Research into online marketing has revealed that two thirds of marketing managers still rely on email to deliver their online campaigns.
The survey, which was carried out by eCircle, is part of a larger study on European Social Media and Email Marketing. The previous two sections of the study focused on the consumer viewpoint, whereas this final study looked into how European marketing decision makers use online marketing.
The results showed that 57% of businesses chose email for their online marketing, making email the number one online marketing channel across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Meanwhile 48% of respondents said they advertised on content pages and 44% used social media.
Expanding on the type of email marketing used, e-newsletters came out on top with 75% of companies using this method. It was also revealed that marketers felt that the most effective type of email marketing is sector-specific email.
The main objectives for using online marketing tools were said to be for the promotion of new products and to increase brand awareness and customer loyalty.
The survey showed that out of the businesses that opt to use social media, Spain (51%) and the UK (50%) were the biggest users of channels such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Interestingly the survey uncovered that 70% of companies book online advertising on social media platforms, however 40% of consumers revealed a dislike to this type of advertising. Whereas fan pages and brand profiles are much more popular, with 50% of users showing an interest in them.
A recent study by Forrester showed that Facebook marketing was proving ineffective compared to traditional email and banner advertising – perhaps the reason why some firms are still shying away from paid social media advertising.
