E-mail

Over the years, I’ve made plenty of catalog purchases, but rarely simply because I was a catalog business editor. I only turned to catalogs when I needed something unusual or came across a killer sale. Otherwise, I bought my mainstream goods off the rack. Today, that’s changed. And the two vehicles that have impacted me the most have been the coming of age of e-mail and the remarkable ease of search engines. I find e-mail’s impact on me surprising, because less than five years ago, I’d delete any personal e-mail from just about any address I didn’t recognize. But now, I find myself looking

While e-mail marketing is nothing new, many catalogers still aren’t using it to its fullest potential, said consultant Reggie Brady, president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions in a session at the recent List Vision conference in New York. Following are a few areas Brady feels that catalogers should improve upon. * Send triggered messages. If customers try to put items in their carts that are out of stock, first tell them the products aren’t available; then e-mail them when the products are back in stock, Brady advised. E-mails sent a few days after an abandoned shopping cart also are important because customers tend to comparison

Ask Amy Africa--the Web usability surveyor and president of Eight By Eight, which consults for such B-to-B catalogers as VWR, S&S Worldwide and Hello Direct--and she’ll tell you there are really only a handful of things that matter when it comes to online marketing. During her keynote address at the recent MeritDirect Business Mailer’s Co-op Conference in White Plains, N.Y., she outlined the following pieces of online marketing that matter. Landing/entry page: Armed with her own survey findings, Africa said that 80 percent to 90 percent of people leave landing pages (upon coming from search engine sites) within five pages of the landing pages. “Landing

Seventy percent of marketing decision makers report that their organizations currently practice integrated marketing, a marketing plan that coordinates online and offline marketing efforts, according to the “B-to-B eMarketing Survey” released last month by marketing services provider Epsilon. The survey of 175 U.S.-based marketing executives also revealed the following: * 70 percent of companies report that the same person controls both traditional and interactive marketing budgets. * 46 percent allocate marketing budgets by channel using rough estimates based on past experience. * 23 percent allocate marketing budgets by channel using modeling and planning techniques. * 19 percent give each channel a fixed allocation. *

Seventy percent of marketing decision makers report that their organizations currently practice integrated marketing, a marketing plan that coordinates online and offline marketing efforts, according to the “B-to-B eMarketing Survey” released last month by marketing services provider Epsilon. The survey of 175 U.S.-based marketing executives also revealed the following: * 70 percent of companies report […]

Eighty-two percent of catalog and online merchants with active e-mail programs remove customers from their e-mail lists immediately upon request, according to a study of opt-out practices conducted by e-mail marketer Silverpop. Here are other findings from the study: * 8 percent of merchants continued to send e-mail beyond the 10-business-day limit set by Can-Spam. * 6 percent of merchants took up to five days to handle opt-outs. * 4 percent took between five and 10 days. * 67 percent of merchants use the term”unsubscribe” to describe the opt-out procedure to customers. * 18 percent use alternate wording. * 13 percent use the term

Those e-merchants who can save customers time and/or make online shopping easier are in line to build customer loyalty, writes Ken Burke, founder and chief executive of MarketLive and author of “Intelligent Selling: The Art& Science of Selling Online.” Following are four action steps to take: 1. Offer advanced search. “Searches that use Boolean operators and multiple keywords can be powerful ways to allow experienced users to find what they want more quickly,” Burke writes. And it can incentivize shoppers to visit your site vs. a competitor’s site. 2. Send e-mail confirmations. Detail what they bought, total cost and shipping data, Burke suggests. 3.

Almost 50 percent of consumers said that e-mail had at least some influence on their online purchases this past holiday season, a 10 percent increase from 2004, according to the Annual Holiday E-mail Consumer Survey, released in January by e-mail marketer Return Path. Comparatively, the survey showed 42 percent of consumers claim e-mail had no impact on their online holiday shopping habits. Other data revealed by the survey: * 50 percent of consumers took advantage of e-mail promotions. * 41 percent used e-mail to comparison shop. * 31 percent got gift ideas from e-mails. * 29 percent went to a retail store as a

E-mail marketing spending will grow at an annual rate of 4.5 percent for the next five years, according to a recently released report from Jupiter Research. Analysts for the research firm expect marketers to spend $1.1 billion on e-mail in 2010, up from $885 million last year. Other information revealed by the report: ¥ Spam e-mails per consumer should drop 13 percent annually to 1,640 pieces in 2010, down from 3,253 pieces last year. ¥ E-mail delivery rates should surpass 90 percent in the next few years, up from an average of 88 percent currently. ¥ Incorrectly blocked e-mail will cost marketers $92 million

These five best practices, offered recently by The Direct Marketing Association (DMA), are intended to improve the likelihood of permission-based e-mail being delivered successfully to a recipient’s inbox -- and being read by the intended recipient. 1. Encourage customers and prospects to add your legitimate sending e-mail address to their personal”approved list/address book” and provide up-front instructions on how to do so in registration pages. Being an approved sender yields higher response rates and generates fewer complaints and blocked messages. 2. Carefully consider the content and presentation of marketing messages, as recipients are increasingly labeling any e-mail communication that’s irrelevant to them or looks