How to Succeed at Email Marketing in 2024 [Stats, Tips & Tools]

This article is part of our 2023 Content Marketing playbook. 

Email marketing has historically been one of the most effective and ubiquitous digital marketing strategies. And in 2023, it offers new opportunities, but it also poses new challenges.

The mass adoption of email marketing leaves users’ inboxes saturated with low-value messages. This makes your users’ attention extremely hard to get - and it’s never been so valuable.

In this post, we’ll help you prepare to get the most out of your email marketing in 2023.

We’ll share:

• 23 email marketing stats that will help you make the right decisions
• Answers to the 8 most common email marketing questions
• Our 5 favorite email marketing tools for 2023

Ready? Let’s dive in!

23 Email Marketing Stats to Guide Your Decision-Making in 2023

Being aware of the latest email marketing stats and benchmarks can help you understand what is currently working and what isn’t.

It also helps you to:

• Set realistic expectations for your campaigns
• Identify opportunities for improvement
• Test your email campaigns intelligently
• Set email marketing priorities

Here’s a round-up of 23 email marketing stats that will help you make the right decisions in 2023:

Email Marketing Adoption Stats

• 90% of marketers use email to distribute organic content (Digital Marketing Institute, 2020)
• 81% of small and growing businesses rely on email for customer acquisition (Emarsys, 2018)
• 80% of small and growing businesses use email marketing as part of their customer retention strategy (Emarsys, 2018)
• Weekly newsletter signups have increased 34.9% since March 2020 (Mailerlite, 2021)
• Average open rates have increased 7% since 2020 (Mailerlite, 2021)

The ROI of Email Marketing

• Email has an average ROI of $42 per every dollar spent (DMA, 2019)
• Segmenting your email list can result in an increase in revenue of up to 760% (CampaignMonitor)
• 60% of consumers have made a purchase motivated by a marketing email (ConstantContact)
• 20% of all eCommerce transactions can be attributed to email marketing (Bariliance)
• Companies sending 9-16 marketing emails per month see a ROI of $46 per dollar spent (Litmus)

Email Marketing Dissatisfaction Stats

• 70% of millenials report feeling frustrated about receiving irrelevant marketing emails (Forbes, 2022)
• The average email marketing unsubscription rate across industries is 0.25%. (Mailchimp, 2022)
• Photo and video services & the fitness sector have the higher unsubscription rate across industries: 0.40%. (Mailchimp, 2022)
• 72% of customers prefer to connect with brands via email versus other channels. (SnovIO Labs)

Industry Benchmarks

• Welcome emails raise click-through rates and can increase your open rates up to 78% percent (Mailerlite, 2022)
• The average open rate across industries in 22.71% (Mailchimp, 2022)
• The average click-through rate across industries is 2.91% (Mailchimp, 2022)
• Birthday emails generate up to 481% higher transaction rates, 179% higher CTR and 53% higher open rates. Additionally, their revenue is up to 342% higher than that of average emails (Mailerlite, 2021)

Email Marketing Optimization Stats

• Including the word “video” in an email subject line increases its open rate by 19% and its click-through rate by 65% (Syndacast, 2015)
• Emails with personalized subject lines have a 50% higher open rate than their non-personalized counterparts (Oberlo, 2022)
• Including videos in your emails increases engagement by 300% (Martech Advisor, 2017)
• Sending 3 abandoned cart emails generates 69% more conversions than sending a single message (Omnisend, 2018)
• Tuesday is the best day of the week to send a marketing email. Monday & Wednesday are also recommended (Husbpost, 2021)

Top 8 Email Marketing Questions, Answered

Email marketing is a powerful tool for reaching and engaging with your audience, but it can also be complex and overwhelming. There are numberless different strategies, tactics, and technologies to choose from. So it’s no wonder that many founders and marketers have questions about how to get started and make the most of their email marketing efforts.

In this section, we’ll answer 8 of the most frequently asked questions about email marketing. We’ll cover top email marketing priorities, such as:

• How to build an email marketing list
• The best time and frequency for sending marketing emails
• How to write more compelling email marketing messages
• How to improve campaign performance

Let’s dive in!

How to build an email list for marketing?

Beautifully written campaigns won’t get you very far without a good email list. If you’ve never done email marketing before, you may be wondering how to obtain email addresses for email marketing in the first place. 

You can build an email marketing list by:

• Adding a lead capture form to your blog
• Automatically adding new users (whether they’re on a trial, free plan, or paid plan)
• Re-connecting with churned users

In short, we recommend you build a list of people who’ve already engaged with your brand. You should also add lead capture mechanisms to your blog and other content-focused pages.

We don’t recommend you:

• Buy email marketing lists
• Add prospects who’ve never interacted with your brand to an email marketing list
• Add a lead pop-up on all your pages

What is the best time to send a marketing email?

As we mentioned in the stats section, the best time to send marketing emails is between Tuesday and Thursday, within work hours.

We don’t recommend you send marketing emails on Monday, because your receipients are just getting started with their week. And on Friday, people are in a hurry to get the important things off their plates. So, anytime between Tuesday and Thursday will probably be better than Monday or Friday.

However, feel free to experiment and test.

How often should you send email marketing?

We’ve already figured out how to build an email marketing list and when to send your emails. So, you may be wondering how often you should send email marketing messages.

The frequency with which you send marketing emails will depend on a number of factors, including:

• Your audience’s preferences
• The type of content you’re sending
• Your overall email marketing goals

In general, you should aim to strike a balance between sending emails often enough to keep your brand top of mind, but not so often that you become a nuisance or spam your audience.

