• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, July 12, 2017

There are many forms of transport along the customer journey, from social media to the Internet of Things (IoT). But one is at the head of the line.

Email is now “the No. 1 channel for customer communications in journeys,” according to “The State Of the Customer Journey 2017,” a study released today by Kitewheel.

Email jumped ahead of web and social in 2016, with interactions growing 12X over those of 2015, Kitewheel reports.

This is due, in part, to the effectiveness of “contextual interactions” — personalized and trigger-based emails, the study notes. It’s also based on choosing to invest in attributable channels.

In contrast, social media suffered a 57% decline in volume, showing a move away from “listening and broad lead-generation strategies and toward personalized direct responses,” Kitewheel adds.

Why is email so critical?

The other clear winner in this wrap-up is ad tech, or digital advertising—it grew by 14X, although it still ranks behind email. This reflects the fact that data-driven ads are “reliable and cost-effective ways to boost sales and loyalty,” the study states.  

The retail sector was particularly high on email, with 27.3% using the channel in 2016, compared with 13% in 2015. Social media use by retailers declined 12% in 2016, versus 59.8% the year before.

“This indicates that retailers are looking for ways to derive value from existing customer bases, rather than spending heavily on less attributable acquisition channels, like social media,” Kitewheel observes.

Retail web usage grew to 37.2% in 2016, up from 22.7% the prior year. At the same time, in-store interactions grew by more than 300% from 2015 to 2016.

However, the insurance business, which now accounts for 32% of the interactions on the Kitewheel platform, is driven by the IoT, and is the industry to watch, Kitewheel states. It is well positioned to use the IoT to track behavior and health metrics to better serve customers.

Kitewheel analyzed data from more than 2 billion customer journeys delivered for clients worldwide through its Kitewheel Customer Journey Hub.

It broke the data into three use-case areas: customer acquisition, conversion and growth. Overall volume jumped five times year over year, and three-fourths of the interactions were geared toward growth.

Smith offered these suggestions for marketers: 

"The No. 1 thing that businesses can do to make email more effective is integrating it into a broader customer journey strategy," he said. "Email, perhaps even more so than other channels, can come across very poorly if it isn't connected to the entire customer experience. Whereas a personalized email can be highly effective in terms of driving business results, a mistake in the content or context can be very negative.

"Therefore, emails need to be delivered in conjunction with data gleaned from other elements of a business — particularly the website, where email is a great complement to behavioral data. As a basic example, if a customer looks at three different products but doesn't make a purchase, a personalized email can go out with a discount for one or all of the products.

"In this way, the website and email form a symbiotic relationship, with site behavior informing more effective emails, which serve to drive consumers back to the site. This kind of holistic approach to the customer journey is critical."