SEMA News—July 2017

BUSINESS

By Clint Simone

UTV Market Update

Since the early ’00s, products such as the John Deere Gator, Kawasaki Mule and Polaris Ranger have been used on job sites, moving heavy objects and transporting crew. Once their durability and overall effectiveness became apparent, UTVs began to make their way into consumers’ hands—mostly for use on farms and other functional pieces of property. According to Greg Boeder of Power Products Marketing, a website aimed primarily at powersports dealers, the utility-focused side-by-sides served as a foundation for the UTV market to grow.

“The pure utility market has always been there, without much exception,” he said.

Even in today’s market, utility-focused vehicles outsell recreational ones by a wide margin. It is only more recently that consumers have embraced UTVs aimed at sport riding in off-road terrain, especially in western states such as California.

That transition came once UTV manufacturers saw that consumers were interested in a more versatile machine that was both able to complete a job and still be suitable for recreational use. Out of those desires came the Yamaha Rhino, which entered the market in 2004. Boeder noted that the Rhino was a breakthrough in terms of being multi-purpose.

“The Rhino was the first machine that was more focused on the recreational market; it refocused what UTVs could do and how they were perceived,” he said.

In markets such as California, sport-focused UTVs like the Polaris RZR shown here make up the majority of sales.

That notion resonated with consumers and furthered demand for a machine that was equal parts capable and fun—evolving toward a sports UTV. Hearing that cry from the market, Polaris introduced the RZR in 2007. It became a wildly successful side-by-side that brought to the market an entirely new generation of UTV enthusiasts that was focused primarily on off-road motorsports.

“The RZR was the first side-by-side to offer a 50-in. width, which made it trail legal across the vast majority of the country,” said Boeder. “It was the first UTV that met this requirement, making it an obvious standout pick for consumers. The dimensions, paired with a larger and lower-mounted engine, meant that the RZR was a pleasure to drive off-road and could be driven fast for long durations.”

From its first year of sale, the RZR sat atop the sports UTV market and is still largely the go-to choice for many off-roaders. As the RZR’s prominent stake in the off-road market grew, traditional vehicles—such as sandrails—lost market share.

Matt Emery, editor of Dirt Sports & Off-Road magazine, has spent years in the UTV market, focusing specifically on the sport-focused vehicles.

“If you went to any major off-road show even five years ago, everything was a race-spec sandrail,” he said. “Those huge machines cost sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars and were purpose-built to race with massive Chevy LS motors. Now what you see at shows has completely switched over to UTVs. The market has shifted—and it has done so dramatically and quickly.”

The Aftermarket Gets Involved

The parts and service area of Bert’s Mega Mall in Covina, California, is filled with aftermarket products to enhance newly purchased UTVs.

According to Power Products Marketing, the market has grown each year by tens of thousands of units sold—the only exception being 2008–2009, when the recession caused a slight decline. In 2000, the UTV niche sold approximately 100,000 units across the board. Fifteen years later, that number quadrupled, with more growth anticipated in the future.

It is clear that the market is healthy and viable, especially in looking at class leaders such as the Polaris RZR, which tripled its sales between its first year on the market in 2007 and 2015. As enthusiasm for side-by-sides grew, so did interest in quality parts and accessories.

To find out more about the UTV customer base, we talked to Ron Seidner, owner of Bert’s Mega Mall in Covina, California. The powersports dealer is said to be the single largest in the world by volume and has served the California market for decades. Seidner maintains a large inventory and generally has no fewer than 100 vehicles on the showroom floor at any given time.

“UTV is absolutely huge for us,” he said. “It is one of the ‘big three’ highest-selling categories—the other two being watercraft and motorcycles.”

Bert’s moves thousands of UTVs each year and has watched its customer base become more and more loyal to the niche.

“There really is a family component to this,” he said. “Especially here in California, the UTV market is almost entirely sports based. You have these guys come in who want to take the family out to the desert on the weekend and keep them safe in the process. UTVs are perfect for that because they are largely super reliable and capable of almost any off-road terrain.”

One of the key factors in the success of Bert’s Mega Mall is catering to customers’ desire to make their UTV bespoke. Two years ago, Seidner opened BMM customs, Bert’s in-house UTV customization department, which is capable of making just about any stock UTV into a one-off special.

The Arctic Cat UTV Experience at the 2016 SEMA Show provided attendees with an opportunity to see firsthand how a UTV behaves in off-road terrain.

