If you’re a marketing professional, you have to be wondering at this point about the staying power of email marketing tactics relative to more modern strategies that take advantage of different technologies and platforms. Even in the wake of a global pandemic event, email continues to be one of the most effective and profitable marketing strategies that can be deployed by a business. Like many of the marketing strategies in play post-COVID, the goals small businesses are trying to accomplish with email marketing campaigns have shifted in response to changing consumer behaviors.
UpCity recently partnered with Pollfish in order to explore how SMBs are using email marketing in the United States and Canada. The survey’s 600 business owners and email marketing professionals weighed in on how their email campaign cadences have shifted in response to COVID-19 and a number of related factors.
We broke our discussion down into these four segments:
- Email Marketing Cadence, Campaigns, and Goals
- Email Marketing Budgets: Pre-COVID vs. 2022
- Email Marketing Task Management
- Overall Email Marketing Effectiveness
Email marketing statistics provide valuable insight into historical trends. We also reached out to business owners and email marketing experts for their allegorical insight into these trends to provide a better understanding of how you might leverage or pivot your own email marketing campaigns as you work to recover in 2022 from the early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Email Marketing Cadence, Campaigns, and Goals
32% of businesses sent out emails weekly pre-COVID. Businesses are still following a weekly emailing cadence in 2022 with a 1% increase
One of the main advantages email marketing provides to a business is a direct line to clients and customers in one of the most guarded private marketing channels for communication that customers maintain. This is intended to create an ongoing relationship with a business’s customer base, build trust, and provide information and educational materials in a single channel that customers might otherwise have to search for. The convenience and access introduced by an effectively structured email campaign are especially important in the wake of COVID-19, a period when customers and internet users are more actively looking to relate to the brands they actively purchase from and are seeking out educational information regularly. Increasing the frequency that such material is made available directly in a customer’s inbox can greatly impact purchasing behaviors.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Daily | 20% | 21% |
| Weekly | 32% | 33% |
| Bi-weekly | 17% | 15% |
| Monthly | 13% | 15% |
| Less than monthly | 18% | 17% |
With email remaining a widely used medium for marketing, we approached our community of marketing experts to find out how often emails were being distributed by their teams, the purpose of the emails being sent out, and whether their cadence now had changed versus before the COVID-19 pandemic spread in 2020.
“When it comes to best practices for how frequently you should send email marketing campaigns, we always keep three points in mind. First, we make sure to send at least one email per week, otherwise, we risk missing out on sales possibilities and having our audience get disengaged with us. Second, in general, we feel sending one to two bulk emails each week is enough for most companies, especially if you’re just getting started with email marketing. Finally, in order to generate more sales, sending emails every second day (or even more frequently) will significantly drop engagement levels and result in lower sales.
The most important thing to remember is to make sure that your emails are of value to the recipients of your messages. As long as your subscribers continue to receive something of value, whether it’s high-quality content or personalized offers, they will continue to engage with your campaigns. As to how we’ve changed our approach due to COVID-19, our focus has switched completely to a long-term, resource-intensive strategy. Before COVID-19, our email marketing was primarily focused on re-engaging prospects in our database with a member of the sales team, and as a result, we were not concerned with the frequency with which emails were sent from our side. Now, the emphasis is on long-term nurturing, education, and resource sharing, which is why we send fewer emails but provide greater value.”
—Sumit Bansal, Founder & CEO, TrumpExcel
“I prefer to send 3 value-based emails for every 1 promotional sales email every week, as opposed to the traditional 1 value-based email per day. As your business grows and you have more time to compose more emails, you can use this as a general rule to ensure that your users continue to receive value from you. Always provide free content and make videos in which you interact with your audience. I’ll be promoting a product with two emails. The reason you just do not want to market products is that people will believe that all you are attempting to do is sell them a product, which is not good for your company’s reputation. Continue to cultivate relationships with your email list, and invite them to follow you on social media platforms.
