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4 Email Marketing Stats that Prove You Spend Too Much Time Creating Emails

by | May 8, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing

Research shows that marketers are wasting valuable time and resources reinventing the wheel when it comes to email marketing.

Email marketing can be a challenge — to say the least. The constantly changing email landscape, marketing trends, and privacy regulations can make staying on top of your email game very tough.

The Litmus 2017 State of Email Report looks at trends in email marketing over the last year. One interesting takeaway: The definition of ‘spam’ email is changing at lightning speed. Consumers are quick to label unwanted or uninteresting emails as spam. That means it’s more likely the content you’re creating won’t make it to your audience’s inbox.

So marketers should spend more time and resources creating better emails, right? Not necessarily. The study shows that many aren’t using their resources wisely when it comes to marketing emails.

One thing is clear: Companies have to drive relevant and timely email communications that align with subscribers’ interests to stand out. But spending more time on different designs and reinventing the wheel when it comes to copy aren’t necessarily the way to go about that.

Take a look at these 4 statistics from the report and why streamlining and automating certain aspects of your email marketing program might free you up to focus on factors that can make a difference.

4 takeaways from the Litmus 2017 State of Email Report

1) 41.5% of companies have 1-5 emails in production at any given time (from conception to send).

That is a lot of emails. If you’re working on 5 emails at a time, it’s important that you have a process for turning them over quickly. But Litmus found that companies are spending way too much unnecessary time thinking about, creating and producing emails.

Why start from scratch with every one? Email templates are an excellent way to streamline your production process. It’s also easier to concept an email when you have certain standard elements that you have to come up with each time. You can still swap out messaging and images while keeping brand-specific pieces in place. It’s a time-saver for all involved.

2) Only 31.6% of companies spend less than a week to produce a single email.

So over 68% of companies are spending a week or more on ONE email. If most marketers send out 1-3 emails a month, imagine how those weeks add up! How does anyone have any time to do anything else?

This means too many marketers are spending too much time on each email. Automating certain parts of your process can be a beautiful thing — saving you time, money, and, ultimately, your sanity.

3) Only 6.7% of marketers use task runners as a part of their email production flow.

Task runners automate repetitive tasks, such as inlining CSS and sending out test emails. The biggest benefit to using a task runner is the ability to save time. Using Grunt, a popular task runner, not only adds to efficiency, but also builds consistency, increases effectiveness, and offers task flexibility.

4) Only 5% of marketers are using static site generators as a part of their email production workflow.

Static site generators are build systems for flat files that allow you to create templates and break down email elements. For all of us non-coders, this means that when someone visits your webpage, the user sees exactly what is stored, in contrast to a dynamic webpage that is generated through an application. Using static site generators can save marketers time, improve reliability, and increase security.

So what does all this mean for you and your company? Time is money, and that’s especially true when it comes to your email marketing program. The concept of streamlining workflows and utilizing technology to cut down on time is imperative to your company’s success.

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