email is important or critically important to their overall marketing strategy. The report also notes that businesses are spending more of their marketing budgets on email than on any other tactic.

Spending
According to iContact’s “The Small and Midsize Business Email Marketing Survey 2013,” email marketing claims an average of 15 percent of businesses’ overall marketing budgets, making it the No. 1 tactic in terms of budget share. Events/trade shows was second with 14 percent, followed by person-to-person contact with 13 percent, print ads with 11 percent and direct mail with 10 percent.

Social media (8 percent), search engine optimization (8 percent) and online display ads (7 percent), which get a lot of attention these days, trailed behind.

The report also finds that 54 percent of respondents to iContact’s survey say email marketing has a 10-20 percent share of their marketing budgets, while 19 percent say email has more than 20 percent of their marketing budgets.

According to iContact, 56 percent of businesses say they have plans to boost spending on email marketing in the next year, while 41 percent say they plan on keeping their email marketing spend the same. Sixty percent of businesses say they’re planning to increase spending on social media in the next year.

These findings affirm StrongMail’s report at the end of 2012, which found that 56 percent of businesses planned to increase their email marketing spend in 2013, while 52 percent said they planned to increase their social media spend this year.

Usage
According to iContact’s report, 92 percent of respondents say they use email marketing to share information about new products or services, while 90 percent say they use the channel to share news about the organization and 87 percent say they use it to advertise special events.

iContact also notes that 84 percent of businesses use email to engage customers and get feedback. “Whereas businesses tend to be wary of soliciting this feedback in the public domain of social media, email provides a way to connect privately,” the company notes in its report.

Frequency and segmentation
The report notes that 6 percent of businesses surveyed email their entire email list daily, while 16 percent email their list a few times a week and 17 percent email their list once a week. Meanwhile, 23 percent email their list a few times a month, while 34 percent email their list once a month or less.

Ten percent of businesses that segment their email lists email part of their lists daily, while 24 percent email them a few times a week, 14 percent email them once a week, 22 percent email them a few times a month and 21 percent email them once a month or less.

According to KISSmetrics, marketers who send 1-4 emails per month get the best click-through rates.

Confidence
According to iContact’s report, 78 percent of respondents are “very confident” about their email marketing. This put email marketing behind only person-to-person contact, which got an 80 percent vote of “very” confidence.