Recently, I came across this post on Socialsmallbiz.com, titled “Americans Are Shunning Email in Favor of Social Media.” Naturally, I was intrigued, and the post was an interesting write-up of a study by email marketing company Implix.
However, the headline doesn’t seem to ring true. Yes, the rates of social media adoption in the US have skyrocketed-your mom and maybe even your grandma are on Facebook now. But are Americans really avoiding their email inboxes?
I don’t think so. The study by Implix tracked 1,652,000,000 marketing emails sent from Implix’ s platform between July and of December 2009. Implix did find that Americans were a good deal less likely to open emails than their European counterparts. Emails sent to Americans had an open rate of 10.76%, while the open rate for emails sent to Europeans was greater than 13%.
Additionally, Americans proved to be much less likely to click on links in emails than their European counterparts. In a press release announcing the results of the research, Simon Grabowski, CEO of Implix, said
“Our study shows how serious the problems of e-mail fatigue and low engagement have become in North America. Fewer than one out of every three recipients opened and clicked on a link. And only one out of every eight subscribers who clicked on links did it twice .”
But are we really becoming less engaged with our email, or have we just become better at tuning out the spam? Other research suggests its more likely the latter than the former. For example, Merkle Inc recently released a study that found that the amount of time people spent on personal email use is unchanged from last year : 71% of respondents spend 20 minutes or more each week on it.
In fact, the study also showed that social media users were more engaged with their email inboxes than non-social media users. We aren’t shunning email in favor of social media, we’ve just become more selective about the emails we open and the links we click on.
What’s the answer? Of course, step one is to maintain your customer’s trust by not abusing the access they’ve given you. Don’t email too often, and provide compelling offers when you do. Make sure that your most loyal customers stay excited about receiving your emails!
Next, get your customers to help you spread the word about your company. The easiest way to do this is to allow them to share the offers you send with their friends and family. If they really like your products and you haven’t abused their goodwill by overwhelming them with email, they’ll be more than happy to introduce your brand to their loved ones.
Remember, the low offer rate in the Implix study was for emails sent as part of an email marketing campaign. Emails sent from one friend to another, on the other hand, are almost guaranteed to be opened, unless the sender is one of those people that constantly spams their unfortunate friends with forwarded chain letters. You know the type!
Dukky’s platform allows you to create promotions that can be easily shared via email and social media, greatly expanding the reach of your campaign as your customers recommend you to their friends, and their friends recommend you to their friends, and so on and so forth. That’s why our platform generates such amazing response and conversion rates.
Plus, while your customers are sharing the love, our analytics dashboard is tracking it all in real-time.
