E-Mail Marketers: Customers Tell You What They Want
What do favorable brand perceptions, trust, and relevance all have in common? They were all found to be the most effective e-mail marketing tactics for eliciting a favorable response, according to consumer responses to our fifth annual View from the Inbox survey of 2,500 consumers.
For the survey, consumers were asked to rank how likely they would be to respond to various e-mail marketing tactics. “Response” was defined as clicking on the links within the e-mail message to take further action, such as make a transaction, register for a Website, or access more information.
We found that effective tactics in e-mail have a direct impact on consumer transactional behavior. Nearly half (49%) of all respondents have made a purchase directly as a result of something they read in a permission e-mail. Those who have done so are far more likely to have spent more money online in the past 12 months than those who have not bought via permission e-mail. This trend further demonstrates the value of remarketing to existing customers, segmenting customers based on their past behavior, and aligning content with prior purchase behavior and stated preferences.
Other findings include:
Brand = response rate. The reputation of a company or a sender of permission e-mail ranked highest as a response driver, with 68% of respondents stating that this factor alone increases their likelihood to respond. Other results that point to the importance of brand and trust in driving consumer responses include a marketer’s assurances of security (65%), if the e-mail was forwarded from a friend (53%), and the contents of the “from” line (47%).
Customize it. Marketing tactics that were perceived by the consumer as relevant and that emphasized conveniences were found to be highly effective. Approximately two-thirds of respondents agreed that ease in finding relevant content increased their likelihood to respond to permission-based e-mail. Overall, 53% indicated that content customized to their stated preferences increased their likelihood of responding — a significant 16% more than those indicating that they responded favorably to content customized on response history. Customers in general like to be in control of their communications. In addition, 51% pointed to the timeliness of the message as being important to driving a response.
E-couponing. Online or e-mail coupons are gaining in popularity with consumers, and when properly targeted and deployed they are a very effective e-mail tactic. While e-coupons account for less than 1% of all coupons distributed, their use is growing as more companies devote increasing amounts of their budgets to online marketing. E-couponing has some attractive features, in particular the enhanced ability to target and track. Using e-coupons judiciously can be an effective way to reward loyal customers, convert prospects, or reactivate lapsed customers.
Online vs. offline buys. Marketers must recognize the differences in consumer behaviors between those who research and purchase online vs. those who research online and purchase offline, and then they must design and target the message accordingly. For example, 14% of stock purchasers make their transactions online, while 16% research a trade online but perform the actual transaction offline. With the former group, a relevant message may drive the trade, whereas with the latter it would be important to educate the trader for a subsequent offline transaction.
Not what the doctor ordered. Greeting consumers by their first name is not too effective. In fact, 68% of respondents said doing so did not affect their response. What’s more, only 27% of respondents stated that the use of images instead of URLs increased responses. Yet these specific tactics are among the most frequently used in e-mail.
The finding that images are not as effective as text in e-mail could, however, be a result of spam filters and customers’ e-mail programs removing images. In other words, many customers simply may not be seeing the images in the first place, and therefore many could be missing the full impact of images. Other research has shown that the effective integration of text and images serves to unify an e-mail and draw the reader’s eye to the targeted message.
What do these results mean for the future of e-mail? E-mails must meet the high expectations of consumers and maximize the potential impact on targeted behaviors. Customers research, browse, explore, transact, etc., in idiosyncratic ways — and companies will lose customers by not facilitating this behavior and recognizing the preferences that drive them. Additionally, the results reveal that consumers want to be in control — by stating their preferences in content and timing and by being able to find what’s relevant to them. In other words, promote what’s important to the consumer — and not just what you think should be promoted.
Katie Cole, PhD, is vice president of research and analytics for Merkle|Quris, the e-mail marketing agency of Merkle.
