Many consumers still consider email to be their preferred channel for receiving brand communications. Much of the data suggests that email has become more important, not less, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

While email may not be changing as rapidly as some other digital disciplines, it evolves nevertheless. Gone are the days when a best-in-class marketer could rely on batch-and-blast techniques, where 100% of a brand’s email distribution list received emails that were 100% identical. Opportunities abound particularly in the realms of personalization and testing.

One thing marketers are thankful for in 2020 is that it’s almost over. Marketers did not have much of a chance to proactively take a thorough look at their email marketing programs to see what’s working and what isn’t—a critical miss, considering many marketers cite it as the channel offering the best ROI.

Having a strong understanding of an email program’s return on investment (ROI) remains a competitive advantage. It might be surprising that given how great an ROI email can provide, many brands don’t actually have a good handle on how to measure its success or lack thereof.

When asked about their priorities for the year in SEMRush’s “State of Content Marketing” report, the most popular answer, with 79% of marketers agreeing, was generating quality leads.

SMS's Relationship to Email Marketing. SMS marketing is frequently used to reinforce oft-overlooked email marketing messages; in this way, SMS is clearly a complement to email. It’s important for marketers to understand that text messages are not emails and should not be treated as such.

Investing in email marketing. Email marketing was another success story of 2020. Open rates soared during the early days of the pandemic. Acoustic, a marketing tech firm, found a 23.8% jump in open rates worldwide between February and March.

After starting her career as a data analyst, Tori transitioned to email marketing where she has focused on improving overall deliverability and ROI for clients from various industries. Jessica Hunt is an email strategist at Validity.

So, before big brands decide to hit “reply all,” they may want to reconsider their email marketing strategies. Read more:. 5 criteria for evaluating your email marketing program. How marketers and service professionals use SMS messages. Audio: What makes a best-in-class email program, Nielsen's ID graph, and measuring video ads.

Invest in email marketing. Email marketing was one of the success stories of 2020. Open rates soared during the early days of the pandemic. Acoustic, a marketing tech firm, found a 23.8% jump in open rates worldwide between February and March. In 2021, marketers will build on this growth in an intentional manner, improving in areas such as personalization, testing, measurement, and acquisition.

On today's episode, we discuss which pandemic-related behaviors will stick around, whether newsletters can replace local newspapers, YouTube and the music streaming wars, how you can master the intimacy of the inbox, why Amazon is opening a salon, the first movie to ever release a soundtrack, and more. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer analysts Nina Goetzen and Blake Droesch, and principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Jillian Ryan.