We’ve shifted this strategy significantly during the pandemic. We cut off/paused many of the automated emails/drip sequences we had set up for clients, especially when COVID-19 was first becoming more severe, so as not to appear insensitive or ignorant. Our focus has shifted to sending fewer emails but more timely and relevant in light of the present scenario, and we’re making use of the extra time by reworking live event promotions for virtual ones. You must be aware of the current situation and the adjustments that everyone has had to make in their daily lives. After the COVID-19 lockdowns started, we reviewed the frequency of our emails and considerably reduced it in order for clients to believe that we are not just pushing our services but also have feelings.”
—Josh Pelletier, Chief Marketing Officer, BarBend
“Frequency depends on the purpose of the email marketing campaign., As a general rule, we never send more than one email per week to the same address. For example, to announce an event, we send weekly email updates 1 month in advance (meaning 4 emails total). For general updates emails, we send out 1 email per month. We take this approach because too many emails kill the emails. People become more and more blind to them. We must always send emails with a clear purpose. Sending weekly reminders for a big upcoming event makes sense. Sending monthly news is fine too because not too much, but just enough to maintain awareness and engagement.
We kept exactly the same sending frequency before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. What changed was the content of our emails: we sent more free advice during the consecutive lockdowns. As a digital business, we had no reason to decrease or increase the cadence of our emails. For other kinds of companies, it may be different of course.”
—Benjamin Poirrier, Founder & CEO, Prodima
17% of U.S. businesses focused most heavily on both product/company-updated related emails and promotional emails pre-COVID
In the years leading up to the pandemic, there was a growing movement across industries referred to as the membership economy. Rather than focusing on a high volume of lower quality individual transactions, this shift pushed to build and nurture customer relationships, which leads to repeat sales and word-of-mouth growth that is more easily and more affordably maintained.
A powerful tool in the arsenal of businesses focused on building a membership mentality with their customer base, emails allowed businesses prior to COVID-19 business interruptions to educate and entice consumers with information about products and services and promotional emails communicating the value of being a customer. Other email campaigns leveraging newsletters and exclusive access to content and events were then used to build and maintain a sense of community and belonging, increasing brand trust. These tactics, supported by lead nurturing emails, went a long way before the COVID-19 outbreak to build and maintain relationships with well-managed and maintained email lists.
Pre-COVID
17% – Product/company updates
14% – Newsletters
12% – Event invitations
17% – Promotional emails
13% – Exclusive content
10% – Lead nurturing emails
11% – Transactional emails
5% – Other
Now in 2022, U.S. businesses focus most heavily on promotional emails at 18%
An important part of the customer journey in the post-COVID economy is the search for information that can be used to compare and contrast products and services, which justifies how much businesses are leaning on product and company updates. While customers are doing more online research, they are also searching for increased value and better deals. Sending out relevant promotional materials on a set basis ensures your customers have your brand top of mind when making purchasing decisions.
With content marketing becoming increasingly important to SEO strategies and related marketing campaigns, it follows that email campaigns including components such as newsletters and exclusive content would be heavily leveraged as well. During the sales process, email has always been an important component used to improve conversion rates, so it follows that lead nurturing and transactional emails are also still being deployed regularly. Because some industries are starting to attend in-person events, and professionals are filling remote time with virtual events, email is a powerful way to remain engaged with remote workers and manage event attendance.
2022
16% – Product/company updates
14% – Newsletters
11% – Event invitations
18% – Promotional emails
14% – Exclusive content
11% – Lead nurturing emails
13% – Transactional emails
4% – Other
The pandemic has forced businesses to reconsider their overall marketing strategies moving into 2022, and with email campaigns continuing to play a strong role, we wanted to further explore the types of campaigns our community of United States-based companies was prioritizing or planning to prioritize throughout the remainder of 2022.
“We have mainly been focusing on company updates this year. Our brand has managed to establish a loyal customer base over the last two years. So we only use email marketing as a tool to provide our customers with any updates regarding our organization or products. The campaign types did change for my organization, since COVID-19. Before COVID we used email marketing as a promotional tool and would send commercial messages to potential customers. At that time we were not an established brand in the market and were desperate to get our customers’ attention, in any way possible. But the tables have turned, and we have managed to acquire loyal customers. This is why we have shifted from using email marketing as a promotional tool to providing detailed company updates for an already established customer base.”
