Brand Building Is Primary Goal for 47% of Email Marketers New Survey Says, but Fostering Subscriber Growth and Engagement Remains a Challenge

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly half of email marketers say brand building and engagement is their primary goal for email marketing. However, most email marketers find the tasks needed to reach this goal challenging, according to a new survey conducted by Clutch, a leading B2B ratings and reviews site.

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The top tasks email marketers find most challenging are:

1. Targeting and segmenting audiences (40%)
2. Increasing subscribers (38%)
3. Tracking results (37%)

Clutch used this data and more to explain why these three tasks prove so challenging for medium and large businesses in the US and to lay out steps marketers can take to overcome the hurdles. Although email marketing has the highest return on investment (ROI), how an organization uses email ultimately determines its value.

"Every marketer knows that email typically drives the best potential ROI when compared to search, social, and most other tactics, offline or online," said Michael Barber, Founder of barber&hewitt, a strategy and planning firm focused on business-to-business (B2B) organizations.

When it comes to targeting and segmenting subscribers, email marketers struggle to collect and interpret insightful data about their audience, according to Samantha Anderl, Senior Director of Demand Generation at Campaign Monitor.

"Many marketers find it difficult to integrate their data," Anderl said. "Making your subscribers feel like each email is generated directly for them – a one-to-one message rather than a one-to-many message – will make them more likely to interact and convert."

Clutch also found that email marketers strongly emphasize the importance of subscriber list growth. 75% named subscriber list growth the most important email metric to track.

The email marketers surveyed say they collect subscriber information from opt-in forms on their company's website (61%), social media (60%), and data collected from online purchases (58%). A surprising 28% admit to buying or renting email lists.

Besides making it easy for people to subscribe, marketers also must demonstrate their emails' usefulness, according to Kayla Lewkowicz, Marketing Coordinator at Litmus, a web-based email creation, testing, and analytics platform.

"The best way to get people to subscribe…is for email marketers to show them that their brand adds value beyond sending them a sales pitch," Lewkowicz said. "Email marketers should help showcase fantastic, helpful content or a great product that adds value."

The report also describes how to determine which metrics are most important to track based on an organization's overall email marketing goals.

For more information, view the complete report here: https://clutch.co/marketing/email#survey

Clutch's Email Marketing Survey 2016 included 303 respondents who describe themselves as either expert, advanced, or intermediate email marketers. They work at companies with more than 100 employees, with 47% representing companies with more than 500 employees.

About Clutch

A B2B ratings and reviews firm in the heart of Washington, DC, Clutch connects you with the agencies and software solutions that can help you enhance your business and meet your goals. Our methodology maps agencies and software solutions based on consumer reviews, the type of services offered, and quality of work.

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SOURCE Clutch