Juliette Aiken, global marketing director at Dotdigital, looks to the future of email competing with social media, SMS, live chat, and AI and asks what Gary Thuerk got right all those years ago.
Email marketing has come a long way over the past 45 years, from the first unsolicited emails sent by Gary Sirk, known as the “Father of Spam,” to the era of hyper-personalization. As businesses adapt to changing consumer preferences, email marketing continues to be an important tool for lead generation, brand awareness, and customer retention. From Thuerk's groundbreaking approach to the latest advancements and future trends, email marketing continues to shape the digital advertising landscape.
Email from the past 45 years
The journey of email marketing began with the first email sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971 and the development of the first email management system by Larry Roberts in 1972. However, his manager of marketing at Digital Equipment Corporation, Gary Sirk, first emailed 400 of his Arpanet advertising machines, resulting in a staggering $13 million in sales.
Over time, e-mail communication transitioned from “e-mail message” to the more familiar term “e-mail,” but in 1988 spam emerged, flooding inboxes with unnecessary and irrelevant messages. did.
The introduction of Lotus Notes 1.0 in 1989 enhanced the beauty and accessibility of email, along with household names such as Outlook and Hotmail. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 standardized commercial email practices, and Responsive Email of 2009 enabled seamless content transfer between devices. Today, email marketing remains a top digital channel, and marketers are realizing the potential to generate return on investment by leveraging features such as segmentation, personalized campaigns, and automated email software. .
Tuerk's Legacy
Gary Sirk achieved fame as the “father of spam,'' but his legacy lies in pioneering targeted email marketing. Unlike spam, which bombards uninterested recipients, email marketing focuses on delivering content to individuals who are truly interested in a company's products or services. Thuerk's email blast targeted the right people and was successful, generating $13 million in sales. This highlights the importance of effectively reaching specific audiences with personalized messaging, which continues to be an important aspect of email marketing today.
Personalization worked
Many marketers often rely on widespread message distribution to maximize results by reaching as many people as possible. Unfortunately, this is of little use if you're not reaching the right people. Conversely, you may be reaching people who are interested in your product, but if you're sending the wrong message, you're still unlikely to convert them into paying customers.
When done right, personalization can be extremely beneficial. This helps companies build trust with customers, which ultimately leads to both brand equity and customer loyalty. This helps companies beat competitors who have aggressive discount policies.
Conversely, if personalization is done incorrectly or not at all, it can be disastrous. According to Dotdigital's customer loyalty report, 47% of customers chose to unsubscribe from branded email marketing lists because the content they received was irrelevant.
Email personalization comes in many forms. From the context of the email being sent to the timing. According to Dotdigital research, personalizing the entire customer journey – delivering email marketing to customers when they are most interested in your brand through marketing automation – leads to more clicks than non-personalized marketing. We found that his through rate was 3.5 times higher than his. Additionally, during the 2023 Black Friday sales period, brands using abandoned cart emails increased by 47%. This subsequently resulted in a 4.5% revenue increase, demonstrating the financial value of implementing timely, personalized email marketing.
Email marketing in 2024 and beyond
The email marketing landscape continues to evolve with new advances and technology. Brand indicators for message identification provide senders with robust email authentication, and innovations like Apple's Email Privacy Protection and OpenAI's ChatGPT transform the email creation process. Looking to the future, personalization will be the key to success.
Consumers want relevant and customized emails. According to a McKinsey study, 71% of consumers expect companies to provide personalized interactions, and 76% are dissatisfied when that doesn't happen. This is forcing brands to invest in personalized marketing communications. Hyper-personalization and moment-based marketing are emerging as powerful strategies to engage customers with timely and targeted content. An example of this might be for a fashion retailer to send personalized product recommendations to customers who have recently viewed their website based on their browsing history and preferences. Alternatively, a software company might send a series of educational emails to new subscribers, guiding them through the process of using the product and highlighting its key features.
The future of email marketing remains bright as marketers continue to adapt to changing consumer preferences. AI enhancements to email marketing and marketing automation platforms give brands more opportunities to improve marketing results and connect with and empathize with their audiences.
Juliette Aiken is Dotdigital's Global Marketing Director.
