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This infographic from the UK DMA illustrates today’s consumer relationship with email – still the most-used medium for marketers to reach consumers. And it shows that 69 per cent of millennials are using email ‘on the go’, i.e via their smartphones.
Sponsored by dot mailer, the DMA’s Consumer Email Tracker 2016 research looks at how consumers are using email inboxes to their advantage. In 2016, consumers received more emails – and more of them irrelevant ones – than before, which could negatively affect the channel. The research found that 68% of consumers agreed with the statement ‘Most of the marketing emails I receive include no content or offers that are of interest to me’, and 84% found less than half their emails ‘interesting’ or ‘relevant’.
Emailing millennials – figure is rising
But younger people, particularly millennials, are driving new ways of using email, particularly via smartphones: 51% of consumers polled said they read emails ‘on-the-go’ on a smartphone, just up from 50% last year; a figure that rises more steeply to 69% for younger respondents, meaning the smartphone is the primary device for email for these consumers.
Rachel Aldighieri, MD of the DMA, said: “Email is not just a popular channel for marketers to build and maintain relationships with prospects and customers, it is also the channel consumers prefer to receive brand communications through.
“Email addresses are the key to social media accounts, apps, web accounts and therefore the key to the ‘single customer view’ that marketers are so keen to develop.
“Our annual snapshot is just that – a glimpse at the way consumers use email today. These behaviours are evolving as email and marketing evolve, but to make sure your messages reach your audience and have impact, remember to always be interesting, offer real benefits, be mobile-ready, be multichannel and be creative.”
Skip Fidura, Client Services director at dotmailer and chairman of the DMA’s Responsible Marketing Committee, added: “Year after year, we hear that email is dead and year after year the stats show that email is going from strength to strength.
“That said, this report should resonate as our customers are launching a shot across our bow. Some of the stats in this year’s tracker report are clear: we are not delivering on our promise of sending targeted relevant messages in all cases. In a bid to push out more content and play a numbers game, brands appear to be alienating their customers.
“It is time for brands to truly understand their customers’ wants and needs and then leverage the potential of the technologies available to them.”