How to Use Email Marketing During a Pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic, email marketing experienced a significant spike, as various businesses sent updates regarding their business responding to the pandemic, whether to stay open, or temporarily closed, and so on. However, are these businesses making good use of this channel? How can they ensure that this email marketing is the best channel even during a pandemic crisis? Here are some of the latest email marketing statistics during the pandemic.

Increased use of email marketing

When the pandemic began to spread, not a few businesses did pivot marketing, one of which was by selecting which marketing channels were still effective during a crisis situation like today. Such as social media channels, search engines, email marketing, and so on.

If you are looking for which digital marketing channels are affordable and effective to use, then according to a research from Campaign Monitor, email is undoubtedly more efficient than social media. This is made clear by data from Forrester Research which reports that 90% of emails sent go directly to customers' inboxes.

This shows that email marketing has proven itself as a marketing channel that never dies, even during the current pandemic crisis. This is also evidenced by MTARGET's internal data which shows a surge in the use of email marketing since March when the PSBB volume 1 started, and continues to increase until now, when PSBB volume 2 came into effect.

From the data above, starting from August 2019-July 2020 there was an increase in the use of MTARGET email marketing tools, especially this usage increased when entering the first PSBB period in March 2020-Until now it is still increasing.

Email marketing delivery increased

According to the latest data from HubSpot, 44% more emails sent during this pandemic compared to before the pandemic and before the lockdown / PSBB came into effect. Quoted from HubSpot, Inken Kuhlmann-Rhinow, Marketing Director of EMEA at HubSpot, commented on the surge: “With 44% of emails sent than before the Covid-19 outbreak, there is a new marketing strategy, namely marketing must have segmentation, sending educational emails and empathetic messages to customers. Because right now is a tough time, and you have to try to keep your customers' attention for the long term.”

The soaring email delivery was also felt by MTARGET, which during this pandemic sending email marketing using MTARGET tools increased by more than 61% since March when PSBB volume 1 started, and continues to increase until now, when PSBB volume 2 came into effect.

Email open rate increased

As we all feel, during this pandemic, we receive a lot of email updates and promotions from various brands. Well, according to BounceX, in addition to increasing email delivery, email marketing open rate has also increased by more than an average of 25% every week since early April 2020. In addition, email marketing has also experienced a 1,5% increase in conversions and a 0,4% increase in revenue. , which is not very significant given the high open rate.

The determining factor for the high open rate during this pandemic is because currently readers tend to be interested in information related to Covid-19. When the pandemic first started spreading, the majority of businesses used the email subject line “Message from the team…”, “We're all in this together”, and so on. However, over time, many business brands began to switch to providing discount promotions on the email subject.

However, it should also be noted that the message in the subject and email does not use language that triggers anxiety for the reader. Because in today's conditions, people tend to be sensitive to information. So, it's important to pay attention to the communication style you use in your emails.