E-mail Marketing Takes Half of Marketers’ Time

E-mail marketing and company websites are the most used marketing channels, and e-mail marketing takes up nearly half of marketers’ time, according to a study from Lyris, an online marketing company.

Among respondents, 97 percent use e-mail marketing and 96 percent use company websites as marketing channels. Social media is used by 82 percent, while SEO is utilized by 79 percent of respondents and SEM is used by 72 percent of responding marketers.

E-mail marketing takes up 45 percent of marketers’ time, according to the study. Not surprisingly, 68 percent of e-mail marketers’ time is spent on e-mail marketing, while agencies spend 38 percent of their time with e-mail marketing, and 29 percent of online marketers spend their time with e-mail marketing.

The study also found that e-mail and online marketers use direct mail, banner, other forms of online advertising and events/trade shows more than online marketing agencies.

E-mail metrics are used as a marketing tool by 93 percent of respondents, followed by list management tools (86 percent), Web analytics (76 percent) and segmentation (70 percent).

Thirty-four percent of respondents plan on using dynamic landing pages, followed by 32 percent who plan on using behavioral targeting and 30 percent who plan on using dynamic content.

Direct mail was the most popular manual marketing channel, used by 65 percent of respondents. While mobile marketing has received a generous helping of buzz lately, only 22 percent of respondents say they e-mails or send SMS messages to mobile devices.

According to a report from Forrester Research, 70 percent of marketing executives don’t have a mobile marketing plan in place, or they’re just starting to get one ready. The report notes that 12 percent of brands don’t have a mobile marketing plan, and that 57 percent are still laying foundations for mobile efforts.

Data from comScore shows that different e-mail providers have visitors of varying ages. For instance, 10.4 percent of AOL e-mail users are ages 65+, more than double the percentage of that age group for Yahoo Mail (4.4 percent), Gmail (4.1 percent) and Windows Live Hotmail (4.1 percent).

Gmail skewed young with 25 percent of its visitors ages 25-34, and 17.2 percent of its visitors ages 18-24. This compares to 17.2 percent and 9 percent, respectively, for Hotmail; 15.1 percent and 10 percent, respectively, for Yahoo Mail; and 11.6 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively, for AOL e-mail.

Sources:

http://www.marketingcharts.com/print/email-company-sites-most-used-marketing-channels-14797/

http://www.dma.org.uk/news/nws-dmitem.asp?id=6122&t=Not+enough+emphasis+’placed+on+mobile+marketing’

http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2010/10/age-demographics-of-u-s-webmail-visitors/