BtoB study: Email marketing matures, driven by content, mobile

New York—Email marketing, while virtually a legacy channel, continues to adapt—slowly—to content and mobile marketing, according to a new study by BtoB.

According to “Email Marketing: An Established Channel Evolves,” content that inspires registration is the most common trigger for an email campaign: 63% of respondents reported that event and trade show registrations provide leads for email marketing campaigns, with 62% saying that form registration for webinars and white papers also trigger an email. No other customer activity—requests for demos (36%), website behavior (32%) or call center interaction (17%)—came close.

However, use of triggered email remains relatively rare. Only a little more than a quarter of marketers reported that their companies use automation platforms to deploy email this way.

Despite the proliferation of mobile devices, mobile email is also taking a while to enter the mainstream. Only slightly more than a quarter of marketers said they are developing a mobile strategy as part of their email-marketing program, requiring adaptations to both content and email design.