For consumers, the email address is the way to access so many of the useful things available on the web, like social media accounts, making purchases, banking and so on. For marketers, the email remains the most-used medium for reaching consumers.
The DMA’s Consumer Email Tracker 2016 research, sponsored by dotmailer, tracks the ways in which consumers use their inboxes to their advantage. This year consumers received more emails and more irrelevant emails than before, which could have negative repercussions for the medium. With 68% of consumers agreeing with the statement, ‘Most of the marketing emails I receive include no content or offers that are of interest to me’, and 84% of consumers finding less than half of their emails ‘interesting or relevant’.
We also learn that younger people, particularly Millennials, drive the new ways in which consumers use email, particularly on smartphones. 51% of consumers use email ‘on-the-go’ with a smartphone, up from 50% last year, which rises 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. On top of that, 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, then remember to always be interesting, offer real benefits, be mobile-ready, be multichannel and be creative.”
Skip Fidura, Client Services Director at dotmailer and Chair 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.”
To read more about the DMA’s Consumer Email Tracker and this infographic, please visit: https://dma.org.uk/infographic/dma-insight-millennial-shift-young-consumers-drive-new-email-habits