Sent a promotional e-mail lately? Your customers may be losing
interest in these marketing messages, recent survey data shows.
An online marketing study from eMarketer, an Internet research
firm, looked at data from a variety of online advertising research
firms and found a sharp decrease in consumer response to e-mail
advertisements and promotions. The study found that the average
click-through rate on e-mail advertisements was 1.8 percent in
2002. That's down from last year, when the rate exceeded 3
percent. Those numbers are not favorable for e-tailers, especially
since e-mail marketing has proved to be effective when compared to
other forms of advertising such as banner ads, traditional direct
mail or general brand advertising.
The study is also disappointing, considering e-mail marketing is
cost-effective. An August 2002 eMarketer study found that the
current average cost to market an e-mail message in the United
States was 0.47 cents. By comparison, it costs 18 cents on average
to send a letter bulk rate.
12.4
MILLION
Americans paid for online content in Q1 2002, compared
with
7
MILLION
in Q1 2001.
SOURCE: Online Publishers
Association
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Analysts blame the decline on a shift in consumer psychology:
People are so bombarded with e-mail advertisements today that
consumers are not as curious about the offers as they once were.
After all, the amount of information accessible to consumers is
growing exponentially every few years, making lots of information
disposable. According to some studies, the average consumer is
exposed to more than 8,000 commercial messages daily-via e-mail,
print, TV and other media.
But e-mail marketing won't be going away anytime soon. So,
what's the best way to get customers to respond? "As long
as you send the right kind of e-mail, which is well-planned and
customer-focused, you'll get a great response," says David
Hallerman, a senior analyst at eMarketer. "Unless you have a
permission-based list, you are not going to get
responses."
If your e-mail is perceived as spam, and if it is sent to
potential customers who never indicated they wanted to receive
e-mail specifically from your company, "then it may not be
read at all, or worse, it could annoy the consumer," Hallerman
says.
Ultimately, the key to customer click-through is creating a
relationship with your customers, which happens to be something
growing businesses are very good at. "Consumers want e-mail
marketing messages from companies they know and trust,"
Hallerman says. "And by their very nature, small businesses
have a better time of making a connection with their customers than
large corporations."
But there are still other ways to improve your chances that
customers will click, such as choosing the right day to send e-mail
messages. Believe it or not, this choice can make a big difference.
According to Hallerman, "In terms of looking at e-mail
messages sent during the week, we've found that e-mail messages
sent out on Monday and Tuesday get a better click-through rate than
those sent on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays."
The Right Stuff
Research shows that consumers also tend to respond well to
permission-based e-mail marketing messages that contain special
promotions, a technique used successfully by Genius Babies Inc., a
direct marketer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Once or twice per
month, Genius Babies sends out an e-newsletter to its 15,000-strong
opt-in e-mail list that offers specials and promotions for products
featured on its online baby gifts and toys Web site,
www.geniusbabies.com.
According to Michelle Donahue-Arpas, 36, president and founder
of Genius Babies, the specials, which are usually free gifts with a
purchase or coupons, work well. "[They] always bring a great
increase in sales for several days after sending them out,"
she says. "We're always bombarded with orders."
Donahue-Arpas uses an e-mail marketing communications system
from Roving Software called Constant Contact to create and send the
e-mails; the service costs $150 per month for up to 25,000 e-mails
per newsletter. In addition, the service tracks such measurements
as click-through rates. In fact, Donahue-Arpas believes she
regularly has click-through rates in excess of 15 percent for each
of her promotional e-mail newsletters.
The technology also lets Donahue-Arpas identify the most
successful campaigns. "The best results we see are with
'free gift with any purchase' promotions," she
says.
So what's the key to her success in e-marketing? The fact
that recipients choose to receive the e-newsletters. In other
words, customers and prospects won't receive e-mail marketing
messages from Genius Babies until they sign up on the Web site to
receive them. "The most important thing for us is that our
lists are opt-in," she explains. "Everyone who gets
e-mail from us knows they will get them and wants them."
Donahue-Arpas also attributes her success to the fact that she
works in a niche market. It helps that her business is small enough
to allow her to foster personalized relationships with her
customers. "I create my own newsletter, and most of my
customers know who I am," she says. "We've never
tried to pretend that we are bigger than we really are, and that
has enabled us to create real relationships with our
customers."
Clearly, e-mail marketing is here to stay, and eliminating a
no-results campaign from your promotional strategy isn't the
way to go. Instead, take a closer look at your recipients-and make
sure to send them the kind of information they want and expect.
Melissa Campanelli is a marketing and technology writer in
Brooklyn, New York.
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