Marketing Sherpa recently released the 2013 Marketing Benchmark report. It’s the latest and most comprehensive collection of email marketing research stats and insights in market.  We bought it and whilst we can’t reproduce it for you due to copyright reasons, we are happy to share some of the findings.  You can also get an excerpt of it here.

As Marketing Sherpa says, “email is a venerable tactic that is often dismissed as being too rudimentary for today’s focus on real-time information. Yet, email continues to endure, and even thrive, under such scrutiny, continually proving its worth through better delivery practices, more advanced design, and strategic integration with other channels”

A few of the key insights from the report are:

60% of organisations using email reported that email marketing is producing a positive return on their investment (ROI)

83% report they are involved with tracking, reporting and analysing their email metrics – yay – no ‘set and forgets’ around here! And the metrics that organisations track the most? Clickthrough rate and open rate are the most popular by far, both sitting at around 90% – the next most measured metric is unsubscribe rate at 75%.

It appears that content is still king – the most effective tactic of all is content and in particular for B2B marketers, whitepapers and other premium content was considered the most effective of all. As we have said before, it is still not worth sending an email unless there is content worth reading, sharing or discussing. And this is shown as a key goal as 67% report that the top goal for the next 12 months is to deliver highly relevant content.

And for the biggest question of all – which is the best day to send? Well the results are in! Tuesday (At 26%) and Wednesday (At 23%) were, by far, considered the most effective days to send overall.  We find that this depends on the business you are in to some degree – read our earlier analysis here.  Further, retail email with a mobile friendly design is showing good results when sent on a Saturday or Sunday.  We see that while the open rates may be slightly lower, the click through and action rates can be very strong indeed.

Despite the rise of ‘mobile’, 58% of people are still not designing emails to render differently on mobile, let alone mobile specific versions of their emails.  However that same 58% recognises the pervasiveness of smartphones and tablets and they expect that mobile will dramatically affect or change their email marketing program in the next 12 months.   And with the continuing rise of the use of mobile as our primary device, it is not surprising to hear most say that they realise all their email designs and strategies need to be revamped for mobile compatibility.

But mobile isn’t everything – Social Media is only 1% behind mobile at 57% as the next most important aspect, and most recognise social media as a primary communications tool and is becoming one of the main ways they interact and engage with their audience.

82% believe their list is growing slowly or not all.  Data ages, people change and your list shrinks.  Without a process for active planning for acquisition and a continual focus on growing your list, your list will shrink and the quality will deteriorate. Keep in mind that both paid search and co-registration programs performed poorly in comparison to other list growth tactics such as offering exclusive content or using the good old website registration page.

And in terms of improving your email deliverability? This area is lacking somewhat. 60% of you provide an easy unsubscribe process, (But that’s still 30% of you who don’t) And only 50% of you remove bounces, and worse still only 40% report they regularly clean their lists. There is some work to be done here!

What about triggered emails? This powerful area of email marketing often brings the greatest results however it is sorely underutilised. Just 50% of respondents report they deploy welcome emails. That is 50% of people who don’t! And most other types of triggered email activity are only being used by 19% – 35% of respondents. Overall, surveyed marketers did not appear to commonly re-engage subscribers, as just 15% indicated their organisations sent win-back emails, and just 9% sent shopping cart abandonment reminders. That leaves a lot of room for improvement.

One of the biggest things that may be stopping people achieving all their email marketing goals is the fact that 54% report inadequate staffing resources, expertise or time, as noted in this comment: “Our greatest challenge is time. We have been doing email campaigning for about 18 months, so we are still learning. We have a robust database but lack time and resources to mine it like we could.”

