The 6 best email tactics to take your business sky-high

The question has no doubt crossed your mind: What email tactics should you be using? This recent study reveals the 6 best email tactics from 300 marketers.

Where’s the data coming from?

The research comes from Bronto, who surveyed 300 marketers who work for e-commerce companies all over the world. The participants were asked how many marketing tactics they use and to rate the effectiveness of different email tactics.

What’s the average number of marketing tactics used?

The study kicks off by asking how many marketing tactics e-commerce marketers are actually using. Participants had to choose from 21 pre-listed tactics and specific whether they were currently running, planned to or were not interested in the tactic. The results were then grouped based on industry and company size. Take a look at the results below:

What’s interesting to note is that both small and medium-sized companies are running more e-commerce marketing tactics than large companies – which seems the opposite to what I would have expected. I’d expect many marketers to also think that the larger the company, the more marketing tactics they can (afford to) employ. The report gives a couple of explanations as to why this might be the case, including;

• lack of flexibility to quickly deploy tactics in larger companies
• larger companies might make use of traditional marketing tactics not in the 21 pre-listed tactics

Taking a look at the average number of tactics used by industry, apparel is number one with an average of 8.5 tactics used. Pretty much what I expected knowing that the apparel and fashion industry is likely the most aggressive in marketing tactics. However, I did expect sporting goods and personal care industries to also be punching around the 8 mark as well.

Does more staff equal more tactics?

Given what I had previously expected about larger companies, does the same ring true for the number of staff versus number of tactics? Well yes, but only marginally. The report found that if you have more people working on a particular tactic, the more you can do within that tactic. However, the more people you add to the team, the ability to do more only increases marginally, less than initially expected.

Which marketing programs do retailers currently use?

It’s always the first question a marketer will ask when they start implementing e-commerce email tactics – which are the most important programs to run? The survey found 6 tactics were used by more than half of respondents, likely in combination with more than one tactic. The results are shown in the graph to the left:

The graph to the right shows e-commerce email tactics that only some respondents use. The interesting thing here is that ‘generic’ tactic show up a couple of times here. This could indicate that while some marketers are using generic tactics, more and more marketers are using personalized messages or series in order to increase revenue.

Related: Your content matters: 4 copywriting tips for newsletters

What are marketers planning to take on next?

Coming at no surprise, 64% of marketers plan to increase their email volumes over the next year. For all the haters that preach email is dead, just show them this:

Related: 6 reasons to revisit your email strategy over the summer

What email tactics do marketers rate as most effective?

In the survey, 6 email tactics rose to the top as most effective. Nearly all marketers (99%) found exclusive, email-only messages as very or somewhat effective, and 98% report that cart recovery emails are very or somewhat effective. If you are not already using these email tactics then this really should be the thing that gives you the jump start that you need.

Related: Millennials and B2B marketing

This study was originally found on Marketingprofs.