By Tom Wozniak, Head of Marketing – published on OnlyInfluencers on 11/24/21
With 2022 speeding along at a breakneck pace, I wanted to take a moment and consider the outlook for the email channel in the overall marketing mix this year. Over the course of the last two years, digital marketing, in general, took on more importance than ever before, as real-world business operations were disrupted during the pandemic. With customers less likely or entirely unable to shop in stores or take advantage of in-person, real-world businesses, the shift toward digital was logical and inevitable. That shift had already been happening for the past couple of decades, and the events of 2022 just accelerated the process for many companies. From a marketing standpoint, the same shift occurred, with companies focusing more attention and marketing spend on digital channels.
Email, the Digital Grandfather
While the shift in budgets and marketing focus impacted virtually every digital marketing channel when we look back at the last two years, email stands out as one of the clear top performers. For companies of all sizes, the tried-and-true email campaign took on new importance and the channel rose to the occasion.
Maybe a good analogy of email’s performance over the past two years is a veteran actor who was a superstar in his/her early years, but for the past couple of decades just keeps churning out rock-solid performances without getting much fanfare. Then, they take on a new role, deliver a performance for the ages, and suddenly everyone remembers how great they have always been. That could be a pretty good description of how people are looking at the email marketing channel in 2022. The spotlight is back on email marketing and the channel is showing it is more than up to the task.
Email marketing was born in 1979 and from literally that first campaign, the channel delivered an incredible return on investment, where every dollar spent on email marketing would generate an exponential ROI (the benchmark has been 38-to-1 in recent years). But, like any marketing or communication channel that exists for such a long period of time, eventually, people start taking it for granted and shift their excitement to new channels and opportunities (I’ve always thought of this as a version of bright shiny object syndrome).
So, while email (the grandfather of digital marketing in many ways) just kept performing, marketers often became enamored with new channels like display, social, video, PPC, and just about every other one you can name (MySpace! Snapchat! TikTok!). Not that those channels haven’t earned their time in the spotlight (most of them anyway), but with few exceptions, none have really rivaled email when it comes to delivering an incredible ROI. Even after 40+ years, there is reason to believe that email is really just entering its prime.
Read the rest at OnlyInfluencers.
Tom Wozniak heads up Marketing and Communications for OPTIZMO Technologies.