Email marketers know they need to get more value out of their customer data–but still too few are taking steps to do so, according to a survey by EmailVision.

Of the 700 online marketing managers contacted for the survey, 89.2% said that email remains the same or more important to their overall marketing strategy versus 2 years ago. At the same time, an overwhelming 97% of survey responders believe that sending well-targeted, personalized emails was an important or very important in achieving the best response rates. Yet only 20% of those questioned said they were personalizing.

List Segmentation

This is an oft-repeated theme in the email marketing industry. Yet, despite its frequent discussion, few companies seem to make progress towards better personalization or segmentation. Many SMBs don’t even segment their emails at all, according to a survey from Alterian.

Only four in 10 global marketers (43%) use email segmentation to personalize messages by audience, it found, and another 44% are still employing email blasts of some kind, although 26% use basic personalization and 18% blast out on a mass basis.

Bottom line: only a small portion (13%) deliver emails based on preferences at the individual customer level, monitored in real-time.

Advanced Tools

Providers, though, continue to roll out tools to marketers that do want to better personalize their emails.  MailChimp has released ChimpMap, a new service where subscribers create email campaign sequences based on actions, such as opens and clicks. These dictate which email on the campaign map readers will receive next.