In two studies by MarketingSherpa, the marketing research company surveyed approximately 2,000 American adults about their email marketing preferences. The results that came back are quite interesting, and worth paying attention to if you are currently using or considering bringing email marketing into your business marketing mix.
Q: In which of the following ways, if any, would you prefer companies to communicate with you? Please select all that apply.
Here are the results of that survey question.
Here’s what MarketingSherpa has to say about these results:
“Email was unique among digital channels. In fact, it was the only digital channel to outperform old media standbys — postal mail (preferred by 48%), television ads (preferred by 34%) and print media, such as magazines and newspapers, (preferred by 31%).
There was, as you would expect, variations on channel preferences among different demographic groups. However, across almost every demographic surveyed, email was the preferred way to communicate with companies. The only exception was females 65 or older — 64% prefer email, and 65% prefer postal mail. Males aged 35-44 were the biggest fans — with 87% preferring email as their favorite channel.”
From the above survey, it is clear that Americans clearly prefer to receive email over other channels. However, that doesn’t mean that customers don’t see room for improvement.
Q: In which of the following ways, if any, would you like company emails to change? Please select all that apply.
Here are the results of this survey question.
Here are the MarketingSherpa’s observations of this interesting data:
“To the above, 29% want emails that are more personalized to their individual preferences and behavior. Your job is to find the group that wants more promotions and then tailor those promotions to their specific needs.”
Thorin McGee, Editor-in-Chief and Content Director of Target Marketing stated this point further, “Customers really do love when their favorite marketers know what they want and offer it to them. People like shopping especially when you cut the selection down to specifically the things they’re interested in. And people love getting a deal! On the other hand, they hate having their time wasted with offers for things they don’t want.”
One final observation – you may want to try doing all of the above in less space, as 30% of people want to receive shorter emails, perhaps a preference that affected by the increasing tendency to read email on smartphones.