Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been spreading rapidly. The pandemic peaked in June 2020, with 500,000 deaths worldwide. In addition to the high death toll and global lockdown, the pandemic also brought economic unrest. Followed by a new and unpredictable form of consumer behavior.
(Source: Futura Santé)
Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been spreading rapidly. The pandemic peaked in June 2020, with 500,000 deaths worldwide. In addition to the high death toll and global lockdown, the pandemic also brought economic unrest. Followed by a new and unpredictable form of consumer behavior.
Hand in hand with this new form of consumer behavior goes marketing. Since the big breakthrough of the pandemic in March 2020, many companies have analyzed their own data. One of these data is email marketing.
Email marketing uses email to send specific messages to a particular target group. This can be done using ‘automation emails’, discount codes, newsletters, or other email formats. Email marketing tries to build a bond with existing and potential customers.
Mailchimp and acoustic also accomplished a study on the influence of covid-19 on email marketing.
Mailchimp is the American platform for marketing automation and email marketing. Acoustic is an independent marketing platform with the goal of unleashing brilliance in marketers. They themselves offer one of the industry’s leading open marketing ecosystems.
More specifically, Mailchimp analyzed the evolution within e mail marketing and engagement patterns. From their research, Mailchimp was able to conclude a few things:
Higher engagement since Corona
In times of a pandemic, public engagement with companies increases. Individuals want to be more involved, but only with companies they value.
There is also an increase in ‘Click through rates’ and ‘open rates’. Be sure to check out the Acoustics Benchmark Report if you are interested in continent specific data. Together with the increase of these figures, the unsubscribe rates are also dropping. This means that less people are unsubscribing from a certain mailing list with their email addresses.
The above data are of course global data. One can therefore ask the question whether this evolution is also visible in a specific sector. Here Mailchimp and Acoustic contradict each other.
Mailchimp concludes that there was an increase in engagement in every sector by March 25, 2020. With the natural result being an ‘Open Rates increase’. Only within the e-commerce sector was there no increase. However, the largest increase occurred within restaurants and non-profits.
The rising ‘open and click rates’ within restaurants can be explained by the switch to take-away. According to Mailchimp, non-profit organizations should focus on their needs now. In other words, respond with their email marketing strategies to: “What can individuals help us with today?”
Small businesses in particular benefit from email marketing (since Corona)
In addition, Mailchimp concluded a difference between small companies – companies with less than 2,000 contacts – and large companies. These small companies could be placed on the first place of strongest risers. Followed by the previously mentioned restaurants and non-profit organizations.
The reason why small companies saw such a big growth is pretty simple according to Mailchimp. After all, people are looking during the pandemic for some form of connection. A connection to small businesses from their own community.
However, Acoustic concludes that there was a distinction to be made per sector. Airlines and delivery companies suddenly saw their world turned upside down. Some sectors came to a standstill while others couldn’t meet all the demand.
The largest increase in Open Rates was therefore noticeable in the transport sector. While in the consumer services and consumer products sector there was hardly any change.
Something where Acoustic does align with Mailchimp is the why behind the story. According to Acoustic, individuals are looking for information to understand the impact on them.
However, it is important to make the notion that Mailchimp and Acoustic analyzed their results differently. Mailchimp uses their results compared to the year before. While Acoustic compares their results to a month earlier, February 2020.
Decline in number of email campaigns is sector-specific
A final striking conclusion of both parties in the decline of e mail campaign. Companies send marketing emails to their ‘subscribers’ or ‘target audience’ every fourteen days. During the pandemic this is only every twenty days.
In addition, there is a noticeable decline of the email campaigns in some sectors. Namely: travel agencies, small retailers and within the leisure sector. However, sectors such as charities and the government sent more emails than usual.
E-Mail-Marketing de Covid-19
The global corona pandemic has caused many changes in people’s daily lives. One of these changes is taking place in email marketing. People are becoming more engaged with their local businesses and opening more email marketing campaigns. However, subscribers are receiving fewer campaigns than they did before the pandemic, preferring to receive weekly “updates”.
Mailchimp and Acoustics noted particularly positive changes for small businesses. Many small businesses, restaurants, and nonprofits saw a large increase in their subscriber base. Some of this increase can be explained by restaurant closures.
