NEW DELHI: Following the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) directive on usage of SMS for promotional messages, marketers plan to increase their budgets towards email marketing by more than 11 per cent in 2012.
According to ‘Gearing up for Growth’, India e-marketing outlook for 2012 conducted by Octane Marketing, as many as 35 per cent of those interviewed wanted to increase their email marketing.
The study showed that the top five industry verticals in India in terms of e-Marketing investment are Retail and Distribution (including online retail and ecommerce) – 32 per cent, Media and Entertainment – 17 per cent, IT and ITES – 11 per cent, Services and Consulting (including marketing agencies) – 9 per cent and Education – 8 per cent.
Customer Acquisition continues to be the primary goal for marketing initiatives over the last two years.
Social media initiatives are gaining momentum and email continues to be the most effective marketing channel. Social Media (68.8 per cent) and email Marketing (53.1 per cent) emerge as the top two online marketing initiatives that will see an increase in marketing investments in 2012, as compared to 2011.
A majority of India marketers (36 per cent) want a code of conduct by an industry body like the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), while 31.5 per cent of participants believe stronger anti-spam laws like CAN-SPAM would curb SPAM campaigns in India.
There is a remarkable increase of 18 per cent in the number of India marketers who see the importance of integrating email and social media campaigns in 2012.
A high number of India marketers (62 per cent) feel that the email and SMS marketing programmes are effective in meeting agreed goals.
Comparative analysis of data revealed that more that 80 per cent of the respondents agree that integrated (email and SMS) campaigns influence conversion rates.
Reaching the Inbox (and not the Junk/Spam folder), increasing ROI and building subscribers list are seen to be the top three challenges for the last two successive years.
In 2011, an increased dependence was seen on email service providers or ESPs (like Octane) to provide assured inbox delivery of email messages (25.5 per cent respondents in 2011 V/s 19.2 per cent in 2010). There was a decline in the role of IT in ensuring inbox deliverability over the last year.
At The outset, the report says e-Marketing in India has seen unprecedented growth in recent years as an efficient distribution channel to reach out to the consumers, offering a unique value generating proposition for all stakeholders. This has been largely because of the high adoption growth of online and mobile technologies in India.
Internet usage in India has almost tripled over the last three years and there are approx. 100 million Internet users and 800 million mobile connections in the country. According to IMRB estimates, out of the 35 million claimed mobile Internet users, 26.3 million (75 per cent) are active mobile Internet users.
IAMAI says lower subscription rentals, availability of feature-rich cell phones at cheaper prices, increased PC and digital Literacy, greater awareness of the Internet medium are some of the reasons why mobile Internet penetration has risen in India. With the double digit rise in shipments of Smartphones in India in 2012, more and more users in India will have access to mobile Internet at a price point lower than ever before.
The Annual India e-Marketing Research 2012 is based on surveys conducted with reputed market leaders. The primary objective of this research report is to provide insights to marketers on the trends and technologies impacting e-Marketing in India in the last two years.
