Features Business Marketing
Is email marketing dead? A closer look at the shifting landscape

What is the seven-second attention span? For the better part of the last decade email marketing campaigns have helped us attract people to the products we sell or the initiatives we have by capturing our audience in a mere seven seconds. These campaigns have seen an incredible return of US$40 for every US$1 spent.

The time may have come for us to mark the end of email’s long-standing reign though. Per a recent Forbes article, when a company surveyed hundreds of respondents in B2B marketing and sales roles to uncover the latest benchmarks in the industry, they found that 42 per cent of the respondents were no longer seeing the US$40 ROI. In fact, research shows that only 8 per cent of marketers found email marketing to be an effective avenue for lead generation, with some considering it their worst performing channel.

Authentication requirements

Email service providers like Google, Yahoo, and Apple have increased their security through authentication, which protects users and reduces spam. However, this makes it more difficult for legitimate marketing emails to reach the intended audience.

Privacy law

Data privacy laws are becoming more stringent, especially with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act(CCPA), and even the recent changes to Quebec’s privacy laws. The heavy penalties imposed for noncompliance can be extensive, not just in terms of fee, but also in the form of long-term reputational damage, loss of business, and the cost of remediation. Companies must be mindful of these data privacy laws, which might limit the scope and effectiveness of their email campaigns.

Tough spam thresholds

Emails sent from the highest credibility domains and formatted for best practices can still land in junk. This is just one more factor negatively impacting your email marketing efforts. Plus, once an email lands in the spam folder, future emails may also get stuck there.

Email fatigue

Reports show that many people have two or more email addresses. What this suggests is that people subscribe to so many organizations that it’s rare for an email from a individual company to stick out. Unless it’s your favourite brand or something specific you are keeping an eye out for, most of the emails will be overlooked.

Ease of unsubscribe

The last big factor on our list is the fact that it is easier than ever to unsubscribe from email lists.

Implications

The biggest takeaway for marketers is that marketing needs to be more human. Building meaningful relationships and delivering value will be the cornerstone to generating revenue and meeting yearly objectives. The only way to do this is to understand what your buyers are doing and pay attention to the data you have. We have seen how marketing teams can adapt to quick changes in the industry, such as the rise of social media. Quick pivots to understand the information in your hand will help strengthen what we lose from the spray and pray marketing method.

Tactics for print

The continued growth in technology only strengthens our ability to make quick shifts. Being able to help our clients understand their database and find new ways to enable human interaction leads back to our advancements in variable technology. If we can continue to become savvier internally as data analysts, we can come up with strategies that will bring more value to our clients. The time is now to interject ourselves back into the market by showcasing the ROI we can bring by using data and advancements in variable technology. Tangible items have shown credibility in the past and can do so again if we can combine it with the bigger value that data offers.

A.J. Rai is the vice-president of sales at Mitchell Press. He can be reached at ajrai@mitchellpress.com.

This article originally appeared in the Sept./Oct. 2024 issue of PrintAction.