One other area of concern that came out of this report was a lack of capability to properly segment and target recipients, as little more than half of respondents indicated they could segment their lists by email engagement behaviour (55%) or purchase history (53%), and just 38% said the same about user-declared personal preferences. Even fewer (28%) could segment based on user device habits. “This is telling, as it shows a distinct gap between marketer actions, and the wants and needs of subscribers”

So what’s the bottom line? “Email remains a marketer’s most effective tool in terms of content reach. But, even the widest-cast net won’t produce results if your readers aren’t compelled by your content, or, even worse, aren’t receiving it at all. Proper list growth and management, alongside engaging, consistently delivered content, are the keys to maximizing email effectiveness.”

Hotels.com have recently sent out a campaign, in which they have sent out a survey to find out how their subscribers read their email.

Within their email they had a section with a call to action image saying ‘how do you read your email?’ and that was linked to this survey

This quiz asked recipients  things like what their email behaviours are like on mobile vs desktop, and asked subscribers about what time of day they are the most likely to read emails on their mobile, what is the most frequent type of emails you read on your mobile, what are some of the most annoying things for subscribers when they try read your email on their mobile,  and what would prevent you from making purchases on your mobile.

It is really valuable to see where and how your subscribers are reading your communications. Not only does it allow you to know what time of day they are reading them, you know if they are reading on tablet, smartphone or desktop, and by learning their preferences, you get a clearer idea on who your subscribers are, what’s the best time to send your email, and you can then start to assess demographic and preferences of your subscribers so ultimately you can send more timely, relevant emails.

So take a page out of Hotels.com ‘email book’, check out their email survey, and start thinking about how much or how little you know about how your subscriber’s read your emails and see how easy it is to find out.

If you’d like to know how to make sure you send mobile-friendly emails download our *free* white-paper here, and of course if you need a hand to redesign our specialist email design team is right here and ready to take your brief.

The Year of The Mobile? 

Industry pundits have been predicting for some years that “this year” (whichever year they happen to be in) is The Year Of The Mobile. We’re not sure that any year is going to stand up to that sort of hype, but let’s label 2013 “The Year That Mobile Really, Really Matters”.

Why?

Let’s overwhelm that simple enquiry with a deluge of data:

In October 2012, Statistics New Zealand announced that more than half of New Zealanders are now accessing the Internet via a mobile phone. That official benediction confirms what other researchers have been reporting:

• 36% of Kiwis have shopped online via a mobile device during the past 12 months (NZ Online Shopping Survey, PwC and Frost & Sullivan, July 2012)

Nielsen New Zealand’s “The Year That Was” report on 2012 notes that smartphone ownership has grown by over 11% in 2012 (1.7 million New Zealanders now have a smartphone) and there has been 52% growth in the number of people using their smartphone features. Tablet ownership has more than doubled to reach 395,000 and electronic book readers are now owned by over 5% of New Zealanders.

And from the study “Our Mobile Planet New Zealand”, Google/Ipsos OTA Media CT, May 2012:

• 59% of smartphone owners access the internet on their smartphones at least once a day
• 80% of smartphone owners use their phones for communication
• 55% to stay informed
• 86% for entertainment
• 38% of smartphone owners search on their mobiles every day
• 66% have researched a product or service on their phone
• 53% have searched for product information
• 35% for information on restaurants, pubs or bars
• 27% for travel information

International research (reported in the book Go Mobile by Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner) confirms that mobile means money:

• 9 out of 10 mobile searches lead to action
• Over half lead to purchase
• Mobile coupons receive 10 times higher redemption rates than print coupons

And fast:

• 70% of mobile searches lead to action within one hour (mobilemarketer.com)

As you’d expect, mobile searches are used for enquiries on the go:

• 74% of smartphone users use their phone to help with shopping
• 79% ultimately make a purchase as a result

All in all, it’s now not merely nice to have but essential that your website is mobile-friendly.

How does your website stack up ?

