Retailers have a lot to learn about e-mail marketing, says a new report
The proportion of online retailers offering incentives to consumers to sign up for their e-mail newsletters has fallen by two-thirds in the past year, to 9% from 27%, says a new survey from the E-mail Experience Council, a division of the Direct Marketing Association.
The E-mail Marketing Council’s researchers signed up in June for e-mail newsletters from 118 online retailers. The council’s report, “2007 Retail E-mail Subscription Benchmark Study,” just out, includes a wealth of data and analysis of best practices in e-mail marketing for retailers.
The report offers several reasons for the decline in incentives. Some retailers may believe that offering an incentive for a newsletter that is supposedly full of incentives is redundant, the report opines. The report’s author, Chad White, director of retail insights and editor-at-large of the E-mail Experience Council, also suggests that offering incentives clutters an e-mail list with less responsive consumers who are more likely to unsubscribe or to report the newsletters as spam.
Among the report’s conclusions:
Only 3% of major online retailers use a double opt-in subscription process, a practice that ensures that the person signing up is actually the person receiving the newsletter;
92% of retailers have an e-mail sign-up form or link on their home pages. “Apple is the poster boy for making it difficult to find their newsletter sign-up form,” the report says. “They have a link to 59 RSS feeds on their home page, but they don’t have a link to sign up for their excellent e-mail newsletter.” The author reports that even a search of the site failed to yield a sign-up link, so the author signed up through a link in a newsletter that the author was receiving already.
43% of retailers allow a sign-up with one click from the home page. “Keep sign-ups simple,” the report urges. 12% of retailers require consumers to register to sign up for a newsletter. “Considering that many retailers don’t require registration to purchase products from them, it’s unreasonable to ask people to register for the privilege of receiving advertisements from the retailer,” the report says.
At 31% and 18%, the subscriber’s name and ZIP code were the most frequently asked-for information. The proportion of retailers requiring ZIP code declined from 23% the prior year.
92% of retailers explain the benefits of subscribing to their newsletters “which means an amazing 8% don’t bother to sell customers on the benefits of giving up their personal information in exchange for communications from the company,” the report says. In addition, that 92% includes “a significant number,” in the author’s words, that don’t explain the benefits until after sign-up.
45% include privacy information in the sign-up process. The report singles out Foot Locker, which includes a link to its privacy policy on its sign-up form and on its confirmation page and mentions it again in its confirmation message, as an example of how to handle privacy assurances.
Only 16% of retailers asked subscribers to add them to the subscriber’s address books. “Without being whitelisted by subscribers, you’re relying on your reputation to keep your e-mails out of the subscriber’s junk mail folder,” the report says. Only one retailer—Fredrick’s of Hollywood—included instructions on the confirmation page about how to add a name to a whitelist.
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