“Sometimes it really is just simple tweaks here and there,” Seidner said. “A customer will want an aftermarket four-point harness installed or a lowered, reinforced cage with a light bar added—just easy additions. On the other hand, some people go completely over the top and customize their ride with everything imaginable, from new paint to bigger wheels and tires, even custom interior work. Regardless, we saw customers wanting aftermarket additions, and keeping the purchase and installation process completely in-house makes things easier on everyone.”

Emery echoed Seidner’s observations about consumers’ desire to add aftermarket componentry.

“These things are still being bought by racing enthusiasts who want their machines to look and perform as well as possible,” Emery said. “In many cases, they are ordering the cars to the spec they desire, even if that involves aftermarket work.”

Emery specifically cited the UTV racing community as one of the biggest catalysts for modification.

“Racers are adding forced induction to the motors, although that isn’t necessarily mandatory because the cars are so powerful on their own,” he said. “More often, they are adding bigger wheels and tires and swapping out suspension components
as needed.”

He concluded by stating that the need for quality aftermarket parts is abundant, and aftermarket manufacturers are meeting that demand with an array of products to choose from.

Recent Changes Create a Highly Anticipated Future

Growth in the UTV marketplace has provided opportunities for automotive specialty-equipment manufacturers, with many new products displayed on the SEMA Show floor.

Consistently rising since the early ’00s, the UTV market still seems to be gaining momentum. In October of 2016, Polaris, maker of the segment-leading RZR side-by-side, announced that it would be acquiring retail giant Transamerican Auto Parts, owner of off-road retail chain 4Wheel Parts.

Asked why the acquisition would make sense, Transamerican Auto Parts President and CEO Greg Adler said, “Our focus is off-road performance aftermarket products and accessories, while Polaris’ core business is as a manufacturer. There are many areas where our customers intersect, such as an RZR owner who is likely to use a truck for towing or transporting the vehicle.”

Meanwhile, in March, multi-industry powerhouse Textron announced the acquisition of Arctic Cat, viewing it as an opportunity to add side-by-sides and related off-road vehicles to such well-known Textron brands as Cessna, Beechcraft and Bell. In May, Textron underscored its commitment to its new acquisition by moving Arctic Cat engine production, and adding 50–100 jobs, to its St. Cloud, Minnesota, engine plant.

“Arctic Cat is an ideal fit with our growing range of off-road recreational vehicles,” said Textron President and CEO Scott Donnelly. “The addition [instantly] gives us a deeper product line for customers, greater potential for innovation, and introduces new sales opportunities for our combined worldwide dealer network.”

For market watchers such as Emery, it is difficult to predict what may happen next.

“It will be interesting to see how the manufacturers combat increased productivity from others,” he said.

Emery’s thoughts seem to represent the consensus within the UTV industry when considering the future. Perhaps for the first time ever, industry leaders such as Polaris and its RZR are being challenged by newly designed vehicles from Can-Am, Yamaha, Arctic Cat and others. In fact, Arctic Cat used the SEMA Show as an opportunity to operate a demo track that showcased the upcoming Arctic Cat Wildcat X model.

“It’s a product we developed through a partnership with Robby Gordon,” said Greg Williamson, Arctic Cat’s chief marketing officer. “He helped us with our suspension and performance, and we put it on our new Wildcat X. The product itself is very high engagement and super experiential, so there is no better way to convert someone to our brand than to put them behind the wheel of one of our machines.”

Whether this stiffening competition will shift sales away from the Polaris brand or perhaps add to total market volume remains to be seen. That said, optimism is high across the board, and the UTV niche looks to be growing healthier in almost every measurable aspect.

“The UTV market is really just getting started,” Seidner summed up. “Much like everyone else, we are very excited to be part of its future.”

Emery agreed: “I think it is safe to say we are all eagerly anticipating what is to come.”

SEMA News—July 2017

BUSINESS

By Clint Simone

UTV Market Update

Since the early ’00s, products such as the John Deere Gator, Kawasaki Mule and Polaris Ranger have been used on job sites, moving heavy objects and transporting crew. Once their durability and overall effectiveness became apparent, UTVs began to make their way into consumers’ hands—mostly for use on farms and other functional pieces of property. According to Greg Boeder of Power Products Marketing, a website aimed primarily at powersports dealers, the utility-focused side-by-sides served as a foundation for the UTV market to grow.

“The pure utility market has always been there, without much exception,” he said.