• Do you have a mobile version of your site that’s designed for today’s modern cellphones? Early mobile versioning software was very text-based, but today’s searchers (the post-iPhone generation) expect visual pizzazz, even on the ultrasmall screen.
• How does your site actually look on a mobile phone? Does it support or denigrate your brand?
• How quickly does the site load? 60% of mobile web users say they expect a site to load on their mobile phone in three seconds or less — and 74% won’t wait more than five seconds before moving on.
• Are there any broken or hidden images? iPhones and iPads don’t display Flash files, so if your website relies on Flash you have a problem.
• Is the site easy to read on a small device? Users hate having to zoom just to read the basic content.
• Are links easy to click on with thumbs? We live in a touchscreen world, but human thumbs haven’t shrunk.

A few more numbers to shape your thinking. Yahoo! has assembled a collection of compelling statistics:

• 75% of customers prefer a mobile-friendly site
• 76% want mobile pages to fit their screens better
• 74% want the option to navigate to a full site
• 69% say they want mobile sites to have bigger buttons
• 52% say they’re less likely to engage with a company if their mobile experience was bad
• 48% of users become annoyed with sites that have not been optimised for mobile devices
• 48% say that if a mobile site isn’t working well, it’s an indication of the business simply not caring [which, when we think about it, is a horrible thing to say]

Okay, we think you get the drift.

Once your website is a mobile wunderkind, however, what else can marketers do to take advantage of mobile opportunities?

According to xAd‘s “Mobile-Local Performance 2012 Year In Review“, advertisers now have the power to reach audiences in the following ways:

PLACE-BASED
When users are in or around specific businesses or locations

POI (POINTS OF INTEREST)
Ability to target users that are in or around areas of interest which may or may not have a stated postal address available for the entire target area such as airports, colleges and universities, marathon routes, etc.

BEHAVIOURAL
The ability to leverage anonymous geo-specific behavioral data, such as past mobile searches and visitation behaviors to target users at the exact moment when they are in need of your products or services.

EVENT TARGETING
Ability to serve targeted ads to audiences that are attending a specific event such as sports game, concert or industry conference.

In 2012, xAd found that the most popular form of mobile audience targeting in the U.S. was, unsurprisingly, Place-Based (67%) followed by behavioural targeting (20%).

What Categories Are Best For Mobile Marketing?

According to xAd, the most-searched-on-mobile categories of 2012 were:

1. Restaurants
2. Travel
3. Health & Beauty
4. Retail
5. Professional Services
6. Financial/Insurance Services
7. Auto
8. Real Estate
9. Entertainment
10. Business Services

So how effective can mobile marketing be?

From xAd:

Calvin Klein used place-based and geo-behaviour-targeted advertising to promote the availability of its products at local retail stores. The resulting campaign exceeded the client’s CTR benchmark by 26% while helping to increase local sales during the campaign period.

From The Drum:

Debenhams UK reported that it had generated an additional £1m in sales in five months through a smart phone app that allows customers to scan QR codes in advertising and store windows, and ‘snap’ product barcodes to display information such as customer reviews.

From MobileMarketer.com:

H&M saw a click-through rate of 2.3 percent when it geo-fenced (i.e. served mobile marketing messages based on the geographic boundaries of) stores locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York to generate excitement around the David Beckham Bodywear line.

Credit: Michael Carney, Marketing Monitor

A February 2013 analysis of email marketing messages distributed by Vision6 on behalf of Australia-based companies found that open rates had held pretty steady at around 22% over the preceding two years.  The study is produced twice per year for the preceding 6 month period.  In the graph here you can see the four periods compared shows some fluctuations.  Open rates hold steady, while click to open rates, bounce rates and overall click through rates all show slight declines.

The most popular day to send email was Thursday for the first three periods, and then Wednesday overtook for the last period reported on July – December 2012.

While the overall CTR was 3.83% in industry splits, the Retail and consumer products had better luck than most, registering a CTR of 4.6%.

Vision6 also found sharp growth in the use of mobile devices to access email, a reminder that marketers should take care to ensure their messages are properly formatted for smartphones and tablets. In the second half of 2012, one-third of email marketing messages were opened on mobile devices. That’s up from the first half of the year, when mobile accounted for around one-quarter of email opens.

