Asked what new developments will affect their email marketing programs in the next 12 months, 58% of marketers responding to a MarketingSherpa survey [pdf] cited the pervasiveness of smartphones and tablets, and 57% pointed to social media. But while marketers see changes ahead wrought by the proliferation of smart devices, they are having trouble integrating mobile with their email programs: just 21% reported currently doing so. By comparison, 75% have integrated their websites and 56% their social media efforts.
Another sign of the problems marketers are having with email and mobile: only 42% of marketers agreed that they are designing their emails to render differently on mobile devices. That’s despite the increasing share of emails being opened on mobiles.
Returning to the question of new developments affecting email programs, the study finds that a significant proportion of marketers also see changes ahead from the use of engagement metrics by webmail clients to deliver and place messages in users’ inboxes (40%) and from location-based marketing (29%). By contrast, only 1 in 10 believe that the gamification of marketing programs will bring changes to their email programs.
About the Data: The MarketingSherpa report excerpt was sponsored by Vocus. The data is based on a survey of 1,095 marketers conducted in December 2012.