Time and time again marketers have predicted the fall of email marketing, but it continues to be one of the most resilient and impactful channels available to the modern marketer. In fact, Salesforce’s 2015 State of Marketing Report found that 73% of marketers agree that email marketing is core to their business. The popularity of email marketing has continued to grow in recent years largely due to the adoption of mobile.
Mobile email consumption has become so incredibly popular that it has overtaken desktop email. In a recent report by Movable Ink on consumer device preference for email, they found that 67% of all emails are opened on a mobile device (smartphone or tablet). Smartphones alone make up 50% of this group. As this number continues to grow, so to will the importance of creating mobile friendly emails with an easy path to conversion.
Mobile Conversion Rates are on the Rise
It has been common thinking that mobile leads don’t convert. However, Movable Ink found that mobile conversions from email have been on the rise this past quarter. 31% of conversions they tracked occurred on iPhones alone, and combined mobile conversions total to 63.4%. Smartphones alone account for 49.4% of all conversions. This trend closely mirrors the increase in mobile email open rates proving that consumers are more likely to convert on mobile than was originally thought.
Call Conversions from Email
The conversion rates depicted above don’t really tell the full story. This depicts consumers as more willing to fill out a form using the small screen on their smartphone. However, this is still not the easiest or most desirable way for the consumer to convert. Instead, take the conversion offline using one of the core features of any smartphone – the phone.
Providing your customers with the ability to call you directly from your email is a much more natural path to conversion. This requires the ability to track phone calls back to their original source – in this case your email. However, email marketing solutions don’t have the ability to track phone calls or include call conversions in their metrics. This requires call tracking software. Call tracking allows you to determine the source of every phone call so you can track calls back to the specific email from which they were initiated. If the email recipient clicks a link to go to your website first, but still winds up placing a call to your company, this call conversion will still be credited to your email.
Tracking phone leads is crucial to your marketing attribution metrics. If you aren’t getting credit for the phone calls driven by your emails and other marketing channels, you are missing out on a significant portion of leads and revenue. In fact, phone leads convert to revenue 10x more often than web leads.
Email marketing is still one of the premier channels for outbound marketing. It is easy, cost-effective, and allows for one-to-one interactions with consumers. By combining the power of voice with your email marketing, you can drive more high-value conversions. To learn more about tracking call conversion from your marketing emails, download our free white paper: The Definitive Guide to Call Tracking for Email Marketing
