When the national press takes the time to write an article about email marketing, I pay attention. The reason is that national reporters rarely understand the nuances of the medium and are, therefore, a far better conduit for what “real people” think about email marketing.
Last week’s AP article entitled “E-tailers push e-mail discounts to lure shoppers,” is a perfect example. In discussing how e-tailers are planning to step-up their email efforts due to email’s low cost/high return, the reporter asked a consumer what he thought of this anticipated trend. The response should serve as a wake-up call to any email marketers who aren’t segmenting their subscribers and personalizing their offers:
“I find them annoying,” said Cory Porter, a Web shopping fan from Washington D.C. who says he now receives about seven per day, twice as many as about two months ago. He had signed up with about nine retailers including Barneys New York, Banana Republic and Safeway to receive e-mail promotions, but thought they would be customized to his needs.
“I am a 32-year-old guy who lives in an urban area with no kids,” Porter said. “In other words, I don’t need blouses, high heels, or kid’s juice boxes.” As a result, he’s opted out with some stores, directing the rest to his spam account. [emphasis added]
Cory’s experience confirms that consumers aren’t using a legalistic definition of spam. To them, “spam” includes emails that they have requested but prove to be irrelevant to their interests and needs. Indeed, recent research from MarketingSherpa and Q Interactive found that over 50% of consumers have used the “Report Spam” button to unsubscribe from permission-based email that they found irrelevant or too frequent.
The fascinating flip side to this story is that many marketers have the data that they need to segment and personalize their messages — but they don’t do it. From the AP article:
The big problem, according to Stephanie Miller, vice president of market development for consulting group Return Path Inc., is that less than 20% of retailers’ e-mails are customized even though stores have the capability of targeting their messages. She thinks it’s because marketers don’t get the resources they need. That will change, she said, because just stepping up the frequency is not going to work in this challenging environment.
There is no question that email volume will increase this holiday season. The real question is which companies will invest the extra time and effort to segment and personalize their messages. Those that do will undoubtedly see far better results than competitors who desperately cling to a batch & blast strategy. Moreover, they won’t have to deal with post-holiday, deliverability hangover caused by consumers who use the “Report Spam” button to unsubscribe.
So if you haven’t implemented those segmentation and personalization plans, now is the time to start. The coming wave of economic, seasonal & desperation-fueled email marketing will provide a huge opportunity for those who put in the extra effort to serve each individual subscriber’s needs.
