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New study: 59% of B2B companies do not use email marketing

B2B email marketing report

Post summary:

  • The death of email marketing?
  • The state of B2B email marketing report
  • Key findings and takeaways from the new study

“Email marketing is dead”.

We hear it all the time.

Each year, the media call for the death of email marketing.

But, numbers don’t lie:

So, ask yourself this:

Is email marketing really dead?

Or, are you just doing it wrong?

Low open rates. Poor click-through rates. Zero sales.

These are just a few examples of what happens when email campaigns underperform.

Yet, when done right, email is a revenue-winning marketing channel.

In fact, B2B companies that do email marketing right and follow even the most basic of best practices are able to grow their business faster with increased sales, revenue and profits!

Can you say the same about your email marketing strategy?

To answer this question and to understand how email marketing is being used today, we’ve conducted our own, independent research into how B2B companies use email marketing.

The state of B2B email marketing

Today, we’re excited to announce the release of our unique email marketing study – the State of B2B Email Marketing – which is a study of how 1,000 B2B companies use email marketing to communicate with their audiences.

The report, which includes 19 pages of email marketing insight, is now available to download.

In this new report, we will share:

  • Why the majority of B2B companies are failing at email marketing.
  • Key findings into what makes “best in class” email marketing campaigns.
  • Best practice tips on how you can use email marketing to grow your business.

About the study

To keep the study simple, we created a new email address and then signed up to newsletters via a web form from a mixture of small, medium and large B2B organizations - across the globe.

B2B email benchmark report company size

Then, for the next 90 days, we purposefully didn’t touch our brand-new email inbox (except for confirming the email address when needed) – to make sure that we didn’t have any influence on the frequency or type of emails we received.

Once the 90 days were up, we checked our inbox to find 4,494 email campaigns.

We then reviewed each campaign, the results of which we’re sharing with you in this report.

Key findings from the research

Before the study, we assumed that email was an important marketing channel for B2B companies and that all of the companies would send at least one email during the 90-day test period.

Surprisingly, this was not the case.

In fact, the study found that:

  • 59% of B2B companies do not use email marketing (Tweet this!)
  • 8% of all email campaigns fail to include an unsubscribe link (Tweet this!)
  • On average, B2B companies send out 1 email marketing campaign every 25 days (Tweet this!)
  • Nearly 1 in 5 email campaigns was not optimized for mobile devices
  • 89% of all B2B email campaigns were sent from a company name 

Here’s what the email marketing experts Kath Pay, Jenna Tiffany, Karl Philip LundJoris ByronThomas Moen, and Kevin George had to say about the new B2B email marketing report:

Kath Pay B2B email marketing report

Jenna Tiffany B2B email marketing report comments

Karl Philip Lund B2B email marketing report comments

Joris Byron B2B email marketing report

Thomas Moen B2B email marketing report

Kevin George B2B email marketing report comments

David Mihm comments on B2B email marketing report

Conclusion

Email marketing isn’t dead.

In fact, it’s far from it.

The challenge is that most B2B companies aren’t using email marketing in ways they should.

To begin with, they only send a single campaign once every 25 days.

Or worse, they send out nothing at all.

It’s no wonder they’re underperforming!

Email is constantly evolving, and it continues to become more and more sophisticated with time, thanks to automation, artificial intelligence and GDPR compliance.

With the majority of companies failing at email marketing, it presents you with an opportunity to get it right and beat your competitors at their own game.

Armed with the results from this study and the best practice tips we’ve included, you now have everything you need to stand out from the competition and leverage email marketing as part of your overall B2B marketing strategy.

So, whether you you have a small subscriber list or you're an expert in international email marketingdownload your free copy of the B2B email marketing report  and once you've read it, let me know what you think about it in the comments section.

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