Even in today’s market, utility-focused vehicles outsell recreational ones by a wide margin. It is only more recently that consumers have embraced UTVs aimed at sport riding in off-road terrain, especially in western states such as California.

That transition came once UTV manufacturers saw that consumers were interested in a more versatile machine that was both able to complete a job and still be suitable for recreational use. Out of those desires came the Yamaha Rhino, which entered the market in 2004. Boeder noted that the Rhino was a breakthrough in terms of being multi-purpose.

“The Rhino was the first machine that was more focused on the recreational market; it refocused what UTVs could do and how they were perceived,” he said.

In markets such as California, sport-focused UTVs like the Polaris RZR shown here make up the majority of sales.

That notion resonated with consumers and furthered demand for a machine that was equal parts capable and fun—evolving toward a sports UTV. Hearing that cry from the market, Polaris introduced the RZR in 2007. It became a wildly successful side-by-side that brought to the market an entirely new generation of UTV enthusiasts that was focused primarily on off-road motorsports.

“The RZR was the first side-by-side to offer a 50-in. width, which made it trail legal across the vast majority of the country,” said Boeder. “It was the first UTV that met this requirement, making it an obvious standout pick for consumers. The dimensions, paired with a larger and lower-mounted engine, meant that the RZR was a pleasure to drive off-road and could be driven fast for long durations.”

From its first year of sale, the RZR sat atop the sports UTV market and is still largely the go-to choice for many off-roaders. As the RZR’s prominent stake in the off-road market grew, traditional vehicles—such as sandrails—lost market share.

Matt Emery, editor of Dirt Sports & Off-Road magazine, has spent years in the UTV market, focusing specifically on the sport-focused vehicles.

“If you went to any major off-road show even five years ago, everything was a race-spec sandrail,” he said. “Those huge machines cost sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars and were purpose-built to race with massive Chevy LS motors. Now what you see at shows has completely switched over to UTVs. The market has shifted—and it has done so dramatically and quickly.”

The Aftermarket Gets Involved

The parts and service area of Bert’s Mega Mall in Covina, California, is filled with aftermarket products to enhance newly purchased UTVs.

According to Power Products Marketing, the market has grown each year by tens of thousands of units sold—the only exception being 2008–2009, when the recession caused a slight decline. In 2000, the UTV niche sold approximately 100,000 units across the board. Fifteen years later, that number quadrupled, with more growth anticipated in the future.

It is clear that the market is healthy and viable, especially in looking at class leaders such as the Polaris RZR, which tripled its sales between its first year on the market in 2007 and 2015. As enthusiasm for side-by-sides grew, so did interest in quality parts and accessories.

To find out more about the UTV customer base, we talked to Ron Seidner, owner of Bert’s Mega Mall in Covina, California. The powersports dealer is said to be the single largest in the world by volume and has served the California market for decades. Seidner maintains a large inventory and generally has no fewer than 100 vehicles on the showroom floor at any given time.

“UTV is absolutely huge for us,” he said. “It is one of the ‘big three’ highest-selling categories—the other two being watercraft and motorcycles.”

Bert’s moves thousands of UTVs each year and has watched its customer base become more and more loyal to the niche.

“There really is a family component to this,” he said. “Especially here in California, the UTV market is almost entirely sports based. You have these guys come in who want to take the family out to the desert on the weekend and keep them safe in the process. UTVs are perfect for that because they are largely super reliable and capable of almost any off-road terrain.”

One of the key factors in the success of Bert’s Mega Mall is catering to customers’ desire to make their UTV bespoke. Two years ago, Seidner opened BMM customs, Bert’s in-house UTV customization department, which is capable of making just about any stock UTV into a one-off special.

The Arctic Cat UTV Experience at the 2016 SEMA Show provided attendees with an opportunity to see firsthand how a UTV behaves in off-road terrain.

“Sometimes it really is just simple tweaks here and there,” Seidner said. “A customer will want an aftermarket four-point harness installed or a lowered, reinforced cage with a light bar added—just easy additions. On the other hand, some people go completely over the top and customize their ride with everything imaginable, from new paint to bigger wheels and tires, even custom interior work. Regardless, we saw customers wanting aftermarket additions, and keeping the purchase and installation process completely in-house makes things easier on everyone.”

Emery echoed Seidner’s observations about consumers’ desire to add aftermarket componentry.

“These things are still being bought by racing enthusiasts who want their machines to look and perform as well as possible,” Emery said. “In many cases, they are ordering the cars to the spec they desire, even if that involves aftermarket work.”

