Email Marketing - The Psychology of the Email
So, Email Marketing has been around for a while now. Although how and where we read and reply to emails has dramatically changed in the last few years especially. We now live in a 'always connected' world where pretty much everything is on demand, and anything we want to view we can in the click of a button, or a press of screen.
The rise of the 'smart phone' really has unlocked a whole new way into which digital marketers are pushing sales and marketing related communications though email channels. With 53% of total email opens occurred on a mobile phone or tablet, and 45% of email opens occurring on mobile devices in March 2015 in Q3 2014 alone clearly there is an increased demand to view and respond to emails on our connected devices.
Since smart phones have now become such a integrated part of our daily lives, one aspect is the idea of having a true personal computer with you on the go. Doing the things you would normally do on a desktop, and even being your alarm clock for you.
The last statement is a really interesting one considering that 49% of users who read emails on their smartphone immediately when they wake up which then begs the question...why?
If you think about your own personal lives and activities first thing in the morning:
- Your alarm goes off (More than likely is your Smart Phone)
- You turn it off (or swipe in most cases...snooze if you are lucky)
- Check your messages, social networks...and then emails!
It’s this constant schedule of actions that we have integrated into our morning routine that I want to focus on. From an email marketing point of view, it’s a great opportunity to get someone’s attention first thing in the morning and get him or her to open and click your button/link.
A rather interesting statistic; the most opened type of email in regards to content on a mobile device so far in 2015 are event related emails. Online services, property, restaurants and then ecommerce make up the rest. Interestingly however sales and marketing emails make up only a small majority of the emails opened. This does leave a question of what would make someone open on a mobile device?
Since most event invitations should be at least a week in advance of the date, making sure this content looks good on a mobile device is very important. In a survey conducted in December 2014, 71.2% of those who received an email that was not optimised for a mobile device deleted it. That is a considerable number of contacts to not read the email. Only 4% would read it anyway, and 12.5% would then re-read the email on a computer.
With this information known, this should be enough reason to make sure ALL of your email communications going forward are email optimised, and also that your content is sent at the right time to maximise the opportunity.
One thing to remember, the stats I have given are only from research. The best way of approaching improving your own campaigns is to do your own research too. You may find that your own business/industry will have a different outcome and set of results compared to the stats that I have given.
With this in mind, take some of these findings on board and good luck in improving your campaigns.