Retailers Increase Email Marketing Activity
By George Anderson
Research by Bigfoot Interactive indicates that retailers are finding email marketing to be both a cost effective and productive means to increase sales.
According to a poll of 5,100 retailers, the delivery rate of messages to consumers email boxes was 94 percent during the last holiday season. The click through rate for email
delivered was 4.8 percent.
Of the retailers responding to Bigfoot Interactive’s poll, 60 percent said online revenues increased during the holidays. More than one in four credited email marketing as being
at least partly responsible for their sales growth.
Moderator’s Comment: Which retailers (online or multi-channel) do the best job of email marketing? What Best Practices should retailers follow if they
are looking to be successful using email as a means to brand and/or grow sales? –
George Anderson – Moderator
Oh my gosh, Al – Harry & David drives me nuts, and I have NEVER opted in to any list they have. They drive me crazy.
I agree – Amazon does a good job and they have the good sense to pay attention to what I’ve bought before, although they haven’t yet figured out to separate out the items I ship to another address, which they ought to surmise is a gift for someone else.
Parkseed – who e-mail too often – have the good sense to often include gardening tips and newsletter info with their sales e-mails, which does encourage me to open them.
Barnes & Noble has sent expired coupons, which is just plain stupid.
Overall, I think they are doing a good job in an industry that is really quite young. Most could stand to dial it back a little, though.
Amazon does a great job. I appreciate how they don’t send email unless there truly is a special offer or announcement and messages are simple and text-based. Comp USA also sends out special offers that ARE special – I’ve heard that geeks tell one another to get on the Comp USA list because the deals are so great/they have a cult following. Wal-Mart is getting better and is doing a good job of segmenting emails by product category and interest. Best practices are to send opt in, text-based, offer-driven emails.
My personal favorite is Eddie Bauer. I just bought jeans and a couple of shirts, all on sale, in under 5 minutes. That included selecting colors and sizes, zooming in to view the fabric, and finding sale items. They always have something on sale, but everything is not on sale, so you don’t get the impression they are desperate. Their site is very intuitive, and has lots of great features. As an example of their customer-friendly options, you can pick between UPS and the Postal Service for standard delivery. For me, that’s important, because UPS leaves those annoying stickers on the door. In the worst category is Harry and David. While they have great products (though overpriced), they send out a constant barrage of e-mails touting phony holidays and minor occasions such as (for real), “Your Niece’s First Graduation Day,” “Baby’s First Tooth,” “Legal Assistant’s Day,” “Administrative Professionals Day,” “Arbor Day,” and “Celebrate Old Friends Day.” I know they want to sell more stuff, but some discretion is advised.