—Eduarda dePaula, CEO, FindByPlate
‘We are focusing on promotional campaigns this year. They are to be displayed through social media. Customers love the idea of promoting and offering best-selling products at a discount. We are looking to oblige that through our social media channels. These targeted campaigns have been performing exceptionally well throughout the last year, so to be honest, we have not done much to change these campaigns since the outbreak of COVID-19, as there was no need to tinker with something that worked so well.”
—John Riedl, Co-Founder, Science Genics
“This year, I am fully focusing on promotional campaigns. Even though the pandemic has died down considerably, its impact on my business continues to linger. I lost many customers in the early days of the pandemic; using appealing promotional campaigns, I hope to acquire more customers and retain my existing ones. These campaign types have not changed since the start of the pandemic, as COVID-19 has made it even more critical for me to focus on promotional campaigns to increase my sales. I’m planning to leverage social media to attract a wide customer base this year.”
—Sonia Navarro, Founder, Navarro Paving
Similarly, 19% of Canadian businesses prioritized promotional email campaigns pre-COVID, with a 1% increase for 2022
Prior to the pandemic, marketing trends across the Canadian business landscape largely mirrored practices in place by companies operating out of the United States. This speaks to the universal effectiveness of email marketing campaigns, and why email prior to the pandemic was universally viewed as delivering one of the highest returns on investment relative to other marketing tactics.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Product/company updates | 16% | 15% |
| Newsletters | 14% | 14% |
| Event invitations | 13% | 13% |
| Promotional emails | 19% | 20% |
| Exclusive content | 13% | 13% |
| Lead nurturing emails | 9% | 8% |
| Transactional emails | 11% | 13% |
| Other | 5% | 5% |
In 2022, as companies scramble to recover, email continues to deliver powerful marketing ROI, but it has become important for other more customer-centric reasons during this period of recovery. Maintaining business continuity throughout the pandemic has been a balancing act in managing and maintaining existing relationships and working to nurture and convert new leads to recoup sales as quickly as possible as more segments of both countries work to resume a semblance of business as usual despite ongoing challenges. Canadian business respondents’ feedback shows similar marketing trends in how much of a pivotal role is played by promotional emails and product and company updates. Similar trends exist in the use of other types of emails, revealing that similar tactics of engagement seem to be effective in Canada that are being used by United States-based companies.
With Canadian marketing experts echoing their American counterparts in their responses to our survey, we reached out for insight into the community to find out how they were positioning their email campaigns in 2022.
“We are primarily focusing on newsletter-style email campaigns which highlight the resources we post on our blog, which are engaging, helpful, and valuable to our target audience. We see higher than normal engagement rates from these types of emails and have found that we’re able to cut through the noise of our subscribers’ email inboxes by providing valuable resources, instead of promotional and sales emails. These types of emails tend to have a 20-30% higher click-through rate than promotional emails, and we know that the resources are resonating with our audience because they have an average time on page of six minutes.
While the content doesn’t always highlight our products and services, it gives us a valid reason to reach out to our subscribers and helps us stay top of mind. We’ve seen higher engagement since COVID-19 because the majority of the content we’ve been producing has been focused on remote work. The content has been very timely and valuable for folks that have been navigating through the changes that have come up as a result of the pandemic.”
—Datis Mohsenipour, VP of Sales & Marketing, Outback Team Building & Training
“Condo Control is prioritizing a targeted content marketing email strategy in 2022. This includes different types of newsletters, article referrals, guides, webinars, case studies, and whitepapers. The content we send to our prospects through our email automation logic is tailored to their interests. For example, if a prospect has shown interest in HOA violation management, we’ll send them targeted content related to that. This gives us a chance for the prospect to explore our content, brand, product features, and more, thus nurturing our relationship with them and establishing our industry expertise, all while we continue to better identify prospects for marketing/sales qualified leads. Since we are a SaaS company, our campaign types haven’t really changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, we have created some content and provided information to help address the challenges board members and managers would face during the pandemic.”
—Fred Stewart, Email Marketing Specialist, Condo Control
A majority of businesses’ goals for email marketing haven’t changed since the pandemic, with a continued emphasis on attracting new customers
We’ve talked to this point about the important role played by email campaigns in retaining customers and building relationships. However, lead generation will never cease to be the driving force behind a business’s marketing efforts, and email is often leveraged at the top level of most inbound marketing funnels to bring in new qualified leads. Attracting new customers in this post-COVID economy is especially important, as attrition in the customer base of many companies has led many to scramble to gain the attention of customers willing to consider their options in the marketplace.
