Archive for the ‘email marketing’ Category

Shoppers prefer to receive promotional offers by email, ahead of other marketing channels, a survey across retailers in four US states has established, in a report by eMarketer.com.

37% prefered email followed by the well established direct mail (23%). The third most popular was perhaps surprisingly text (18%), then in-store promotions (11%) with social media languishing last at 9%.

The results suggest that while social media is massively influential for brand building online, consumers do not see it as a push marketing medium, at least not yet.

The average open rate for UK email marketers is 22.5% according to research from email service provider Silverpop.

Average click through rate in the UK is 4.8%

Silverpop compared three country markets in the study, UK, USA & Germany, finding that open rates were highest in Germany, averaging 24.9% and lowest in the US at 21.3%

Click through rate in Germany was also highest at 5% and again lowest in the US with 4.5%

Researchers pulled a random sample set of 7,000 email messages, delivered to a minimum of 50 recipients in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany.

Approximately 50 million emails were delivered across the messages to 188 countries.

Latest research from Alchemy Worx suggests email marketers should not sweat the unopened percentage of their email newsletters too much as the mere arrival of a message in a customer inbox is enough to have  a positive effect on sales.

Alchemy Worx purchase behaviour studies reveal an increase in sales through other channels directly after an email has been sent, indicating there’s a significant subliminal or ‘nudge effect’ effect even if the email remains unopened.

Alchemy Worx recommend making use of the subject line in a branded email to promote other ways of making a purchase, e.g., ”best deals in-store this month” giving the email a triple purpose, delivering brand messages, encouraging click-through and directing responses to other channels. Read the rest of this entry »

Forced to make the choice, children of baby boomers, known as ‘Generation Y’ would give up watching TV before email or text, a study of 18-24 year olds by Pace University has discovered.

The research into 206 young people’s attachment to methods of communication demonstrated that email and text were equally valuable to them with 26% of the vote. Third most popular was watching TV – 15% choosing that followed by talking on the phone – 11%. Visiting social media sites at 9% ranked higher than either reading magazines or visiting websites.

Why we love email and text so much is unexplored. Dialogue is preferred to reading or watching evidently and Pace say that while Gen Y they spend more time on social networks than the other options, it’s seen as the most expendable. Read the rest of this entry »

..at least. Research in May from Forrester suggests video content boosts email click-through 2-3 times and that’s an average – the best videos are off the scale.

It’s not really a surprise, what with online video traffic increasing 178% year on year (Econsultancy) and our tolerance for promotional video – 70% of Europeans don’t mind video ads (according to Tremor Media) – the only surprise is that more companies aren’t doing it.

As with email marketing, one of the main hurdles is not cost but time. Creating good video content is not expensive but it certainly does take time. It needs outsourcing to a video maker, as does email marketing, suggests Dela Quist of Alchemy Worx in this video.

New research from Silverpop suggests adding social media buttons to email marketing campaigns generates 24% more reach than traditional forward-to-a-friend functions with this set to grow exponentionally as users become more familiar with social media.

Those using social media in email may also be using the wrong channels. Silverpop’s research showed that, while links to Facebook, My Space and Twitter were included most often Read the rest of this entry »