We recommend you take a look at what competitors and industry leaders are doing and begin by copying their frequency. Most brands send emails on a weekly or monthly basis.

Check how your audience reacts and begin adjusting the frequency of your messages accordingly.

Additionally, consider that, when it comes to inbound marketing, consistency is key. So, if you can’t run a weekly newsletter, consider making your messages monthly or bi-weekly.

As always, it’s all about finding what works for you and for your audience.

How to write a good marketing email

There are hundreds of blog posts, webinars, and e-books outlying the anatomy of a good marketing email.

In short, you should:

• Write a great subject line that incentivizes your audience to click without deceiving or misleading them
• Segment your audience and personalize your message
• Be brief and go straight to the point
• Prevent decision paralysis by providing a single CTA
• Be genuine - don’t write a newsletter, write an email

Following those 5 tips is usually enough to guarantee a good quality baseline. 

How to increase click rate in email marketing

There isn’t a surefire way to increase click rates in email marketing. But, if your click rates are worryingly low, it may be because:

• The content of your email doesn’t match your subject line, so recipients get interested at first, but don’t engage when they see the actual content.
• You’re not delivering content your audience is actually interested in, either due to a poor personalization or a lack of user insights.
• Your audience isn’t properly segmented, so you’re not sending the right messages to the right people.
• Your emails are not optimized for mobile devices, so links and buttons are hard to click
• Your sending frequency is too high, which desensitizes your audience

How long should a marketing email be?

The ideal length for a marketing email will depend on various factors, including:

• The type of content you’re sending
• Your sending frequency
• Your goals
• Your audience’s preferences

But, unless you’re sending a narrative or journalistic newsletter, we recommend keeping your messages short. Additionally, you should keep your subject line short. The 50-60 characters range is usually best. Long subject lines are likely to get truncated. 

There isn’t a specific recommended word count for marketing messages. But we recommend staying under 300 words. Keep the body of your email focused and concise. Especially if you’ll have more than one CTA, establishing a clear sense of hierarchy is key. 

Additionally, use formatting and design to break up your content.

How can email marketing fuel your overall inbound strategy in the upcoming year?

Email marketing is great for:

• Distributing content to an audience that has already shown interest in your brand, which guarantees that your content will get seen and interacted with
• Using content to nurture leads and reactivate dormant opportunities, which increases your content’s ROI
• Connecting with your audience in a way that feels personal and direct, which is one of inbound marketing’s fundamental goals
• Sharing exclusive resources and inviting your audience to events, which helps to build and strenghten your community

How does GDPR affect email marketing?

GDPR applies to all email marketing activities that involve EU citizens. This means you must get explicit consent from the recipient before sending any emails. Also, the emails you send must provide an easy way for the recipient to opt-out. Failure to comply results in steep fines.

We’re not legal experts - but, here are a few practices we implement to make sure we comply with the GDPR:

• We never send “cold emails” through our email marketing platform and list
• We never add people who’ve never interacted with your brand to our mailing list
• We link our Privacy Policy to all our newsletter subscription pop-ups
• We don’t implement design dark patterns to prevent users from unsubscribing

Our Top 5 Email Marketing Tools for 2023

Mailchimp

There are many email marketing platforms out there. Mailchimp is our favorite one so far. It’s accessible, it’s cost-efficient, and it will probably integrate with most tools in your stack.

Mailchimp starts at $13/month.

Our favorite feature: Automated sequences. Automated sequences aren’t unique to Mailchimp, but Mailchimp’s approach to this feature is both accessible and highly malleable. The platform’s segmentation features are also noteworthy.

Our least favorite feature: Mailchimp has a strong anti-cryptocurrency policy. Mailchimp’s reasoning behind this decision is that the crypto space is more prone to spam & questionable communication practices than other spaces. But this industry-wide takedown has affected some legitimate crypto companies. If you’re in the Web3 space, we recommend you choose Mailerlite, instead of Mailchimp.

Postcards

DesignModo’s Postcards is a visual email builder. It allows you to create responsive emails and export them to your favorite mailing platform.

Our favorite feature: The builder’s interface is extremely intuitive. Is anything else worth mentioning? Yes, its Google Fonts integration, as well as its carefully planned image-hosting & optimization features. 

Our least favorite feature: No notable downsides. It’s a simple tool that does what it promises. 

ReallyGoodEmails

ReallyGoodEmails is a curated collection of great marketing emails. We highly recommend it as a source of inspiration. In a sense, it’s like Good Sales Emails, but for email marketing. Access to the collection is free. But, if you want to collaborate with your team, you’ll need a paid plan.

Our favorite feature: The collection is very well-segmented. 

Our least favorite feature: Not a feature, but we consider that some teams may not see much value in RGE’s paid plan.

GPT-3 & AI-Powered Copywriting Tools

You shouldn’t fully automate your content creation. But AI-powered copywriting tools can be time-saving. Especially when it comes to writing marketing emails. 

Our favorite feature:  The ability to get rough drafts (and iterations!) fast and cost-effectively.

Our least favorite feature: AI-powered tools are great if used as an assistant, not a replacement. With that in mind, there are no major downsides.

A Content Team that Knows Email

Email marketing can be very challenging. And this is especially true for startups. 

In this post, we shared (almost) everything you need to keep in mind to succeed at email marketing in 2023. 

Struggling with email marketing & content distribution?

At Postdigitalist, we develop & implement content marketing strategies for B2B startups. 

With our help, our partners:

• Increase their organic visibility and traffic
• Elevate their lead nurturing processes
• Establish their brand as a niche leader

Start growing with content in 2023. Discover our content services or get in touch.

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