Pre-COVID
(On a scale of 1-9, 1 being the most important goal)
Attract new customers
Retain existing customers
Increase user engagement
Inspire more users to take action
Boost website traffic
Provide more relevant content
Introduce products/services
Increase brand awareness
Other
2022
(On a scale of 1-9, 1 being the most important goal)
Attract new customers
Retain existing customers
Increase user engagement
Inspire more users to take action
Boost website traffic
Provide more relevant content
Introduce products/services
Increase brand awareness
Other
While the pandemic has had a significant impact on how businesses operate, it hasn’t necessarily resulted in a change in the overall marketing goals for every company in 2022. We turned to our community for additional insight into what some of the overall key goals for email marketers will be in the coming year.
“We have several important goals we want to accomplish in 2022. First, will be to leverage artificial intelligence (AI)in email marketing. Why? Because it can result in successful email campaigns without requiring a significant amount of time and effort. It can be used to create subject lines and copy, estimate optimal times to send emails for engagement and provide unique user engagement. Before the pandemic, doing everything online wasn’t as critical thus there was not as much of a need for AI. After the world went online, however, the need for leveraging AI became apparent and I believe, is a need to achieve my email marketing goals. Our second goal will be to part ways with unengaged subscribers.
Let’s face it: hardly everyone who signs up for your email newsletter intends to stay on it indefinitely. People move away, change careers, or simply get uninterested. While this goal may appear ludicrous to you, parting on friendly terms is preferable to having people potentially report you. This can easily happen if the unsubscribe button is hidden from them. Being honest with our customers in the wake of the pandemic, I feel, will benefit me because it will aid in my email list hygiene efforts and enhance deliverability.”
—Nate Torres, Founder, Imaginated.com
“Our top goal is to lead traffic back to our website and generate a lead on a new case for our law firm when creating email campaigns. Another goal of ours is to use the traffic directed back to our website as a way to increase our brand awareness and SEO. When we get people to visit our website for their legal questions, it helps improve our brand awareness and keeps our law firm relevant to people’s everyday lives. The increased traffic can also boost our SEO campaign. These email marketing campaigns have not changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Fortunately, this is one of the few things not affected by the pandemic.”
—Joan Siopes, Marketing Director, Herrman & Herrman PLLC
“Our primary goals with email are to generate more clicks from the email back to the content or desired action of the email. In addition, it is to improve overall email deliverability to ensure that email is as effective as possible as part of our digital marketing strategy. Clicks are more important to us than opens at this point due to the recent update where email opens are not being tracked for Apple users. Clicks have become more important so we can ensure that the content is resonating with our audience. Also, email deliverability is critical to track to make sure we are reaching everyone’s inbox. If we improve deliverability, it improves our sender reputation and makes email most effective.
These metrics were similar to the ones we tracked prior to COVID. However, with more companies transitioning to digital during COVID and into 2022, we need to make sure our emails stand out from the competition. With more competition in email inboxes, the content and strategy need to be redefined and improved upon as often as possible.”
—Elyse Flynn Meyer, Owner & Founder, Prism Global Marketing Solutions
There are subtle changes in 2022 in the goals businesses are trying to accomplish through the use of email. To reinforce previous sections in this discussion, email also acts as a method for retaining existing customers by building upon the relationship with the brand. Therefore, email is increasingly being used as a way to increase engagement with your brand across other channels, whether it’s social media marketing or eCommerce platforms. Emails are also being increasingly used to tap into consumer propensity to embrace social proof marketing tactics by inspiring them to share your brand online or take certain actions that boost your brand visibility online. Finally, with internet users leaning in extensively towards online content to educate and inform themselves about the brands they consume, it follows that emails are increasingly being leveraged in the post-COVID economy to better inform and educate current and potential customers.
