E-mail marketing should work two ways, says Martha Rogers

As more retailers add e-mail to their marketing mix, they should look for ways to both give information to and get information from their customers. “The whole goal of e-mail in the interactive age is to generate feedback from the customers,” says Martha Rogers, founder of Peppers and Rogers Group. “If I, as a retailer, can get you, the customer, to talk to me, then I should know something about you that my competitors don’t know and that gives me a chance to do something that a competitor can’t do.” She notes that a good e-mail program will generate at least as many messages as a call center and that responses can lead to interest and sales from other channels. For example, D*Elias, the teen shopping web site, saw an increase in catalog demand once the retailer started sending out e-mails, Rogers says.