Every job has its ups and downs. Even professional cuddly toys, water slide testers and panda bear children have bad days every now and then. But how stressed are email marketers?
What frustrations and worries do email marketing jobs bring with them? How can we deal with these stressors and reduce anxiety in our work life?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and we were curious about how a career in email marketing affects stress levels. So we teamed up with our friends at Ascend2 to do the Email Marketing and Stress Survey.
Previous studies of workplace stress show that marketing jobs are generally quite stressful. In 2017, HR platform Paychex found that those who work in advertising and marketing reported being stressed almost four days a week (3.84 days / week). That topped the list of all industries.
A separate 2019 Paychex survey found that 69.6% of marketers had experienced burnout in the workplace. This puts marketers right in the middle, just below Transportation (75%) and above Government (67.4%).
Are Email Marketers Different? Let’s look at the results of our survey on Email Marketing and Stress with Ascend2.
The Email Marketing and Stress Poll
Initially, around 100 email marketers were asked if they would agree with the following statement:
“As an email marketer, I find my job stressful.”
From the big picture perspective 71% of email marketers agree that their job is stressful. However, only 16% fully agree with this statement. A little more than a quarter of the respondents disagreed with the statement.
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Larger companies seem to lead to higher levels of stress for email marketers. The survey found that 75% of respondents in large companies (500+ employees) described their work as stressful, while 68% of both medium-sized companies (50 to 500 employees) and small companies (fewer than 50) agreed with the statement.
It seems that responsibility also plays a role in stress levels in email marketing. 33% of respondents in management positions (C-suite, executives, owners) strongly agreed that their work is stressful. On the flip side, only 12% of non-management email professionals strongly agreed.
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What Causes Stress In Email Marketing?
Next, we asked survey participants to identify the aspects of email marketing that were causing them the most stress.
Members of the Email on Acid team put their heads together to come up with a list of 11 stressors. It was’nt easy. The list could have been much longer. However, we made sure there were options that are common to various email marketing roles including developer, specialist, and manager.
- Data collection and list segmentation
- Email client rendering discrepancies
- Spam / deliverability issues
- Maintain / improve engagement
- For a new campaign, click on “Send”
- Finding quality content / creative assets
- Lack of resources / help
- Compliance with data protection laws
- Bugs seen by subscribers or executives
- Coding / developing emails
- Dealing with marketing technology
Respondents were asked to select up to three of the above options as the most stressful aspects of email marketing. This is how the results were shown between different company sizes:
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You will find that there are some interesting differences between the aspects of email marketing that businesses find stressful as opposed to smaller businesses.
For SMEs “Maintain / improve engagement“Was by far the most cited stressor. The survey found that 71% of employees in smaller companies consider this to be a major cause of stress in their job.
Corporate organizations are most stressed by “Dealing with marketing technology“(44%) and”Spam / deliverability problems “
(41%).
When we segmented the results by job role (executive vs. non-management), executives were more likely to choose marketing technology, data collection and list segmentation as stressors. Non-management email marketers seem to be most preoccupied with email engagement and the ability to find quality content and creative assets.
Interestingly, an equal percentage of these two segments chose “Spam / deliverability issues“(33%) and a”Lack of resources / help“(27%) as stressful aspects of their work.
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Join our FREE virtual event for email marketers!
Whether your focus is on code, strategy, or design, there is something for every email marketer at Acid’s Splat Fest. Check out what we have planned! Choose the sessions that you find interesting!
Mental health resources for stressful times
Mental health is a serious problem. Experts say stress has become an epidemic in America, leading to decreased life expectancy and an increase in substance abuse.
For many people around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken stress levels to new highs. Everyone is still adapting, and even email marketers are having to adapt to the new normal.
If you are struggling with debilitating anxiety and depression beyond the challenges of daily life and work, please reach out to someone in need of help. We have listed some helpful links below.
If you feel that you can handle stress on your own, make sure that you are taking care of yourself physically and mentally. That means focusing on things like eating a healthy diet, getting regular exercise, and getting enough rest.
Breathing exercises, meditation, and mindfulness exercises are also very useful. Research shows that gratitude helps reduce stress. So be thankful for the good things in your life! Email marketing can be stressful at times, but very few of us have had to deal with the stress faced by healthcare workers, first responders, and other key employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For most email marketers, the transition to working from home has been easy. For some of us it will stay that way. Now it’s about finding balance, learning how to create work-life harmony, and making sure we quit our job at the right time.
Resources to Reduce Your Email Marketing Stress
Let’s face it … email marketing will never be a “stress-free job”. However, we can all be less stressful if we use the right tools and take good advice.
Here are some helpful resources from Email on Acid:
Is keeping a dedicated list one of your top email marketing stressors? Watch the recording of our webinar: Embedding Email Content: How to Get Attention and Drive Action.
Are you stressed about researching and implementing marketing technologies? Download our free whitepaper: Get the Most Out of Marketing Technology. Find out how top marketers approach martech implementation.
Need to ask for more email marketing budget to address a lack of resources and help? Our CEO has some solid advice on how to approach the folks holding the wallets.
Are you one of those many email marketers stressed out about spam? E-Mail on Acid’s email deliverability features help you reach more inboxes and spot problems before they become bigger problems.
Do you need corporate email marketing solutions? Does your email team grow with the complexity of your program? Our email team management features will help you stay organized and in control. We’ve also compiled a list of some other great tools for remote email teams on our blog.
Simplify complexity and reduce stress
There were a few notable options that landed at the bottom of our list of email marketing stressors:
- For a new campaign, click on “Send”.
- Email client rendering discrepancies.
- Mistakes seen by subscribers or executives.
That doesn’t necessarily mean these aspects of email marketing aren’t stressful. Who of us didn’t feel a little insecure before starting an important campaign? We think these aspects will be given a lower rating, as pre-deployment test platforms such as Email on Acid make the idea of ”send button fear” a thing of the past.
Email Error Results: The final report found that 43% of email marketers use a state-of-the-art pre-deployment testing tool. That percentage rises to 54% for large email teams.
If you’re still worried about issues like your campaigns showing up in Outlook, accidental profanity in copies of your email, or email designs your subscribers can’t access, Email on Acid can help. Campaign Precheck, our automated email checklist, is designed to take the stress out of you.
Use the email-on-acid platform to review everything, click the send button with confidence, and deliver perfect emails to any subscriber anytime!
What are your thoughts?
What do you think of the email marketing and stress survey results? Can you relate to this, or are there other factors in email work that are stressful?
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below and let’s keep the conversation going.
Author: Monica Hoyer
With over 20 years of experience in email marketing, Monica has worked for various email service providers and on the brand side. She heads the marketing team at Email on Acid and is very familiar with all areas of digital marketing. In her free time, Monica enjoys spending time with her elementary school son and her dog, a beagle rescue.
Author: Monica Hoyer
With over 20 years of experience in email marketing, Monica has worked for various email service providers and on the brand side. She heads the marketing team at Email on Acid and is very familiar with all areas of digital marketing. In her free time, Monica enjoys spending time with her elementary school son and her dog, a beagle rescue.