The journey from 2020 to 2022 has been an extremely challenging and trying time for businesses that have been able to maintain business continuity. Having to leverage all of the apps and tools in their marketing arsenals, businesses have found email to be a powerful and reliable tool for maintaining and building relationships throughout the pandemic. While the tactics have remained largely the same, email campaigns have been deployed in different ways and with different end goals in order to best meet the expectations and needs of an increasingly discerning consumer base. Largely, email has always been used to build and nurture relationships with leads, but in post-COVID conditions, email has been found to be a powerful tool for content delivery and building customer engagement across multiple channels.
These changes haven’t occurred in a vacuum and have required some shift in financial resources in order to execute. In the next section, we will go over respondent data relative to budgets dedicated to email marketing before the pandemic and throughout, as well as the current period of recovery.
Email Marketing Budgets: Pre-COVID vs. 2022
34% of respondents noted a monthly email marketing budget of $100-$500 pre-COVID. A majority of respondents still currently have a $100-$500 monthly budget at 27%
The advantage of using email marketing campaigns is just how affordable these campaigns are to execute. Costs are often tied to the number of individuals being contacted and the design of the assets involved in the campaign. Throughout the pandemic, with marketing and advertising budgets being the first to be chopped by leadership, it follows that our respondents would show a decrease in spending on email in order to dedicate those budgets to other programs or preserve as much of the revenue stream as possible, given the extremely high ROI on a well-executed campaign.
Even if you’re sending out fewer emails in more targeted campaigns, as many of our experts have claimed, they will have better results that will support other tactics proven to be effective in post-pandemic conditions, such as search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising including pay-per-click (PPC) and Google Ads, and content management.
| Annual revenue | Pre-COVID Monthly Budget | 2022 Monthly Budget |
|---|---|---|
| 29% – Less than $500,000 | 41% – Less than $100 | 47% – Less than $100 |
| 21% – $500,000-$2M | 45% – $100-$500 | 34% – $501-$1,000 |
| 19% – $3M-$5M | 35% – $501-$1,000 | 31% – $501-$1,000 |
| 14% – $6M-$9M | 31% – $501-$1,000 | 37% – $501-$1,000 |
| 16% – $10M+ | 40% – $1,001+ | 41% – $1,001+ |
The shift in budgets relegated to email post-COVID can largely be attributed to the changes in goals and purpose of the emails being sent out. With more focus being given to providing consumers with a sense of community with newsletters, business updates, and informational resources, fewer resources need to be dedicated to complex emails and campaigns, and more resources to methods directly capable of generating revenue until the brand has stabilized and recouped losses. At that stage, many businesses could revisit their ongoing marketing strategies and shift from short-term stabilization to long-term sustainable growth, reinvigorating their email marketing tactics with needed funding.
“My monthly email marketing budget in 2022 is well over $3000, and it’s one of my main focuses next to SEO. Prior to COVID-19, that budget was between $1500 to $2000. COVID changed a lot for my business as my blog is primarily focused on the gig economy and helping others thrive. With the influx of gig workers, my blog audience grew rapidly, and so did my email marketing budget. My email budget grew post-COVID to meet the needs of my audience: more investment in automation, email marketing tools, content, and promotion.”
—Harry Campbell, Founder & CEO, The Rideshare Guy
“Expenditure on email marketing in 2022 on average, the monthly cost ranges from $10 to $1,000. Our campaigns must be self-managed. This monthly budget was much different pre-COVID. Since the epidemic, more than 40% of marketers have seen their email budgets cut. Continued influence on marketing budgets after COVID-19. Thus, the email marketing budget has increased after COVID.”
—Andrew Priobrazhenskyi, CEO, Discount Reactor
“As a matter of course, email marketing is critical to creating trusting connections with customers. It is up to the product, service, and user experience to deliver on the promise made in advertising. When it comes to business-to-business (B2B) sales, Covid-19 has put more emphasis on relationships. Teams with established relationships have been able to retain revenue momentum in a virtual sales environment by building on the strength of their earlier connections.
When it comes to finding new consumers, a new set of abilities is needed that focus on selling solutions rather than items. In 2022, to establish budgets one must first determine the purpose of the email before selecting a template. Are pre-existing email templates the best option or do you need a one-of-a-kind email design? You’ll have to spend extra money if you want to send out complex emails or ones that are interactive. Your template must be responsive and displayed on all devices. Custom email templates are typically priced at a set or hourly rate by most firms, and they’ll also help you incorporate the designs into your email service provider.”
