Timely for Q4 Sales: Latest Trends in E-mail Marketing
Sept. 20, 2011
Just in time for holiday e-mailing campaigns, three recent published reports show the latest developments in e-mail marketing.
The Website Magazine reports show the most popular e-mail venues, e-mailing’s value, and tips for Q4 e-mail marketing.
E-mail trends. A new study by Litmus indicates the development of three trends in e-mail marketing over the past year (Study Reveals Email Viewing Habits).
Litmus, an e-mail research company, says the trends from July 2010 to July 2011, include:
- Most e-mails continue to be read via Outlook (37 percent of readers).
- Mobile e-mail is increasingly read by the target audience (15 percent).
- Web and desktop e-mail use is decreasing.
Trailing Outlook are Hotmail readers (11 percent), and Yahoo Mail and iPhone (10 percent), and Apple Mail (8 percent).
E-mail’s value. Website Magazine compares the marketing potential of Web sites and social media to the value of e-mailing (Picture Proof of Email’s Value).
There are 3.3 billion daily searches on the 463 million Web sites.
Facebook has more than 800 million members worldwide, of which there are 60 million updates daily.
Twitter has 300 million members who tweet 140 million times per day, but more than 50 percent of the accounts aren’t active.
Google + has more than 25 million users with 1 billion shares by the users each day.
But e-mail accounts, worldwide, total 2.9 billion – 42 percent of the planet’s inhabitants – with 188 billion e-mails sent daily. No wonder the U.S. Postal Service is in trouble.
In other words, e-mail is more promising for mass marketers because it represents the highest volume of traffic in communication.
E-mail marketing is king if it executes by accomplishing three goals: 1. The right message. 2. The right audience. 3. The right time.
Tips for Q4 marketing. John Murphy, the president of Chicago-based ReachMail, offers his strategies for retailers to achieve their goals in their all-important fourth quarter (Five Steps to a Successful Holiday Email Campaign).
Mr. Murphy starts by cautioning against sending repeat e-mails in the same category to a consumer who has already made the purchase. Subscriber preferences need to be taken into account.
In essence, his points:
- Audit Your List – Don’t keep sending to inactive subscribers.
- Update Preferences – Give options to your audience from which to select.
- Audience Segmentation – Use the consumer’s history as a basis for sending the right offer.
- Test Subject lines – Keep it simple and test different subject lines.
- Offer Early Deals – Mr. Murphy suggests sending a “special messaging during October.”
These are all excellent points. Good luck!
From the Coach’s Corner, the only suggestion I’d add is maximize your message by including videos:
Need a Game-changer? Try a Good Video for More Credibility
E-Mail Marketers Plan to Greatly Increase Use of Videos, New Study
“Email is the greatest thing.”
-Wally Amos
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Good News for Advertisers Targeting Online TV Viewers
April 1,2010
Every now and then, one of my pleasures is watching online television, especially the nostalgic black and white versions of the Perry Mason TV series. It was a wildly popular, revolutionary CBS program based on the books by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Now, it’s fun to see how southern California looked in the late 1950s to 1960s – the buildings, streets and, of course, the cars. One of my favorite cars was Perry Mason’s 1958 Cadillac convertible.
As an elementary school-age youngster, it was great delectation to watch the Saturday night drama as we enjoyed Raymond Burr et al as we munched on popcorn or roasted peanuts. And it was my first inkling that I would later enjoy critical thinking and thought processes. As a gauche pre-teen, I liked to brag: “Hey, I wrote the script.”
More often than not, I could predict who the villain would turn out to be — by simply paying attention to the actors throughout the program. Then, I compared them in the closing minutes with the actors shown sitting in the courtroom watching DA Hamilton Burger duke it out with Perry Mason. You see, the criminal usually turned out to be the person who was not shown in the scenes just prior to Perry Mason’s miraculous courtroom revelation. I kept my secret of how I predicted success from my family for years until they no longer cared.
I assume the series is now a popular online CBS offering. Decades later, I’ve also discovered I’m not alone in my baby-boomer acceptance of commercials in the online programs, according to a research firm, comScore.
Consider comScore’s press release headline: “Viewers Indicate Higher Tolerance for Advertising Messaging while Watching Online TV Episodes.”
Really? So even in this age of instant gratification in which consumers expect fast, free products and services, there’s acceptance of the concept that online TV has to be somehow financed. Either we pay for the program or we watch the inserted commercials.