Emery specifically cited the UTV racing community as one of the biggest catalysts for modification.

“Racers are adding forced induction to the motors, although that isn’t necessarily mandatory because the cars are so powerful on their own,” he said. “More often, they are adding bigger wheels and tires and swapping out suspension components
as needed.”

He concluded by stating that the need for quality aftermarket parts is abundant, and aftermarket manufacturers are meeting that demand with an array of products to choose from.

Recent Changes Create a Highly Anticipated Future

Growth in the UTV marketplace has provided opportunities for automotive specialty-equipment manufacturers, with many new products displayed on the SEMA Show floor.

Consistently rising since the early ’00s, the UTV market still seems to be gaining momentum. In October of 2016, Polaris, maker of the segment-leading RZR side-by-side, announced that it would be acquiring retail giant Transamerican Auto Parts, owner of off-road retail chain 4Wheel Parts.

Asked why the acquisition would make sense, Transamerican Auto Parts President and CEO Greg Adler said, “Our focus is off-road performance aftermarket products and accessories, while Polaris’ core business is as a manufacturer. There are many areas where our customers intersect, such as an RZR owner who is likely to use a truck for towing or transporting the vehicle.”

Meanwhile, in March, multi-industry powerhouse Textron announced the acquisition of Arctic Cat, viewing it as an opportunity to add side-by-sides and related off-road vehicles to such well-known Textron brands as Cessna, Beechcraft and Bell. In May, Textron underscored its commitment to its new acquisition by moving Arctic Cat engine production, and adding 50–100 jobs, to its St. Cloud, Minnesota, engine plant.

“Arctic Cat is an ideal fit with our growing range of off-road recreational vehicles,” said Textron President and CEO Scott Donnelly. “The addition [instantly] gives us a deeper product line for customers, greater potential for innovation, and introduces new sales opportunities for our combined worldwide dealer network.”

For market watchers such as Emery, it is difficult to predict what may happen next.

“It will be interesting to see how the manufacturers combat increased productivity from others,” he said.

Emery’s thoughts seem to represent the consensus within the UTV industry when considering the future. Perhaps for the first time ever, industry leaders such as Polaris and its RZR are being challenged by newly designed vehicles from Can-Am, Yamaha, Arctic Cat and others. In fact, Arctic Cat used the SEMA Show as an opportunity to operate a demo track that showcased the upcoming Arctic Cat Wildcat X model.

“It’s a product we developed through a partnership with Robby Gordon,” said Greg Williamson, Arctic Cat’s chief marketing officer. “He helped us with our suspension and performance, and we put it on our new Wildcat X. The product itself is very high engagement and super experiential, so there is no better way to convert someone to our brand than to put them behind the wheel of one of our machines.”

Whether this stiffening competition will shift sales away from the Polaris brand or perhaps add to total market volume remains to be seen. That said, optimism is high across the board, and the UTV niche looks to be growing healthier in almost every measurable aspect.

“The UTV market is really just getting started,” Seidner summed up. “Much like everyone else, we are very excited to be part of its future.”

Emery agreed: “I think it is safe to say we are all eagerly anticipating what is to come.”

10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Is Still the Killer App

Of the companies Clutch surveyed, 83% said they were using e-newsletters to make new sales. And more than 70% were using standalone emails and follow-up emails to nurture nibbles of interest from customers. Moreover, email marketing firm Campaign Monitor released a similar study last year and found that businesses can look forward to a $38 return for every dollar they invest in email marketing.

Henry Hyder-Smith, CEO of Adestra (www.adestra.com), an email marketing service provider, confirmed the trend yet again in a study his company conducted with Econsultancy (http://content.adestra.com/hubfs/2016_Reports_and_eGuides/2016-Email-Marketing-Industry-Census.pdf). Those researchers found that 73% of more than 1,100 marketers interviewed said email was their number-one marketing channel in terms of ROI.

The study “points out that companies investing at least a fifth of their marketing budgets on email are eight times more likely to see sales attributable to it in excess of 50%,” Hyder-Smith said.

The reason behind email’s potency? Despite all the buzz over social media, 58% of internet users said the first thing they check on their computerized device each morning is email, according to a study by Exact Target (http://image.exct.net/lib/fe641570776d02757515/m/1/SFF1-TheDigitalMorning.pdf).

“When you have someone’s email, you’re allowed to communicate with them when you want, how you want,” said Derek Halpern, owner of online marketing consultancy Social Triggers (http://socialtriggers.com).

