Report: Email Still Critical for Marketers Seeking More Customer Insight

Email has not always been the easiest channel for marketers to work with, but new research indicates that this is where customers leave most of their information about needs and expectations.

The CMO Council and Deloitte Digital recently came together to produce the “Humanizing and Analyzing Relationships to Drive Revenue, Retention and Returns” report, and statistics showed that email (73%) is by far the leading channel in terms of where customers leave information about their expectations and needs. This is followed by social media channels (54%) and web forms (54%).

When asked how effective email is as a channel for connecting with customers, the majority of marketers (39%) said “very effective,” while 17% said “extremely effective.” Only 3% of respondents said it wasn’t effective at all, suggesting that there is still room for improvement in terms of email utilization.

Marketers and Inbox Placement Rates

Some of the issues surrounding email may revolve around placement rate, but previous research indicates that marketers are improving in this area.

Validity published “The State of Email Marketing” report, and statistics showed that for the majority of respondents (39%), the effectiveness of email is holding steady. For 30% of marketers, it is improving slightly, while 8% said it was improving significantly.

That being said, most marketers (67%) reported an inbox placement rate of 89% or less, suggesting that many emails are still missing the target. Only 19% of marketers had an inbox placement rate of 90% or higher.