Posts Tagged email
Email delivery up, opens down, response holds steady
According to the Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index 2009-2010, email open rates declined to an average of 17% last year, down from 26% in 2009. The report examined metrics for over 2.8 billion email messages sent by about 100 companies in nine vertical industries. The company says that “… changing patterns in use of text and imagery… is having an impact on open rates, without necessarily having an impact on response.”
The study indicates that:
- Delivery rates increased to 95% last year, up from 93% in 2009
- Click rates were steady at 3%
- Unsubscribe rates dropped from 0.32% to 0.19%
- Bounce rates declined from 7% to 5%
- The pharmaceutical and government sectors had the highest open rates, with both topping 25%
- The technology industry had the lowest open rate at just above 5%
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in E-mail marketing on July 14th, 2011
Simple Animated Gif in Email Lifts Conversions 49%
SUMMARY
Adding animation to email was all the rage five to seven years ago, and then it fell out of favor — a classic been-there-done-that-we’re-bored type of thing. Which means, of course, that it’s probably time to revisit the subject.
Olympus and other marketers are testing adding animated gifs into their emails, despite so many email providers blocking images by default. We have lessons learned from a real-life mailer who knew the risks but tested it anyway. They’re happy they did: conversions are up 49%.
CHALLENGE
“We had items that we only sell once or twice a year, and we wanted to find something extra to push the performance of the email campaigns promoting them,” says Greg Tickle, Loyalty Direct Marketing Coordinator, Lake Champlain Chocolates. “We did worry about deliverability. The idea going in was that we would likely trade some deliverability for sales conversions.”
Tickle and his team knew the idea of adding more multimedia into their messaging was risky — according to MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007, 48% of consumers say they have HTML images ‘always’ or ‘sometimes’ blocked. But they thought their product line offered an opportunity to visually capture the imagination of their audience with animated gifs.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in E-mail marketing on September 13th, 2010
4 Tips for a High Converting Email Marketing Campaign
Looking to increase conversions in your email marketing campaign? Whether you use an in house program or a web-based service to send out your newsletters, there are a few simple tips that can profoundly boost the number of opens, clicks and conversions you get from your subscribers. These aren’t your standard “personalize the message” style email marketing tips, but rather proven steps anyone can take to make sure their message gets noticed by their target market.
1. Put the Opt-Out Link at the Top of the Email – “But won’t that increase the number of unsubscribers?” you might ask. Not necessarily – since people who unsubscribe are most likely not your ideal client anyway. Perhaps they purchased something from your website as a gift but have no particular interest in it themselves. In this case, letting them unsubscribe immediately also reduces the likelihood of your message getting tagged as spam.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in E-mail marketing on March 22nd, 2010
eBrand Media Research Brief: Email is main communication channel worldwide – IM and SMS well behind
By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive
According to Epsilon’s Global Consumer Email Study, conducted by ROI Research, the survey of over 4000 consumers in 13 countries finds that Email remains a mainstay communication, showing that 87% of North American(and 74% of European respondents are more likely than their peers in APAC to use email as their primary online communications tool.
Instant messaging as the main channel for communication, is notably high in APAC with 28% of respondents, while text/SMS and social networking remain consistently low across all regions. While most consumers manage one primary inbox for the programs they subscribe to, mobile phones and PDAs are gaining popularity for time-sensitive alerts such as news, weather and finance/stock information.
Email is also replacing other channels of communication. Over one-third of respondents have replaced traditional (communication) channels in favor of email for communications from:
Posted by Tom Polanski in E-mail marketing on June 16th, 2009
eBrand Media Research Brief: E-commerce grows using SEM to acquire and e-mail to retain
By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive
According to the first installment of of Retailing Online 2009: Marketing Report from Forrester Research and Shop.org, e-commerce sales, including event and movie tickets, will grow about 11% to $156.1 billion this year from $141.3 billion in 2008. Online sales will account for 6% of total retail sales this year, up from 5% last year. Retailers report that their conversion rates continue to hover between 3% and 3.5%.
While Internet sales growth continues to outpace traditional retail sales, 54% of online retailers expect overall retail growth to slow during the next 12 months, and 57% acknowledge the economy is hurting their bottom line, according to the survey.
Although many retailers expect lower sales, however, four out of five surveyed online retailers think the web is better suited than other channels to withstand the recession and one-third say the downturn has helped them capture greater market share, the study found
Scott Silverman, Shop.org Executive Director, says “… Online retailers are trying to weather this economic storm by doing more with less, making smart spending decisions, and leveraging effective, affordable tactics like e-mail to grow their businesses.”
Posted by Tom Polanski in E-mail marketing, SEM, eBrand Media on May 19th, 2009