Halpern said he conducted his own informal test recently, pitting email against Twitter. He sent out a post on Twitter with a link he wanted prospective customers to click on. Then he sent out the same post and link via email. The result? Fifty of his Twitter followers clicked on the link, while 1,200 of his email subscribers clicked on the same link.

“Yes, my email list might be twice as large as my social-media following, but it generated about 24 times more clicks,” Halpern said. “That’s the power of email.”

Also helping email’s cause has been all the work IT departments have been doing to block spam from getting to company email boxes. Overall, those safeguards have significantly decreased the amount of spam business users get as compared to just a few years ago. Consequently, email open rates are looking healthy. On average, 17.6% of emails are now being opened by recipients, according to IBM’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study (www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/white-papers/all/2016/email-metrics-benchmark-study-2016).

Of course, getting email marketing right involves more than simply knowing it works. Here are the 10 most popular best practices for email marketing, based on insights from the Econsultancy/Adestra survey:

Engage in Basic Segmentation: Seventy-eight percent of companies said they’re doing basic segmentation with their email marketing. Essentially, that means they’re creating slightly different versions of the same email-marketing message to cater to different segments of a company’s customer base. For example, some customers in the Southeast might get a slightly different message than customers in the Northwest.

Optimize for Mobile: Sixty-four percent of companies said they’re ensuring that their emails are optimized for mobile. In practice, this translates into using single-column email designs that allow for easier resizing; using responsive design that automatically resizes an email based on screen size; and eliminating content in mobile emails that is ordinarily displayed on fullsize computers.

Clean Your List Regularly: Fifty-four percent of companies surveyed said their email marketing success also hinged on ensuring that they cleaned their mailing lists regularly of emails that were bouncing back as no longer valid. They also were quickly removing email addresses from the list when customers requested it.

Encourage Sharing of Your Email on Social Networks: Forty-seven percent of customers surveyed said they got more mileage from their marketing emails after asking their customers to share those emails on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social-media networks.

Use Your Transaction Emails for Marketing: Forty-three percent of companies said they had a standard practice of inserting marketing messages into transaction emails. In practice, that meant they might pitch another product when confirming a purchase by email. Or they might offer a coupon via email when confirming a sign-up for the company’s e-newsletter.

Include Video Content: Forty-two percent of companies said adding video content to their emails was critical to the potency of their marketing messages. Given that online video-sharing service YouTube is the number-two most popular site on the web, the move sounds like a no-brainer.

Do Remarketing: Forty-one percent of companies surveyed said they regularly use emails to remarket to customers. For example, a customer who abandons a shopping cart might be remarketed with another offer for the product. Or a web visitor who failed to confirm a new subscription to the company e-newsletter might be prodded again by email to confirm that sign-up.

Personalize Your Email: Thirty-seven percent of companies surveyed said personalization of emails was also key to their marketing success. The personalization of emails went beyond simply addressing a person by first name. Instead, other personalized data was included in the email, such as the person’s birthday, acknowledgement of previous goods and services purchased by the recipient, and similar qualifiers which send the message that the company truly knew who it was emailing.

Use Emails for Lead Nurturing: Thirty-five percent of companies said they regularly followed up with additional emails to try to close the deal once they received a nibble on an offer by email.

Combine Email With Multichannel Triggers: Thirty-one percent of companies said they followed up by reaching out to the customer via other channels once contact was made by email. The other channels included Facebook, Twitter, telephone and old-fashioned snail mail. 

10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Is Still the Killer App

Of the companies Clutch surveyed, 83% said they were using e-newsletters to make new sales. And more than 70% were using standalone emails and follow-up emails to nurture nibbles of interest from customers. Moreover, email marketing firm Campaign Monitor released a similar study last year and found that businesses can look forward to a $38 return for every dollar they invest in email marketing.

Henry Hyder-Smith, CEO of Adestra (www.adestra.com), an email marketing service provider, confirmed the trend yet again in a study his company conducted with Econsultancy (http://content.adestra.com/hubfs/2016_Reports_and_eGuides/2016-Email-Marketing-Industry-Census.pdf). Those researchers found that 73% of more than 1,100 marketers interviewed said email was their number-one marketing channel in terms of ROI.

The study “points out that companies investing at least a fifth of their marketing budgets on email are eight times more likely to see sales attributable to it in excess of 50%,” Hyder-Smith said.

