Browsing the web over the Christmas break, I came across an interesting article detailing some email marketing statistics from 2012:
33% of email is read via webmail!
When considering email design, you have to remember that the variety of email clients is significant, and all tend to work differently. When designing email, we tend to use Gmail as a baseline. If an email looks OK in Gmail, then it should look OK in most other clients too. As Gmail makes up a significant chunk of the webmail universe, this stat would tend to back up that approach. 23% of email is read on smartphones & tablets. This number is significant and growing rapidly, so again considering mobile when designing emails is important.
Use of desktop decreases significantly over the weekend.
I see this as significant in the markets in which we/you tend to operate. It is not a huge leap to suggest that one reason for this is that B2B email consumption decreases significantly over the weekend, and hence infer that the use of desktop in B2B email is more significant. It is certainly the assumption we make when developing email for clients. This said, we also recognise that B2B use of mobile is also increasing rapidly, and thus will continue to grow in importance as we move forward.
On the desktop, Outlook is king
With over 60% of desktop emails being opened in Outlook, it is clear that testing how your emails display in Outlook is very important. Furthermore, these figures are global. If they were focused on the Business to Business market, it is likely that the prevalence of Outlook would be even higher. This is one reason why, as well as designing email content to look good in Gmail, we also test all emails in Outlook desktop client as well. If you would like to discuss the opportunities offered by email marketing for your business, we are always happy to talk.
