Email4Thought

Advice for UK e-tailers - 36% of consumers are incentivised by email offers

Online retailers need to switch to free delivery and special offers to boost Christmas sales, according to new research.

The 2008 Consumer eTail Report from GSI Commerce polled the views of a representative sample of 2,043 British adults with research specialist YouGov.

The report reveals that although brand prominence is a central element in 56 per cent of consumers’ initial search for an online retailer, more importantly, however, if faced with the choice between a product offered at the same price in two stores, nearly seven in ten (68 per cent) consumers cite free delivery as being the most important factor in their ultimate decision to purchase.

Free delivery is most important for women, with this figure rising to 73 per cent among female shoppers meanwhile 20 per cent of men citing the ability to specify delivery times as the deciding factor.

The report also reveals that, alongside the cost benefits of free delivery, the reliability of fulfilment and returns management was explicitly tied to the potential for repeat sales.

When asked what would be most likely to deter them from making a repeat purchase from a site, almost one in three consumers quoted late delivery (28 per cent) and expensive and lengthy returns procedures (33 per cent).

Steve Davis, President, International at GSI Commerce: “It is simply not good enough for a retailer to offer a good product range or website in isolation. No matter how sophisticated an experience you can provide online, your reputation can be easily undermined by a poor experience in delivery or returns. Especially considering the more cost conscious consumer in the current financial climate, it is clear that retailers should be subsidising their shipping or allocating free delivery costs to establish market share this Christmas.”

The report also reveals that shopping cart abandonment is directly connected to usability, 76 per cent of user cited factors related to website functionality or content.

A website that was too complicated to use with ease was the most commonly referenced reason for abandoning a purchase with more than a third of British consumers (35 per cent).

Another one in three (33 per cent) cited a lengthy registration process while eight per cent of referenced a multi-page payment process, making up the 76% who cited usability of the website as most likely to make them abandon a purchase.

When respondents were asked what would be most likely to provoke an impulse purchase, 38 per cent of consumers quoted limited time offers while 36 per cent cited email promotions. Davis continues: “The same principles of visibility apply to fulfilment as to offers and promotions. The ability to monitor stock information ensures that a retailer can assess not only what its most popular items are but also those that are over stocked and target its offers and marketing accordingly.

Read the Full Article: Netimperative

New Insights On Time Of Day For Email

Originally Posted: DMA Email Blog

This week Media Post published an article : "New Insights On Time Of Day For Email" which whilst it doesn't reveal THE secret time to to send (hint - because there isn't one!), does provide some very interesting observations performed by the Center for Media Design.

• Email engagement peaks in the morning. Many users, myself included, start their day by rifling through their email inboxes. Mornings allow email users to spend uninterrupted time in their inbox.

• In-out-in-out in the afternoon. As the day progresses, users tend to have more fractured interactions with email. Email is checked intermittently throughout the day between meetings and errands. Thus, in the afternoon, there are more email episodes (any time users check into their email inbox), but those episodes are shorter in duration. Between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., users are likely to have five individual episodes of 3-5 minutes apiece, compared to the 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. period when users are more likely to have a single episode that is substantially longer.

• Overall time in the inbox is fairly consistent throughout the workday. Between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., email makes up between 30% and 35% of the average user’s media exposure. This drops off during the late afternoon and early evening, only to peak again in the late evening (between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.) as users go back to their inboxes to wrap up the day.

Along these lines, Skip Fidura has also written a very interesting post on the related subject of which is the best day to send email.... and comes to the conclusion that: "A standard day of week test randomly puts your readers into buckets so you end up identifying the optimal day based on the average. This would hide the fact that your most profitable segments might respond better at other times. In fact, the optimum time identified by the test may turn out to be rubbish."

BUT, don't despair!  Skip goes on to propose a strategy to ensure you're sending on the right day for your customers.... Read the post

Subscriber Only Rewards

Yesterday I received an email from Waterstones, a major UK bookstore chain. They were offering 10% off all books when bought from waterstones.com....nice. But what's even more exciting was the discount code that you needed to use in order to receive the discount. Hmmm - Did this actually mean that this was a special offer only available to email subscribers!...or was it available to everyone who happened to go to www.waterstones.com? Me, being the sad, email marketing geek that I am, started to get excited and dashed on over to waterstones.com to look for this offer. High and Low I looked - but I was unable to find it on their website... So, kudos to Waterstones. They have realised that they need to offer subscribers incentives for not only subscribing to, but for staying subscribed to their newsletter - so, they offer emails which have value. You can't get this same offer anywhere else - not on a pamphlet, not on the website, not in the store - only by email. So many brands are using email to deliver online and offline offers and specials - which is well and good and email certainly an ideal medium for doing so, however, many are forgetting to reward their subscribers by offering deals and specials which can only be gained by being a subscriber. Waterstones have also carried this onto their Waterstones Card Program. They say when stating the benefits of joining their membership program: "Please note... many of the above benefits are available via email only, so make sure we have your correct email address!" Wow - impressive! They have obviously discovered that email is an excellent way to communicate with their clients as well as realising the value of an email address. PS: It worked for me.... Originally Posted: Be Relevant

Labels: incentives, subscriber rewards

Can a Campaign Be Too Targeted?

Hmmm.. interesting thought! We all know that a successful campaign needs the following ingredients: relevency, timeliness and permission. In order to achieve the first item 2 ingredients in our recipe for a successful campaign, as marketers we use segmentation combined with data which we know about the recipient in order to provide a targeted and relevent campaign. All good so far. There are numerous industry reports and whitepapers which can be used to support these practices, in fact they are promoted as being Best Practice. However, at one of the presentations at the EEC conference, it was suggested that if a campaign is too targeted, you can actually scare a customer away. How can that happen? Well, say for example someone subscribed to your newsletter, giving you only their name and email address, and then over a period of time, by being a good email marketer, you have collected significant data on them by tracking their movements, slowly introducing more and more targeted campaigns until one day they realise that you know a bit too much about them! This can then scare them away. I guess, as with anything we need to use wisdom and commonsense when implementing campaigns. As the old saying goes 'All things in moderation'... Originally Posted: Be Relevant

Labels: targeting