For decades, users have logged into an email account and checked for new messages. Nowadays, many never log out in the first place. Whatever befalls email, the iconic “You’ve Got Mail” AOL interjection will remain entrenched in the culture of Internet history. As it happens, email is among the most prominent means of communication––even as other means of interactivity sweep over the globe. Email is incredibly popular.

At the end of the summer, Adobe revealed its third annual Adobe Consumer Email Survey Report. And while you may already know you think email is excellent, some of the information in the survey is especially telling of where email is in the hierarchy of internet communication. More importantly, for our purposes, there’s a lot of insight into consumer email habits in the US and further inferences of how we might use it inoffensively and irresistibly.

People are using email differently

Let’s get into some of the more thought-provoking details. Consumers are on email an average of 5.4 hours over every weekday, respectively. Even as new means of messaging like Slack and Snapchat crop up, email is the preferable medium at work. Even outside of work, users are checking their email all the time––even inopportunely (while driving). As much as everyone is emailing, they are doing it with a more even distribution than they used to.

The amount of the day spent on email at work, whether on a work email or personal email, is down from the year before: 20% for a work account and 36% for a personal account, with 27% less overall. Consumers check their email less in bed in the morning and more than ever hold out until they arrive in their office. 20% never check email if they’re not in a work hour and almost 50% are almost entirely removed from email over a vacation.

It’s not very difficult to understand the feature of email distinct from other messaging services. For one thing, an email account is usually private and removed from the ecosystem of other users. You are able to check a message as you wish, where the immediate pressure of a social media or phone interaction may render daily proceedings a little more anxiety-ridden. You can open them in your own time at your own pace.

Why do we love email?

Aside from an account, the messages themselves are distinct, which enables a little spacing of the emails, if not just between the letters within. Nevertheless, younger consumers are likelier to engage with an email any given moment as well as maintain inbox hygiene. The 25-34 set is most inclined to reduce their new messages until they finally arrive with zero. This is consistent with a faster, more fluent management of filing and dispensing.

There is little surprise in seeing 61% of consumers allude to a preference for email offers over any other means of contact, a 24% bump over the previous year. Because of the universal duality of phones and computers, marketers are able to reach a consumer on either device, although consumers are likelier to view a work email on a computer. More specifically, 82% of work emails and 62% of personal emails are opened. If you do it right, you’ll make contact.

How? Well, to begin with, understand by having access to an inbox, you’ve been given a channel into a very personal place. You’ll do well if you approach the entry respectfully. Of course, the entry is predicated on receiving the indication a consumer would like to hear from you. The way of acquiring emails is variable and depends on your business with respect to anything you offer. There are universal rules, however.

 Read More About Effective Email Marketing

General advice

If you’re asking for an email address, make sure you’re very explicit about the commitment of the subscription, including what the user will receive in return as a download, for example, as well as an estimation of the content in a given email. Will they be especially frequent? Will I be interested or will everything devolve into spam? Examples of things you may include are email series, free downloads, free white papers or ebooks, or updates on inventory.

Be sure your site is whitelisted so your email isn’t limited from the beginning. For even more consumer confidence, deliver on expectations––make emails as effective as possible, but don’t send more than advertised. A follow-up is essential insofar as establishing the framework of the email service. Make an autoresponder sequence in order to remain on top of every new subscriber with precision and consistency.

One reason Amazon is effective with calls-to-action is that the entire service is based on them. Offers in Amazon are always derived from buying habits. An emailing campaign will aspire to achieve consistency with any promises from the follow-up. Anything a company sends you by virtue of a subscription is in danger of being confused with spam if none of its content is reflective of the aesthetics or tone of the site from which it is derived.

In Conclusion

Email marketing is essential because email is an extension of any product or service offering. This means any given email has the ability to either elevate or lower your brand in the eyes of a consumer. Emailing effectively is even more important as, even if an email is objectively ‘good,’ a consumer may nevertheless confuse it with something else. In order to send effective emails, you need to be consistent with whomever you’re emailing.