“As cross-platform TV viewing becomes more widely adopted, it is important to understand the driving forces behind this shift in consumer behavior if we are to effectively monetize this emerging medium,” says Tania Yuki of comScore.
“While some analysts have suggested that the shift to online video reflects a consumer desire to view fewer ads, our research suggests that in many cases online TV viewers actually have a higher tolerance for advertising messages than they are currently receiving,” she explains. “This finding, of course, suggests there’s advertising revenue being left on the table and that media companies have not yet extracted full value out of the online medium.”
Respondents included a cross-section:
- Viewers of TV only – 65 percent
- Viewers of TV and online – 29 percent
- Viewers of online only – 6 percent
Ms. Yuki concludes viewers of online TV programs would tolerate commercials.
The norm is four commercials minutes an hour, but she says the data shows they would accept six to seven minutes per hour.
What are the motivations for online TV viewing?
- 74 percent indicated convenience for their schedule.
- 70 percent cited the convenience of being able to stop and play the programs.
- 67 percent enjoyed the luxury of fewer commercials than TV.
To read more of the data, see the press release.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are some late-breaking major developments:
- A published report details how some big players are banding together over the issue of online privacy in an article entitled, Coalition: New Laws Needed to Curb Government Access to Private Data.
- Many technology professionals face a major problem created by the Washington State Leglislature — Is it Fair to Put a Tax on Software? Check out Chris Pirillo’s interview with Ken Myer on the Software Tax in this video.
- For more on this software tax issue, see this Op Ed column.
- Tell the State of Washington: No new software tax!
Study Provides Vital Lessons for Web Sites Seeking Profits
For information and advertising, consumers apparently trust their local newspaper Web sites over any others, according to a new comScore marketing study. It shows 57 percent of respondents prefer newspaper sites for trusted content – local information and ads.
Here’s another stunning statistic: The sales conversion rate was a whopping 82 percent.
In essence, the survey revealed that the advertisers’ selection of the medium in which to advertise is the most important consideration – not the creative. Forty percent “…agreed that their opinion of online advertising is influenced by the type of website on which the ad appears.”
This was especially true for reaching upscale consumers. Sixty-three percent of high-income households and 60 percent of college-educated shoppers trusted newspaper sites more than others.
True, the study was funded by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), but the study was conducted by the authoritative comScore. It was conducted in Nov. 2009 and released in Feb. 2010.
In fact, comScore reports newspaper sites were the No. 1 preference for all types of content, including classified ads.
Thirty-six percent of the 3,050 respondents said newspaper sites were trusted for ads compared to 23 percent who preferred television station Web sites, and 12 percent for portals.
No. 1 newspaper rankings also included:
- Local information – 29 percent
- Local sports – 27 percent
- Local entertainment – 26 percent
- Local classifieds – 39 percent
The criterions for ads: timeliness, credibility and relevance.
Incidentally, the results favoring newspaper sites were true for all ages. In the 18-34 demographic, newspaper sites beat television 35 percent to 22 percent. The spread was even greater between newspapers and portals, 35 percent to 11 percent.
That’s heartening news for traditional journalists who have long worried about the trends in declining newspaper readerships, especially among the young.
NAA has 2,000 member newspapers nationwide.
To see the study – Site Matters: The Value of Local Newspaper Web Sites.
No surprises here, but I disagree with the findings in one regard. Any media Web site with a strong local news image will equal the clout of a newspaper site.
The study is welcome news for me as a business-performance consultant. I’ve long advised clients about two basic tenants in marketing and sales success:
- First impressions are important.
- The medium success is synonymous with the message.
In other words, news and public affairs usually attract the most civic-minded consumers with above-average net worth. But I would include radio and TV sites with newspapers in this regard.
And remember the adage, “Birds of a feather, flock together.” For Web sites, be selective to whom you sell ads. If you’re an advertiser, check the quality of the other advertisers before you buy.
From the Coach’s Corner, in 2009 I wrote about the importance of developing trust with consumers in my case study of a failed financial institution, Venture Bank, in Washington state.
My thesis: Eclectic branding does not work when you want someone to trust you with their money.
The moral: Somehow, smart consumers inherently know that when branding doesn’t convey trust and value, it’s a reflection of poor management decisions.