The reason behind email’s potency? Despite all the buzz over social media, 58% of internet users said the first thing they check on their computerized device each morning is email, according to a study by Exact Target (http://image.exct.net/lib/fe641570776d02757515/m/1/SFF1-TheDigitalMorning.pdf).

“When you have someone’s email, you’re allowed to communicate with them when you want, how you want,” said Derek Halpern, owner of online marketing consultancy Social Triggers (http://socialtriggers.com).

Halpern said he conducted his own informal test recently, pitting email against Twitter. He sent out a post on Twitter with a link he wanted prospective customers to click on. Then he sent out the same post and link via email. The result? Fifty of his Twitter followers clicked on the link, while 1,200 of his email subscribers clicked on the same link.

“Yes, my email list might be twice as large as my social-media following, but it generated about 24 times more clicks,” Halpern said. “That’s the power of email.”

Also helping email’s cause has been all the work IT departments have been doing to block spam from getting to company email boxes. Overall, those safeguards have significantly decreased the amount of spam business users get as compared to just a few years ago. Consequently, email open rates are looking healthy. On average, 17.6% of emails are now being opened by recipients, according to IBM’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study (www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/white-papers/all/2016/email-metrics-benchmark-study-2016).

Of course, getting email marketing right involves more than simply knowing it works. Here are the 10 most popular best practices for email marketing, based on insights from the Econsultancy/Adestra survey:

Engage in Basic Segmentation: Seventy-eight percent of companies said they’re doing basic segmentation with their email marketing. Essentially, that means they’re creating slightly different versions of the same email-marketing message to cater to different segments of a company’s customer base. For example, some customers in the Southeast might get a slightly different message than customers in the Northwest.

Optimize for Mobile: Sixty-four percent of companies said they’re ensuring that their emails are optimized for mobile. In practice, this translates into using single-column email designs that allow for easier resizing; using responsive design that automatically resizes an email based on screen size; and eliminating content in mobile emails that is ordinarily displayed on fullsize computers.

Clean Your List Regularly: Fifty-four percent of companies surveyed said their email marketing success also hinged on ensuring that they cleaned their mailing lists regularly of emails that were bouncing back as no longer valid. They also were quickly removing email addresses from the list when customers requested it.

Encourage Sharing of Your Email on Social Networks: Forty-seven percent of customers surveyed said they got more mileage from their marketing emails after asking their customers to share those emails on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social-media networks.

Use Your Transaction Emails for Marketing: Forty-three percent of companies said they had a standard practice of inserting marketing messages into transaction emails. In practice, that meant they might pitch another product when confirming a purchase by email. Or they might offer a coupon via email when confirming a sign-up for the company’s e-newsletter.

Include Video Content: Forty-two percent of companies said adding video content to their emails was critical to the potency of their marketing messages. Given that online video-sharing service YouTube is the number-two most popular site on the web, the move sounds like a no-brainer.

Do Remarketing: Forty-one percent of companies surveyed said they regularly use emails to remarket to customers. For example, a customer who abandons a shopping cart might be remarketed with another offer for the product. Or a web visitor who failed to confirm a new subscription to the company e-newsletter might be prodded again by email to confirm that sign-up.

Personalize Your Email: Thirty-seven percent of companies surveyed said personalization of emails was also key to their marketing success. The personalization of emails went beyond simply addressing a person by first name. Instead, other personalized data was included in the email, such as the person’s birthday, acknowledgement of previous goods and services purchased by the recipient, and similar qualifiers which send the message that the company truly knew who it was emailing.

Use Emails for Lead Nurturing: Thirty-five percent of companies said they regularly followed up with additional emails to try to close the deal once they received a nibble on an offer by email.

Combine Email With Multichannel Triggers: Thirty-one percent of companies said they followed up by reaching out to the customer via other channels once contact was made by email. The other channels included Facebook, Twitter, telephone and old-fashioned snail mail. 

10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Is Still the Killer App

Of the companies Clutch surveyed, 83% said they were using e-newsletters to make new sales. And more than 70% were using standalone emails and follow-up emails to nurture nibbles of interest from customers. Moreover, email marketing firm Campaign Monitor released a similar study last year and found that businesses can look forward to a $38 return for every dollar they invest in email marketing.

Henry Hyder-Smith, CEO of Adestra (www.adestra.com), an email marketing service provider, confirmed the trend yet again in a study his company conducted with Econsultancy (http://content.adestra.com/hubfs/2016_Reports_and_eGuides/2016-Email-Marketing-Industry-Census.pdf). Those researchers found that 73% of more than 1,100 marketers interviewed said email was their number-one marketing channel in terms of ROI.

