Are retailers missing opportunities to connect via e-mail?

Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from the LoyaltyTruth.com blog.
Over the years, if I did business with a brand or signed up for its loyalty program, I opted in for its e-mail stream. As a result, I now receive a ton of e-mails each week.
The problem: e-mail overload. So the other day I began to finally thin out my e-mail subscriptions. To stay on the "keep ’em coming" list, the company had to meet one of two criteria:
- Did they recognize me as an individual?
- Did the e-mails bring me value, offering relevant or interesting content?
What I saw were a lot of missed opportunities. Here are a few examples.
Staples. The main focus of their last e-mail was to "save 50% off cleaning and break room supplies," which might be relevant if I had a break room. What would have persuaded me to stay: some content aimed at me, the independent business person, that established Staples as a thought-leader in the small business space.
VERDICT: UNSUBSCRIBE
Avis. While they recognize me by name — "Thomas, Save With The Avis Corporate Awards Program" read one recent subject line — there is no other recognition of my past history with the company, including the fact that I haven’t rented a car from Avis in well over a year. A "win-back" approach might have kept them in the mix.
VERDICT: UNSUBSCRIBE
Hilton. As a Hilton HHonors member, a regular stream of e-mails arrives enticing me to get deals on Hilton locations in San Francisco, Hawaii and even China. Why aren’t they cities I visit? If they asked me which locations I’m most interested in, their communications could be personalized to my specific travel needs.
VERDICT: UNSUBSCRIBE
Booking.com. After recently looking for rooms in both Atlantic City and New York City, the travel site sent me an e-mail with an enticing message: "Last-minute deals for Atlantic City and New York City. Get them before they’re gone!" They obviously "cookied" me the last time I was there, and I’m aware of the Big Brother aspect of this but their e-mail was tailored to my needs.
VERDICT: KEEP ‘EM COMING
New York Mets. I have to commend my favorite baseball team for taking the initiative this past offseason and sending me an e-mail that linked to a long-survey designed to figure out who I am. It will be interesting to see how they use this info in the months ahead.
VERDICT: KEEP ‘EM COMING
Patagonia. Sure, Patagonia is trying to sell me stuff, but their e-mails also link me to stories about exotic places, via adventurers who travel the world decked out in Patagonia gear. It’s soft sell at its very best and it emotionally ties me to the brand. It also doesn’t hurt that their clothing lasts forever.
VERDICT: KEEP ‘EM COMING
Why are broad, deal-driven e-mail blasts still more common than personalized offers? Which types of e-mail campaigns connect with you and which send you to the “unsubscribe” link?
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19 Comments on "Are retailers missing opportunities to connect via e-mail?"
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The key to email sustainability is relevance and customization. In the above article, the common theme of unsubscribe is the lack of utility. People stay subscribed to emails that offer utility. They unsubscribe from emails that offer none.
Broad, deal-driven email blasts are easy to do, appear to show activity, but have little impact. The key is to develop email metrics which provide understanding of email’s value and design accordingly.
You love NY, airline prices are a pivotal driver. You love baseball, when the season is near, you get the bug. It seems you have less affinity for driving rental cars or cleaning windows.
Verdict: Love is the answer, and you know that for sure.
Personalized offers mean that a retailer has taken the time and undergone the expense to learn about you, the individual customer. That takes time and costs money, something most retailers would prefer not to do. They would rather try to lure the masses through a one size fits all discount. Unless their emails offer compelling discounts, or offer valuable content, I unsubscribe.
Email lists still remaining among the most efficient and cost effective ways to communicate with potential shoppers. Those that have been described by Tom Rapsas as candidates for “unsubscribing” either have not evolved to a level of targeting sophistication to offer relevant, customized content, and/or they still believe it to be a numbers game, knowing that even generic messages will find some new business, provided the numbers of email recipients are sufficient.
Personally, I subscribe to too much, but at least run through each message very quickly to asses it’s value to me. Those that are personalized do get longer looks, but at the end of the day, if the email comes from a retailer or provider that I use, I will look at the message even if it is off the mark.
There’s a persistent belief in retail that deals are more important than personalization. The twin sister of this belief is that frequency is good, to the point of sending an email every day. These practices not only cheapen the brand but also train customers to wait for sales.
It would take more effort to target purchasers of, say, boots, and let them know that new shipments of boots had arrived. But the results might speak for themselves. I’ll be interested to see if other panelists also complain about frequency.
Even in this day and age, there are still millions of customers that pay no attention to social media, texting, and certainly newspapers, so e-mail is still a very effective way to reach out to customers because e-mail is for (almost) everyone. The issue here is that too much becomes counter-productive. Too many retailers are sending out so many e-mails that consumers immediately delete them without reading.
The best approach is to spread the e-mails out so that when they arrive in the customer’s in-box, they still create intrigue and curiosity. It goes without saying that the subject lines need to be attention-grabbing, but without being over-stated, and the message needs to be easy to find, easy to read, and even easier to react to.
This is an interesting post. One reason that broad email blasts may be more common is that retailers are trying to replicate or replace a vehicle that exists that has already been proven to drive traffic: the circular. That’s actually a smart approach, in that anyone who engages in the newspaper insert is likely to have enough basic brand affinity to look at the email as well.
But surely Tom is right that there are opportunities to become much more personalized than that.
Personalized offers are incredibly important, yet difficult to execute. It is far easier for companies to collect email addresses and send them mass mailings with promos available to everyone.
As email frequency and volume continues to increase, ones that are not relevant to my shopping behavior will quickly elicit an “unsubscribe” response from me. If I am clearly segmented and the message is targeted to me personally, I will keep the email alive.
Any retailer sending daily e-mails is just annoying their customer base. I don’t need to hear from Staples daily, I know they are there. Someone came up with the concept of constant contact, meaning daily e-mails. This is just daily commercials and just like zipping past advertisements on my DVR, delete is the key of choice. These e-mails are not targeting me or my household. They are from the marketing school of throw it on the wall and see what sticks. Automatic routing to junk mail saves having to press the delete key.
Deals get me to look. Big Lots sends out an awesome coupon that gets me 33% off of a $45 purchase. B&BW sends good coupons and so do a few others. I wouldn’t eat at Ruby Tuesday’s without the great coupons. The ones that irritate me are the ones that vary the coupon, like Dunhams. Don’t send me a 15% off when last week I got a 25%. That makes me MAD!
I still believe that email marketing is viable. The open rate is less, but because of the low (or no) cost to deliver the message, it makes sense, even if a smaller percentage of them are opened. I’ll speak from experience that if I like the store or am interested in a store’s merchandise, I’ll look it over before deleting. I play guitar, and enjoy getting promotional emails from Guitar Center. There are times that their frequency is too much, but I stay with them because I’m truly interested in their product.
Take advantage of the consumer that is truly interested in the store and its products. Ideally, a personalized email, even if it just based on prior buying experience, will outperform general blasts.
I have just read through the 18 comments coming off my original post — they read like a master’s class in how to effectively use e-mail marketing. Thanks to all! Also, one side note — the day after this story appeared here, I received a “we want you back” e-mail from Avis. Either they suddenly saw the light — or at least one marketer there is a RetailWire reader.