—Steven Day, Owner, SD Garage Doors
The data we’ve gathered and insight gained from respondents from the community show that email is a versatile tool in the budget at either level and deserves to be prioritized regardless of the goals in the current budget strategy. Many businesses slashed their budgets in the wake of the pandemic, but email has remained a useful and versatile tool that businesses leveraged throughout quarantines and lockdowns in order to remain engaged, and since have repurposed emails with the intent of adding value and nurturing relationships with leads and existing customers. As email marketing campaigns are just a piece of the overall marketing strategy in play, we also gathered data to find out how our respondents are carrying out those strategies, which we will explore in-depth in the next section.
Email Marketing Task Management
49% of businesses handled email marketing in-house prior to the pandemic. A majority of businesses still leverage in-house teams at 51%
The financial challenges that have crippled many businesses throughout the pandemic have led to one of two approaches to marketing for small businesses. In the case of a majority of our respondents, both prior to and in the wake of the pandemic, email marketing tasks have been managed by in-house teams of professionals. The tools that are used to manage email campaigns are largely automated and can be used to reach entire customer segments quickly and easily and at minimal costs. This makes email marketing an ideal marketing task to maintain by an in-house team, as it can fit easily into a sales team’s workflow without taking up valuable time away from daily operations and customer engagement.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| In-house email marketing team | 49% | 51% |
| Third-party email marketing agency | 31% | 28% |
| Email marketing freelancers/consultants | 20% | 21% |
The tasks small businesses are willing to outsource to agencies, consultants, and freelancers are becoming increasingly granular as teams become more streamlined and business tasks become more complex. We opened this inquiry to our community to find out whether they were using in-house teams, and if not, what their policies on outsourcing were post-COVID.
“At Pricelisto, we have a team of in-house email marketing experts who handle our email marketing tasks. This allows us to have full control over our email marketing campaigns and ensures that they are executed flawlessly. We worked with an email marketing agency to handle our campaigns before the pandemic. However, since the pandemic began, we have shifted to in-house execution due to the pandemic’s impact on the agency’s ability to provide us with the level of service we need. The pandemic has caused many agencies to experience a slowdown in business, which has impacted their ability to provide the level of service we need. Consequently, we have shifted to the in-house execution of our email marketing campaigns. This has allowed us to maintain control over our campaigns and ensure that they are executed flawlessly.”
—Emir Bacic, Co-Founder, Pricelisto
“As a digital marketing agency who also offers email marketing services, we handle our email marketing efforts in-house, utilizing an email management/automation platform. We handled our email marketing efforts in the same way as before COVID. If anything, there was a slight uptick in our email communication, but we continued our email marketing tasks in-house, just at an increased rate. Our email communication uptick was because during COVID we were wanting to communicate with our clients and prospects more than ever and address their concerns with all of the troubles of the world going on. We were able to manage the uptick ourselves in-house, but there was definitely more of a focus on our email communication. Coming out of COVID, our email communication and the tasks that go along with it has settled. I think people got overwhelmed by the flood of emails and zoom meetings during remote work during COVID, that people have welcomed the mellowing out a bit on the email marketing front.”
—Adam Garcia, Owner, The Stock Dork
“We handle our own email marketing tasks. Black Orchids PR offers a variety of writing and brand management services including email marketing, so we have an in-house team dedicated to our email marketing. Black Orchids PR was birthed during the pandemic when many businesses placed a heavy focus on growing an email list. We had a great demand for services before we were even ready. This gave us a healthy measure and action plan for not only producing robust lead magnets but engaging 30-day nurture series relevant to the lead magnet. So, in other words, there wasn’t a before COVID-19 for us. I will say that post-COVID-19, we continue to place emphasis on email marketing and many of our clients say this is one of their number one pain points. We will continue to handle our emails in-house.”