The study “points out that companies investing at least a fifth of their marketing budgets on email are eight times more likely to see sales attributable to it in excess of 50%,” Hyder-Smith said.

The reason behind email’s potency? Despite all the buzz over social media, 58% of internet users said the first thing they check on their computerized device each morning is email, according to a study by Exact Target (http://image.exct.net/lib/fe641570776d02757515/m/1/SFF1-TheDigitalMorning.pdf).

“When you have someone’s email, you’re allowed to communicate with them when you want, how you want,” said Derek Halpern, owner of online marketing consultancy Social Triggers (http://socialtriggers.com).

Halpern said he conducted his own informal test recently, pitting email against Twitter. He sent out a post on Twitter with a link he wanted prospective customers to click on. Then he sent out the same post and link via email. The result? Fifty of his Twitter followers clicked on the link, while 1,200 of his email subscribers clicked on the same link.

“Yes, my email list might be twice as large as my social-media following, but it generated about 24 times more clicks,” Halpern said. “That’s the power of email.”

Also helping email’s cause has been all the work IT departments have been doing to block spam from getting to company email boxes. Overall, those safeguards have significantly decreased the amount of spam business users get as compared to just a few years ago. Consequently, email open rates are looking healthy. On average, 17.6% of emails are now being opened by recipients, according to IBM’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study (www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/white-papers/all/2016/email-metrics-benchmark-study-2016).

Of course, getting email marketing right involves more than simply knowing it works. Here are the 10 most popular best practices for email marketing, based on insights from the Econsultancy/Adestra survey:

Engage in Basic Segmentation: Seventy-eight percent of companies said they’re doing basic segmentation with their email marketing. Essentially, that means they’re creating slightly different versions of the same email-marketing message to cater to different segments of a company’s customer base. For example, some customers in the Southeast might get a slightly different message than customers in the Northwest.

Optimize for Mobile: Sixty-four percent of companies said they’re ensuring that their emails are optimized for mobile. In practice, this translates into using single-column email designs that allow for easier resizing; using responsive design that automatically resizes an email based on screen size; and eliminating content in mobile emails that is ordinarily displayed on fullsize computers.

Clean Your List Regularly: Fifty-four percent of companies surveyed said their email marketing success also hinged on ensuring that they cleaned their mailing lists regularly of emails that were bouncing back as no longer valid. They also were quickly removing email addresses from the list when customers requested it.

Encourage Sharing of Your Email on Social Networks: Forty-seven percent of customers surveyed said they got more mileage from their marketing emails after asking their customers to share those emails on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social-media networks.

Use Your Transaction Emails for Marketing: Forty-three percent of companies said they had a standard practice of inserting marketing messages into transaction emails. In practice, that meant they might pitch another product when confirming a purchase by email. Or they might offer a coupon via email when confirming a sign-up for the company’s e-newsletter.

Include Video Content: Forty-two percent of companies said adding video content to their emails was critical to the potency of their marketing messages. Given that online video-sharing service YouTube is the number-two most popular site on the web, the move sounds like a no-brainer.

Do Remarketing: Forty-one percent of companies surveyed said they regularly use emails to remarket to customers. For example, a customer who abandons a shopping cart might be remarketed with another offer for the product. Or a web visitor who failed to confirm a new subscription to the company e-newsletter might be prodded again by email to confirm that sign-up.

Personalize Your Email: Thirty-seven percent of companies surveyed said personalization of emails was also key to their marketing success. The personalization of emails went beyond simply addressing a person by first name. Instead, other personalized data was included in the email, such as the person’s birthday, acknowledgement of previous goods and services purchased by the recipient, and similar qualifiers which send the message that the company truly knew who it was emailing.

Use Emails for Lead Nurturing: Thirty-five percent of companies said they regularly followed up with additional emails to try to close the deal once they received a nibble on an offer by email.

Combine Email With Multichannel Triggers: Thirty-one percent of companies said they followed up by reaching out to the customer via other channels once contact was made by email. The other channels included Facebook, Twitter, telephone and old-fashioned snail mail. 

10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Is Still the Killer App

Of the companies Clutch surveyed, 83% said they were using e-newsletters to make new sales. And more than 70% were using standalone emails and follow-up emails to nurture nibbles of interest from customers. Moreover, email marketing firm Campaign Monitor released a similar study last year and found that businesses can look forward to a $38 return for every dollar they invest in email marketing.

