• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 7, 2017

As noted,  the Econstancy survey released yesterday barely touched on email—it said only that 46% of the respondents were increasing their budgets. A reader had to look at other findings to see the improvements that might trickle down to email.

Well, here are some new email insights, although we’re not clear as to the source. If we’re reading this correctly, Email Industries curated data from several sources and put the information in a chart. And it listed these predictions for 2017.

First, data analysis. It’s the top activity for over 30%, representing a massive leap over 2016. Second is email ESPs, which also jumped over the prior year. Content, too, enjoyed an increase.

To that degree, this study is at least partly in tune with Econstancy’s report. But there’s one glaring contradiction: Econstancy says that investment in data analytics is lagging, whereas this report lists it as a priority. Indeed, Econstancy found that the top priority is improving the customer experience. 

Don’t think that everyone’s moving ahead on all fronts. First, there’s been a massive year-to-year decline for segmentation, although that discipline is still in the top four, according to this new report.

But segmentation is the backbone of effective email marketing, or any marketing. And it’s tied to data analytics.

Automation also plummeted, and there were lesser plunges for social and list growth; the latter sank from the high to low single digits. Mobile remains stagnant at less than 10%.

We have to say that the methodology seems fuzzy: There’s no discussion of who was surveyed, or where they are. But the commentary by Gerald Marshall is more positive than some of the findings seem to warrant.

For example, Marshall mitigates the segmentation falloff by stating that “hyper-personalization is the goal for 2017.” He adds that “one to one marketing will become the new norm. No longer will just an email address be enough for marketing. Algorithms applied to behavior of subscribers will predict what they will do next.”

And mobile? Don’t worry if you’re in that business. “Desktop will continue to fade in favor of mobile ads and web sites will transform from a novelty in B2C to a main staple for all digital advertising,” writes Marshall, who is head of operations at Email Industries.  

He also states that “bots will be the future of email marketing. Chatbots will bring customer service into the realm of AI and reduce friction in the in-app experience.”

Sound crazy? Hardly. It all has the germ of truth in it. So file it away and mull it into a better report comes along.