—Chenadra Washington, Founder & CEO, Black Orchids PR
Keeping email marketing as an in-house project versus outsourcing to an agency or freelancer has the benefit of being able to quickly and efficiently communicate the most relevant and useful product or service information to your customer base. There’s no delay caused by having to communicate to a third party to coordinate your brand’s needs against the service provider’s other clients. Executing an email campaign in-house ensures branding standards and messaging are in line with your organization’s current goals, vision, and mission, and supports any other initiative in play. Another benefit that we’ve alluded to is the massive ROI benefits of email marketing when executed in-house. Outsourcing could cause your company to dig into that ROI tremendously if you have to pay a third party to manage and maintain your email marketing efforts. Finally, with an in-house team executing your email marketing campaigns, you’ll build a stronger relationship with your customers, which over time can enhance their trust in your team and lead to increased leads and sales.
45% of businesses believe their current email marketing is somewhat effective but has room for improvement
In fairness to all of the marketing teams out there working daily to keep their brands top of mind with their customer base and striving to gain attention in highly competitive marketplaces, marketing has become an increasingly complex and challenging undertaking for in-house teams to keep pace with. While a majority of our respondent organizations maintain in-house marketing teams, a majority of our respondents also feel that there’s either room for improvement in their email marketing strategies or that their strategies are in need of a complete overhaul in order to achieve their marketing goals.
37% – My business’s email marketing strategy is highly effective
45% – My business’s email marketing strategy is somewhat effective, but there’s room for improvement
19% – My business’s email marketing strategy currently isn’t effective and needs a re-work
A majority of businesses with a primary goal of attracting new customers are highly confident in their 2022 email marketing strategy. However, businesses mostly focused on retaining existing customers feel that their strategy needs re-work
In 2022, a significant portion of our respondents feels very comfortable attracting new customers to their brand with powerful marketing via email and other channels. However, those who do feel as if they need to revise their email strategy realize that the challenges of retaining those customers and maintaining the relationship with them require different tactics, and the idea of retention and building viable ongoing sales relationships is currently beyond the scope of their email marketing team’s capabilities. If those are concerns that your brand has with respect to your team’s capabilities, there are significant resources on how to bolster the impact of your email marketing tactics, as well as a number of consultants that specialize in email marketing that could consult with your brand on how to increase retention and build trust between your email recipient base and your team.
| Strategy Effectiveness | 2022 Primary Goal |
|---|---|
| My business’s email marketing strategy is highly effective | Attract new customers |
| My business’s email marketing strategy is somewhat effective, but there’s room for improvement | Attract new customers |
| My business’s email marketing strategy currently isn’t effective and needs a re-work | Retain existing customers |
With the challenges facing businesses in the post-COVID economy, ranging from diminished sales to challenges in retaining or onboarding skilled staff, it’s perfectly understandable the range of approaches being taken to manage marketing tasks. Whether it’s with an in-house team or a third-party service provider, email marketing should be a critical component of your overall marketing strategy that you leverage throughout your sales process to both attract and retain customers.
Prioritize Email Marketing Tactics in Your 2022 Marketing Strategy
For more than two years now, marketing professionals have been striving to stabilize their businesses and clients against the devastating financial impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the global economy. At this juncture, businesses must utilize the full scope of the marketing tools they have access to in order to best engage with customers who are increasingly difficult to connect with at a brand level and retain as customers.
As our data from this Pollfish survey shows, email is a powerful tool that can be leveraged across multiple levels in the customer journey to ensure increased leads and improved customer retention. Our survey also revealed that a significant number of businesses across industries are unprepared to properly leverage email as a tool for building long-term relationships with existing and potential clients.
If you feel your business could use additional support, UpCity’s marketplace is a great resource for businesses based in both the United States and Canada to find the support and resources necessary to improve elements of a weak marketing strategy that need to be addressed, such as email marketing tactics. Get back on your feet in 2022 and improve the channels of communication with your customers that will put you ahead of the competition in the coming year.
UpCity’s Survey Method
UpCity used Pollfish to survey 600 business owners and email marketing experts across the United States and Canada on their email marketing budgets, goals, resources, and strategies for 2022.
Thirty percent of businesses have been operating for 3-5 years and company sizes range largely from 2-5,000+ employees.
Twenty-nine percent of respondents have a 2022 annual revenue of less than $500,000 followed by $500,0000-$2M (21%), $3M-$5M (19%), $10M+ (16%), and $6M-$5M (14%).