24% of people think marketing emails are never useful
By Sophia Skinbjerg | sophia.skinbjerg@ungapped.com
Marketers, we can do better than that can’t we?
Towards the end of 2016 a report was released that revealed what consumers really thought of marketing emails in their inbox. Though the report covered an array of questions, today we will be covering three main questions covered in the study;
- How often do you find marketing emails to be useful?
- How many marketing emails do people receive?
- What do you do with marketing emails you do not want?
About the study
Based on a survey of nearly 2,000 Americans, the report looked at how often people check email, what impact emails have on consumers’ purchase decisions, the motivations behind subscribing and unsubscribing from email lists.
Participants had a minimum age of 18 with no maximum age limit. Answers were split between two cohorts; those aged between 18 and 29, and those over 30. Answers were also grouped to represent the overall average response.
How often are marketing emails useful?
The company that ran the study found that 44% of respondents find marketing emails useful sometimes, frequently or always. Twenty-four percent of respondents said that they never find marketing emails useful.
How many marketing emails do people receive?
An overwhelming 56% of survey respondents felt like they received way too many emails of a marketing nature. This was disproportionately skewed towards the older ago cohort with 61% of those over the ago of 30 feeling that they received too many marketing emails. Those aged between 18 and 29 only had 37% feel that they received too many marketing emails.
What do you do with marketing emails you do not want?
When people receive an email that they do not want their behavior is typically split between either unsubscribing from the list or ignoring the email. Neither of the two is ideal for us marketers. Those in the younger cohort are more likely to ignore an email than unsubscribe. Comparatively, those aged 30 and older were more likely to unsubscribe than ignore the email.
Key takeaways
This data really reinforces the importance of three things;
- understanding your audience
- relevant content
- segmentation
Understanding your audience means that you are able to craft relevant content for emails. The consequence for this is that relevant content makes sure that your emails useful and specific to them – meaning that they won’t ignore or unsubscribe.
Related: Get a complete view of your customer journey in 5 easy steps
Knowing different cohorts within your audience also allows you to better segment so that sending extraneous emails (or perhaps not enough) is less likely to happen.
Related: How does email list segmentation affect engagement?
