A Snapshot of an Email Team

Email marketing is a team sport. And like a sports team, it’s not just the people who are on the field that count. An email team generally consists of three groups:

Internal team members, which consist of the full- and part-time employees on a brand’s email marketing team.
External email team members, which consist of freelancers and consultants, plus agencies and the services arms of email service providers.
Business stakeholders, which consist of all of the people involved in strategic goal-setting and the review and approval of emails across all the departments of your organization.

On average, brands have nearly eight full- or part-time employees working on email marketing. More than 26% use at least one freelancer, and nearly 34% of brands use an agency. Plus, marketers generally work with 2.4 other departments to get their emails reviewed and approved.

Even if you’re a solo email practitioner, there’s a chance you work with freelancers or an agency. And even if that’s not the case, unless you’re a solopreneur, you have stakeholders that establish key performance indicators and review and approve the emails you create.

Based on Litmus’ 2018 State of Email Survey of nearly 3,000 marketing professionals worldwide, this presentation looks at each of those three email team components, as well as how email team sizes may change during 2018. Check it out and see how your own email marketing team compares.

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INFOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPT
A SNAPSHOT OF AN EMAIL TEAM

A look at the internal and external team members, plus the business stakeholders, involved in email marketing programs

INTERNAL TEAM MEMBERS

Internal email team members consist of the full-time and part-time employees on a brand’s email marketing team.

The Average Email Team Consists of 7.7 Full- or Part-Time Employees

Including you, how many people within your company work on email marketing full-time and part-time?

Full-Time Employees
Zero: 21.0%
One: 19.7%
Two: 12.1%
Three: 9.2%
Four or Five: 11.8%
Six to 10: 10.0%
11 to 20: 5.7%
21 or more: 10.5%

Part-Time Employees
Zero: 53.7%
One: 12.8%
Two: 11.5%
Three: 6.5%
Four or Five: 7.9%
Six to 10: 3.6%
11 to 20: 1.6%
21 or more: 2.4%

2,853 respondents

For more, check out A Snapshot of the Email Professional.

EXTERNAL TEAM MEMBERS

External email team members consist of freelancers and consultants, plus agencies and the services arms of email service providers.

Freelancers & Consultants

27% of brands use freelancers or contractors for their email marketing.
14% of brands use them for day-to-day email operations.

Majority of Freelancer Users Engage Them for Day-to-Day Tasks

Which functions does your company use freelancers or contractors for? Select all that apply.

Day-to-day email production: 54.6%
Occasional special projects: 41.4%
Peak season or occasional email production: 38.2%
Analytics or subscriber insights: 12.0%
Language translations: 11.8%
Marketing automation work: 11.0%
Platform, API, and data management: 10.5%
List building & subscriber acquisition: 9.3%
Strategic planning or consulting: 8.7%

526 respondents

Agencies & ESP Services Arms

34% of brands use agencies or the services arm of their ESP for their email marketing.
11% use them for day-to-day email operations.

Majority of Agency Users Engage Them for Special Projects

What functions does your company use agencies for? Select all that apply.

Occasional special projects: 54.5%
Day-to-day email production: 32.7%
Platform, API, and data management: 31.5%
Strategic planning or consulting: 27.8%
Analytics or subscriber insights: 24.9%
Peak season or occasional email production: 23.6%
Marketing automation work: 23.6%
List building & subscriber acquisition: 22.8%
Language translations: 12.8%

615 respondents

For more, check out the 2016 State of Email Agencies infographic.

BUSINESS STAKEHOLDERS

Business stakeholders consist of all of the people involved in the review and approval of emails across all the departments of your organization.

Marketers Generally Work with 2.4 Other Departments to Get Emails Reviewed and Approved

Which of the following departments are generally involved in the review and approval process for your typical marketing email? Select all that apply.

95.9% Marketing
47.9% Executives & Operations
32.7% Sales
30.3% Legal & Compliance
24.4% Other
24.1% IT
17.1% Research & Development
16.0% Merchandising
15.4% Manufacturing & Production
13.2% Purchasing
12.6% Finance & Accounting
10.9% Human Resources

1,847 respondents

For more, check out the 2018 State of Email Workflows report.

TEAM SIZE TRENDS FOR 2018

Email marketing team sizes are unlikely to change much in 2018 based on marketers’ priorities and planned budget changes.

2018 Priorities

Only 18% of brands said adding internal email staff was priority for 2018. And only 4% said increasing their use of agencies and freelancers was a priority. Both of those ranked near the bottom of marketers’ list of email priorities.

Email Marketing Priorities for 2018

Which of the following, if any, is a priority for your email marketing program in 2018? (select all that apply)

Boosting the level of personalization in our emails: 72.2%
Expanding our usage of automated emails: 67.8%
Doing more A/B testing of our emails: 66.7%
Optimizing our email creation workflow: 48.5%
Exploring interactive email functionality: 43.8%
Growing our analytics and Big Data insights: 42.6%
Improving our omnichannel capabilities: 26.9%
Using more AI and machine learning: 22.3%
Adding internal email marketing staff: 17.8%
Changing our email service provider: 16.1%
Increasing our use of email marketing agencies/freelancers: 4.3%

1,675 respondents

Adding internal and external email team members are a low priority in 2018 compared to other email initiatives.

For more, check out Email Marketing Priorities and Budget Changes for 2018.

2018 Budget Changes

On net, 28% of brands plan to increase spending on internal email staff during 2018; and 8% to increase spending on external email staff. But spending increases are much stronger elsewhere.

Email Marketing Spending Changes for 2018

In 2018, will your brand’s spending on the following decrease, stay flat, or increase?

Integration of email with other channels (1,303 respondents)
Decrease 10% or more: 1.5%
Decrease up to 10%: 1.1%
Stay flat: 47.2%
Increase up to 10%: 26.9%
Increase 10% or more: 23.3%

Email building, testing, analytics, and other tools (1,394 respondents)
Decrease 10% or more: 1.9%
Decrease up to 10%: 0.8%
Stay flat: 53.9%
Increase up to 10%: 25.8%
Increase 10% or more: 17.6%

Email education, conferences, and training (1,333 respondents)
Decrease 10% or more: 2.5%
Decrease up to 10%: 2.0%
Stay flat: 55.4%
Increase up to 10%: 24.7%
Increase 10% or more: 15.5%

Email team personnel (1,385 respondents)
Decrease 10% or more: 2.7%
Decrease up to 10%: 1.6%
Stay flat: 63.8%
Increase up to 10%: 16.1%
Increase 10% or more: 15.8%

Email service provider(s) (1,354 respondents)
Decrease 10% or more: 3.2%
Decrease up to 10%: 2.2%
Stay flat: 64.3%
Increase up to 10%: 17.1%
Increase 10% or more: 13.1%

Email agencies, consultants, and freelancers (1,224 respondents)
Decrease 10% or more: 5.1%
Decrease up to 10%: 3.2%
Stay flat: 75.6%
Increase up to 10%: 9.5%
Increase 10% or more: 6.7%

Most of the boost in staff spending appears to be going toward raises and additional hours, not increases in headcounts.