Email readership on mobile devices is growing so fast that soon it will be the predominant platform for email consumption, and mobile email consumption may overtake all other platforms even sooner. We are way beyond just ‘planning for mobile’ – it is now imperative to design your campaigns and landing pages to be easy to view and work well on a mobile device.

Return Path’s Tom Sather, senior director of email research, says:

“Looking at the trend lines of our clients, we’ll probably see mobile overtaking web-mail and desktop by the end June as the preferred platform, but definitely by the end of the year.” As a result, Sather said: “Marketers need to wake up and think about their mobile strategy. More than half of all marketers have no idea if people are reading their email on mobile devices.”  

He goes on to say “A lot of people talk about optimizing email for mobile devices, which is kind of a no-brainer, but a lot of people don’t think beyond the email. If they do click on a link and they come to a landing page, is that optimised for mobile as well? Studies have shown that less than 2 percent of people will revisit an email on their desktop or laptop, so you really only have one chance to make a good first impression.”

 However, Sather cautions against discounting other platforms. “But just because mobile is the rage, don’t forget about desktop email clients such as Outlook, as well as web mail,” he said.
We agree Tom. To back that up, here is our list of the most important mobile email design considerations and best practices:

Make sure you optimise your emails and landing pages for mobile. Email open rates have increased since last year and last quarter, but click-through rates have declined. This is most likely because they are abandoned after consumers open them on mobile devices and the messages are not optimised. With mobile you only have 1 chance to get the recipient to read your email and to click through to landing pages. If you are directing people to your website or landing page and it doesn’t look good or load or operate well on mobile, people will leave – and find another site that does work.

Think about where, when and how people read emails on mobile. In a recent survey, it was discovered 70% of users read emails in bed before going to sleep or first thing before waking up. So be mindful of this in terms of your design, and don’t use bright images which might be hard on the eyes for those reading your emails in the dark or as they are just waking up.

Reduce the template width to fit a smaller screen. We recommend you set the width of your email template to 640 pixels or less. Smartphones have screens between 320 and 480 pixels wide, so if your email is 640 pixels wide it is both suitable for desktop viewing, and is suitable for viewing on smartphones too.

From name and subject line become even more important for mobile. We know the from name is important already – but it becomes even more so due to the fact that the very first thing you see on your mobile, is your from name. So this to me becomes the most important facet of the mobile email. This is closely followed by your subject line. Make sure your subject line is punchy, strong, and we recommend no longer than 35 characters. This is how many characters you see.  

Space is at a premium so make it simple and save on real estate. Use one-line pre-header text. Pre-headers are usually 1-2 lines of HTML text at the very top of the email. They are ideal for hand held devices to highlight an enticing offer, making it the first thing prospects read before they even consider downloading images. Keep key content above the fold. (This will be the top 200 to 250 pixels). This area is prime real estate for the 3 to 5 seconds a prospect is focused on your email message, so it needs to have useful, readable text, or a very clear image. Be mindful to incorporate branding and offer-driven text above the fold.

It doesn’t have to be brevity central… if it’s good enough, it will be saved for later. On a mobile you obviously have less space so eliminate unnecessary content and put the focus on the key parts of the message. However don’t strip everything out – creating mobile friendly emails is a balancing act, where your shorter message should be comfortably able to be viewed, read and actioned on a small screen. Longer messages can always be saved for when subscribers get home and can read them in full on a larger screen. Mobile users will delete any long emails that are ineffective, but they will save your email for later if it’s well designed with great content.

Bigger, Bolder call to actions – think of the thumbs! It is crucial you increase the size and padding of text links and call-to-action buttons throughout your emails. A typical adult finger covers 45 pixels, and it is no accident Apple makes all their app icons 44 x 44 pixels! Make sure your calls-to-action are padded by at least 10 to 15 pixels to avoid frustrating and accidental finger tapping errors.