Henry Hyder-Smith, CEO of Adestra (www.adestra.com), an email marketing service provider, confirmed the trend yet again in a study his company conducted with Econsultancy (http://content.adestra.com/hubfs/2016_Reports_and_eGuides/2016-Email-Marketing-Industry-Census.pdf). Those researchers found that 73% of more than 1,100 marketers interviewed said email was their number-one marketing channel in terms of ROI.

The study “points out that companies investing at least a fifth of their marketing budgets on email are eight times more likely to see sales attributable to it in excess of 50%,” Hyder-Smith said.

The reason behind email’s potency? Despite all the buzz over social media, 58% of internet users said the first thing they check on their computerized device each morning is email, according to a study by Exact Target (http://image.exct.net/lib/fe641570776d02757515/m/1/SFF1-TheDigitalMorning.pdf).

“When you have someone’s email, you’re allowed to communicate with them when you want, how you want,” said Derek Halpern, owner of online marketing consultancy Social Triggers (http://socialtriggers.com).

Halpern said he conducted his own informal test recently, pitting email against Twitter. He sent out a post on Twitter with a link he wanted prospective customers to click on. Then he sent out the same post and link via email. The result? Fifty of his Twitter followers clicked on the link, while 1,200 of his email subscribers clicked on the same link.

“Yes, my email list might be twice as large as my social-media following, but it generated about 24 times more clicks,” Halpern said. “That’s the power of email.”

Also helping email’s cause has been all the work IT departments have been doing to block spam from getting to company email boxes. Overall, those safeguards have significantly decreased the amount of spam business users get as compared to just a few years ago. Consequently, email open rates are looking healthy. On average, 17.6% of emails are now being opened by recipients, according to IBM’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study (www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/white-papers/all/2016/email-metrics-benchmark-study-2016).

Of course, getting email marketing right involves more than simply knowing it works. Here are the 10 most popular best practices for email marketing, based on insights from the Econsultancy/Adestra survey:

Engage in Basic Segmentation: Seventy-eight percent of companies said they’re doing basic segmentation with their email marketing. Essentially, that means they’re creating slightly different versions of the same email-marketing message to cater to different segments of a company’s customer base. For example, some customers in the Southeast might get a slightly different message than customers in the Northwest.

Optimize for Mobile: Sixty-four percent of companies said they’re ensuring that their emails are optimized for mobile. In practice, this translates into using single-column email designs that allow for easier resizing; using responsive design that automatically resizes an email based on screen size; and eliminating content in mobile emails that is ordinarily displayed on fullsize computers.

Clean Your List Regularly: Fifty-four percent of companies surveyed said their email marketing success also hinged on ensuring that they cleaned their mailing lists regularly of emails that were bouncing back as no longer valid. They also were quickly removing email addresses from the list when customers requested it.

Encourage Sharing of Your Email on Social Networks: Forty-seven percent of customers surveyed said they got more mileage from their marketing emails after asking their customers to share those emails on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social-media networks.

Use Your Transaction Emails for Marketing: Forty-three percent of companies said they had a standard practice of inserting marketing messages into transaction emails. In practice, that meant they might pitch another product when confirming a purchase by email. Or they might offer a coupon via email when confirming a sign-up for the company’s e-newsletter.

Include Video Content: Forty-two percent of companies said adding video content to their emails was critical to the potency of their marketing messages. Given that online video-sharing service YouTube is the number-two most popular site on the web, the move sounds like a no-brainer.

Do Remarketing: Forty-one percent of companies surveyed said they regularly use emails to remarket to customers. For example, a customer who abandons a shopping cart might be remarketed with another offer for the product. Or a web visitor who failed to confirm a new subscription to the company e-newsletter might be prodded again by email to confirm that sign-up.

Personalize Your Email: Thirty-seven percent of companies surveyed said personalization of emails was also key to their marketing success. The personalization of emails went beyond simply addressing a person by first name. Instead, other personalized data was included in the email, such as the person’s birthday, acknowledgement of previous goods and services purchased by the recipient, and similar qualifiers which send the message that the company truly knew who it was emailing.

Use Emails for Lead Nurturing: Thirty-five percent of companies said they regularly followed up with additional emails to try to close the deal once they received a nibble on an offer by email.

Combine Email With Multichannel Triggers: Thirty-one percent of companies said they followed up by reaching out to the customer via other channels once contact was made by email. The other channels included Facebook, Twitter, telephone and old-fashioned snail mail.