Every large brand with a digital presence knows the importance of a solid, growing email list. However, maintaining a large email list takes more time than you might guess, especially for the IT guys.

A recent study conducted by SolarWinds examines how information technology professionals identify what works and how they can improve email management. The survey collected responses from 162 IT professionals in the United States and Canada, as well as from public and private organizations ranging from midsize to large corporations.

Email Management Has Become Increasingly Technical Over the Past 5 Years

The survey suggests that the biggest concerns with email management are mobile device management, user mailbox management, and server application maintenance. These have been among the top concerns for the last 5 years. In recent years, the issues of least concern include client compatibility, instant messaging via email, and command-line vs. GUI. Other issues, such as multiple consoles for managing email applications and disaster recovery, were in the middle of the pack in terms of concern, according to the survey.

According to the survey, email management has become more complicated for businesses. The main reason is that smart and mobile devices have become increasingly common. As a result, companies have more difficulty tracking and monitoring email activity within their organizations. They have become more difficult to manage due to the increased volume. As a result, companies have more emails to manage, which can become overwhelming at times.

Email Management is Costing More Than It Used To

Another finding from the survey is that the cost of managing email is high, particularly in large corporations. In fact, the survey revealed that 49% of companies with 5,000 or more mailboxes have 6 or more employees managing the organization’s email. With 61% of companies that have more than 50,000 mailboxes having 10 or more employees managing email. As a result, the larger the company, the more people are needed to manage email due to the volume and complexity. This also results in companies needing to hire more people to manage email, increasing costs in their payroll budgets.

Email Monitoring is Raising the Cost of Maintaining Large Email Lists

With digital marketing creeping into an almost automated state, email marketing has become just one of the automated feature of digital marketing. Marketing tasks like website monitoring, drip campaigns, social media, PPC advertising, and more are relying less and less on humans to perform them. While there will always be a need for humans in the marketing field, we are witnessing the rise of greater computer automation; this is especially true in email management.

In company email management, the two main activities are administering and monitoring. According to the survey, companies with 10,000-49,000 mailboxes spend the most time monitoring email, at 61%, compared with the average of 53%. Therefore, any large company will need to monitor emails as a key part of its management process. The larger the organization, the more a company will have to monitor email.

In companies and organizations, certain applications are used to help manage email. The most common email applications used in business organizations are Exchange, Office 365, Lotus Notes, and Google. Regarding how many applications are used, 74% of companies use only 1, while 3% use 3 or more. Therefore, most companies need only one email application to meet their needs according to the survey.

Despite Rapid Need for Change, Email Management Software Has Not Drastically Improved Over the Years

The other issues pertaining to email management in organizations include a lack of innovation, as only 15% of companies use a single tool, while 53% use three or more to manage their email. According to the survey, 37% of respondents say their company will have its email applications hosted in the cloud over the next 3 years. This will double the usage of hosted service providers as a result.

After conducting the survey, many companies have said that email management is getting more complex and otherwise more difficult. There are a number of reasons for this, including a larger volume of email to manage, the need to monitor email more than administer it, the use of more service providers, and the increased use of smart devices.

With all of these things in mind, companies need to consider keeping a larger staff for email marketing, just to maintain the lists. This will increase costs, making it harder for companies to be profitable. This survey has revealed many interesting facts showing that managing email in large companies is becoming more of a hassle. However, companies may eventually adapt to this and find ways to make email management easier within their organizations.