Because it’s on a smaller screen, you can use larger fonts. This is where we do recommend you use a slightly larger font to keep things easy to read. However still stay with web safe fonts, and use a font size of 12-14 point for body copy and headlines at 20-22 point. Keep in mind that the larger font means you’ll have even less space, so keep your content brief.

Please do download the Jericho Mobile Email Whitepaper here now and share with your colleagues.

There is obviously a plethora of mobile infographics, links, resources, tips and advice everywhere you look however this is really intended as our list of vital mobile email design considerations that we really want you all to know….

If you have any queries please contact us, and remember we have an expert in house design team that you can contact for advice at any time.

New Zealand mobile internet use:

*Smartphones users are in the majority in New Zealand, with more than half of all kiwis using their mobile phone to access the internet, according to government figures.   (In the 12 months up to June 2012)… the number of mobile broadband subscribers rose 34 percent, so there are now over 2.5 million mobile broadband users in New Zealand.

“We’ve seen data usage on our network roughly quadruple over the past two years,” Vodafone’s external communication manager Emma Carter said. “As more and more people move to smartphones – as almost 50 percent of our customers are now doing – they start using the internet on the move for everything from maps to Facebook to researching products and services.”

Two Degrees Mobile, the newest entrant in the mobile phone market, has continued to grab sales from bigger rivals Telecom and Vodafone New Zealand, boosting its market share to 1 million customers, or 21 percent of the country’s mobile market, in August.

Vodafone is still the biggest local carrier with 2.37 million customers.

New Zealand mobile device market share:
See our previous blog posts on market share here: and the long running post which helps you to see changes over time is found here.
NBR updates their post but not for a whole – read the latest they have,  here.

Australia Market Share of mobile smartphone sales :

**This statistic shows the market share of the leading operating systems for smartphones sales in Australia from June 2011 to October 2012. From July to October 2012, Android had a 62.2 percent share of the Australian smartphone market.  Android is far ahead, but has ceded some ground because of the iPhone 5 launch. Apple’s gain has been sharp in Australia. Windows Phone’s performance is flat indicating no impact of the launch of the Lumia 920 or other WP8 devices.

SmartCompany says: Android has claimed a dominant lead in the Australian smartphone market with a market share of 62.2%, with the platform pulling ahead of Apple.  The figures, compiled by ComTech, examined Australian smartphone market share by platform during the quarter ending October 28, 2012.  Read their whole story here.

*Source: Business Desk via Sharechat.co.nz

**You will find more statistics at Statista

Updated 2 May 2013

Apple smartphones are on the decline while Samsung’s star is burning brighter, but the iPhone and iPad manufacturer is still leaps and bounds ahead of competitors in New Zealand, according to mobile ad network InMobi. See the infographic here.

Updated Feb 22 2013.

Mobile continues to take over the world and many of us would rather leave the dog, Passport, wallet or hubby at home than our phone.

What proportion of your customers are interacting with your website using a mobile device?

We’ve decided to share the Trade Me browser statistics to this blog, providing a very handy resource for kiwi web and marketing teams who are able to validate their own observations on browser trends in New Zealand. TradeMe have promised to update these every three months.

UPDATE: In 18 months TradeMe website visits on mobile devices grew from less than 10% in July 2011 to 35% today according to their new report – read article here.

Click here to read their mobile and browser use facts

Key points they make:

• iOS share holds steady at about 50%
• Android continues on its steady rise
• The proportion of total site visits that are from a mobile device is over 25% and is growing – that’s all phones & tablets.  We are doing a lot of TradeMe on our lap on the iPad as we watch telly i think.  (N.B. This stat on TradeMe was shared in person from TradeMe at a recent NZ conference I attended, as at October 2012, and is not in the site stats linked here.)

Remember our earlier and ongoing post regarding smartphone use in New Zealand?  Many searches come via queries on that post on mobile marketshare in New Zealand so we will update that too as we have done for well over a year now.