According to Ascend2 and their Research Partners, Email has become the most prolific marketing channel. Consequently, a successful email list strategy is crucial to the overall performance of marketing. But what are the most significant barriers to the success of an email list strategy, and how are marketers overcoming them, asks the report.
The Email List Strategy Survey, and completed interviews with marketing influencers, was completed during the week of January 4, 2016. The charts study, titled Email List Strategy Survey Summary Report, represent the average of all market segments responding to the survey.
This survey was conducted online from a panel of more than 50,000 professionals representing the following company sizes, roles and channels:
Number of Employees
Role in the Company
Primary Marketing Channel
Increasing the quality of email list data is a top objective for 70% of companies surveyed. 56% of companies said an increase in lead conversion rates is an important goal.
“We’re under pressure to perform. So when it comes to establishing email list goals worth achieving, quality trumps quantity, ” says a respondent.
Most Important Goals Of An Email List Strategy | |
Goal | % of Respondents |
Increase email list quality | 70% |
Increase lead conversion | 56 |
Increase eMail open rates | 39 |
Increase click-through rates | 38 |
Increase eMail list size | 38 |
Improve eMail list segmentation | 31 |
Reduce eMail list attrition | 9 |
Source: Ascend2, January 2016 |
Achieving the most important goal of increasing email list quality is having an impact, says the report. 46% of companies said email list quality is increasing, while quality is decreasing for only 16%.
“Getting email subscribers is easy. Getting email subscribers that are also quality prospects is the hard part…”
Email List Quality Changes % of Respondents
Quality is
Increasing &nbs
p; 46%
Quality not changing
38
Quality
decreasing   ;  
; & nbsp; 16
Source: Ascend2, January 2016
Increasing email list size, regardless of quality, is not a top priority for marketers today, yet email list size continues to increase for a majority of companies.
Email List Size Changes % of Respondents
Size is
Increasing  
; 55%
Size not
changing &nbs
p; 27
Size decreasing
18
Source: Ascend2, January 2016
Lack of an effective list strategy is the most significant obstacle to email list success. An effective list strategy will tackle the next most significant success barrier –poor email subscriber quality.
“ If we don’t know where we’re going, we won’t know when we get there, is why we need an effective email list strategy…”
Most Significant Barriers to Email Strategy Success | |
Barrier | % of Respondents |
Lack of effective strategy | 49% |
Poor subscriber quality | 39 |
Inadequate list hygiene | 35 |
Inadequate list segmentation | 34 |
Low subscriber volume | 34 |
Misconstrued as spam | 29 |
Lack of list management expertise | 27 |
Source: Ascend2, January 2016 |
36% of email list strategies are unsuccessful at achieving goals. However, 9% of email list strategies are very successful at overcoming the barriers to achieving important goals.
How Successful is Your Strategy In Overcoming Barriers and Achieving Goals | |
Success Level | % of Respondents |
Very successful | 9% |
Somewhat | 55 |
Unsuccessful | 36 |
Source: Ascend2, January 2016 |
Email-specific landing pages and content download registrations are the most effective tactics used to achieve email list strategy success.
“Offering content of interest to our target audience is still the most effective tactic we use to capture email subscribers.”
Most Effective Tactics For Strategy Success | |
Successful Strategy | % of Respondents |
Email specific landing pages | 53% |
Content download registrations | 46 |
Social media integrations | 41 |
Website access registrations | 31 |
Subscriber only offers | 29 |
Paid search campaigns | 15 |
Source: Ascend2, January 2016 |
The degree of tactical difficulty often determines the resources required to execute them. This is the reason 55% of companies outsource the execution of all or part of their email list tactics, concludes the report.
Resources Used to Execute eMail List Tactics | |
Resource | % of Respondents |
Combination of Outsourced and In-house | 48% |
In-house only | 45 |
Outsourced to a specialist | 7 |
Source: Ascend2, January 2016 |
For more information about the study please visit Ascend2 here.