The first in-depth survey of email marketing in publishing, UK Publishing Email Benchmarking Survey Autumn 2011 conducted by Adestra in association with PPA shows publishers are doing a lot right and using email marketing to deliver serious response/ROI metrics, and moving towards a single customer view. However, they are ignoring some key areas, particularly emerging channels, and lag behind their US peers.  These are proven, practical techniques to drive response, particularly sign-ups. Yes, data is king, but what are publishers doing to grow it, keep it, clean it and manage it?

Henry Hyder-Smith, MD of Adestra explains:

New publishing research in US and Canada shows 85% of magazines offer mobile optimised content for smartphones, tablets and e-readers.
However, just 6% of publishers in the UK have a mobile strategy that includes email. Findings from the UK report show publishers can improve email marketing response rates and ROI by concentrating their efforts on automation and social media too.

For publishers, digital marketing is becoming a database marketing war with practitioners striving to interact and engage more with their audience through improved relevance and content. The heat is on to attract readers, so just how are the industries’ marketing elite going about this and what are they planning?

Data is King

Email marketing is a critical communications tool for publishers, a key weapon for retention and acquisition activity. Today digital marketing is all about maximising data: acquiring it from various channels, integrating it with other business functions, using it, cleaning it.

New data is the bedrock for publishers’ email marketing, across building subscriptions, growing tablet app downloads, broadening newsletter appeal, using social media leads, cleansing data, boosting click-through rates and more.

A good example is Centaur Media, who segmented the information they gathered at sign up and delivered dynamically personalised emails to improve their results for their National Home Improvement Show. Creative use of data can have a massive impact on response – Centaur saw a 43% open rate and an impressive 34% clicked-through.

Which of the following practices are part of your email marketing efforts?

Lack of Automation

Only 20% of publishers automate subscription renewals and 33% use content automation although automating renewal reminders is a simple campaign to set up. Content can easily be generated automatically to improve relevance and click through rates.

Automated campaigns and content can help publishers deliver relevant, timely content to their database, to drive engagement and give the recipients what they want.

For example, Haymarket introduced email content automation for Autosport and saw an 80% reduction in time spent creating their weekly newsletter, plus improved opens and click-throughs.

Low Social Media Integration

51% are encouraging sharing on social networks and a further 26% are planning to implement this. Surprisingly 42% see email and social media as two separate channels entirely, when they can in fact work together to deliver a new data stream.

Mobile email

Over half of publishers (52%) are not changing their email marketing to adapt to the growth of mobile. Only 6% have a mobile strategy that includes email. Simple steps can improve results, such as making email templates smartphone-compatible by keeping to one column
 
To what extent are you changing the way you approach email marketing, taking into consideration the rise in mobile email?

Use of Email

Most companies send fewer than 500,000 emails in six months, and 18% send over 1 million. This correlates with budget – 43% spend less than £10,000 annually, while nearly a fifth (18%) spends over £50k. Publishers’ key metrics match DMA stats: 23% open rate and 10% click through rate.

Email systems now permit increasing automation, linking with social media, designing for mobile, remarketing and segmentation. It’s no longer good enough to load and blast that weekly newsletter.

The most popular use for email is newsletters (86%) and event promotion (71%), and then acquisition marketing (67%).
 
What types of communications do you use email for?

Marketers plan to improve their data quality (61%), with 22% looking to acquire new data (see fig 4). With the top barrier to effective email marketing being lack of quality data (49% said this), the importance of clean data is clear. Regular list cleansing is the second top email practice; 47% said they do this already and 23% are planning to do this.

 
Which 3 areas of email marketing will be your key focus over the next 6 months?

Use of video in emails is low at 15%; this has the potential to be huge.

Setting your priorities

Introducing automated campaigns and automated content can really help publishers to deliver relevant content to their readers and drive engagement, improving ROI and saving time.

Many companies are optimising email for mobile, but almost as many aren’t. Try making your email template Smartphone compatible by keeping it to one column.

Publishers are changing their data management to provide a single customer view, enabling effective targeting and long-lasting reader relationships. This is the key to not only email marketing, but your overall marketing strategy. Remember data is king.

With the next instalment of the survey due April 2012, this means for the first time trend data will be available for direct comparison period-on-period. It will demonstrate how things have changed over time and highlight areas for publishers to watch, invest in and reap the benefits.

If UK publishers focus on improving automation, social media integration and developing a mobile strategy they will doubtless see improved engagement, response rates and ROI.

To receive a copy of the report visit:  www.adestra.com/publishingemailsurvey

Henry Hyder-Smith
Managing Director
Adestra

Henry has been working within the email marketing industry since its inception. A co-founder, Henry leads the board of Adestra and has a unique understanding of different clients' needs, industry issues and development. Henry has a hands-on approach, and is devoted to keeping Adestra's products, services and staff at the cutting edge of email marketing.

Adestra are email marketing partners for the Specialist Media Show.  More about Adestra's activity at the Show.

Enjoyed this article?  Keen to read more?  Join the Specialist Media Network for a regular e-newsletter full of practical tips for niche publishers, and get free online access to exclusive research and past conference presentations.

Register free now to attend the 2012 Specialist Media Show for a day of practical workshops, expert 1-1 advice and a selection of innovative suppliers.