Study: Marketers still rely heavily on email promotions to drive revenue

Email remains the go-to strategy for retailers to grab their piece of the digital pie — yet efforts don’t always meet their shoppers’ needs.



Three-fourths (76%) of marketers said they rely heavily on email promotions to drive revenue, and one-third said more than half of all emails sent include a promotion or discount, according to a new survey from Coherent Path.



Despite sending multiple emails to customers each week, 65% feel pressure to send even more emails to boost revenue and drive awareness, In fact, 57% of marketers reported sending three or more emails a week, while 11% of that group send five or more each week.



“Email continues to be a successful driver of revenue, so it’s only natural that marketers get addicted to the ROI and feel pressure to send more,” said James Glover, founder and CEO of Coherent Path.



However, companies driven by merchant-centric tactics often leave the customer’s wants and needs as an afterthought. Many email marketers (85%) are relying too heavily on what worked last year when planning email marketing calendars for the next 12 months, and a majority of retailers rely on major events and holidays (87%) to drive their efforts.



Only half (50%) of marketers are using data from an individual’s past email behavior to decide what email messages they will receive each week, the study reported.



“As retailers start to move toward a data-driven strategy, they should consider one that not only individualizes communications based on the evolving tastes and interests of their customer base, but also informs them on how to expose more of their product catalog to relevant audiences within their list,” added Glover. “This gets retailers away from relying solely on promotions and breaks the consumer of the growing discount mindset.”