E-mail volume increased 45% during holidays for major online retailers
Major online retailers sent out 45% more e-mail during the six weeks from Nov. 10 to Dec. 21 than they did during the 12 weeks preceding the holiday season, according to a study of 109 of the largest e-retailers by the Email Experience Council. With the holidays over, now is the time for online retailers to evaluate customer response to make sure they are not sacrificing long-term customers value by e-mailing too frequently, says Chad White of the EEC.
On average, the retailers studied sent 2.8 e-mails per week during the holiday season, compared with 1.9 during the 12 preceding weeks, the EEC says. At the peak of the season, during the week ended Dec. 21, the e-retailers were sending an average of 3.3 e-mails a week, 73% more than during the pre-holiday period.
The increase in e-mail marketing was greater than during the 2006 holiday season, when major online retailers sent 42% more e-mails than the year before, and 66% more during the peak week.
“With the economy clearly slowing, retailers were certainly feeling the pressure to drive sales as much as they could, and e-mail is very effective at generating sales inexpensively,” says White, director of retail insights and editor-at-large at the EEC. “So the increase is a mix of financial urgency and the increased recognition of the power of email.
The EEC study shows 88% of the online retailers increased their e-mail volume, and 23% more than doubled it. The percentage of e-retailers sending more than three e-mails per week doubled from 14% to 28%, and the percentage sending more than five e-mails weekly more than doubled from 4% to 10%.
Such big increases in e-mail frequency can lead customers to opt out of e-mail lists or report e-mail as spam, which can make it more difficult for a retailer to deliver future e-mail messages, White says. He says retailers should now be examining their opt-out, spam complaint, open and click-through rates to assess how customers reacted to receiving higher volumes of e-mail.
“If the churn is too great, all you did was sacrifice long-term customer value for a smaller amount of short-term sales,” White says. And lower open and click-through rates are signs customers grew tired of receiving so much e-mail. “If subscribers have begun tuning you out because you over-emailed them during the holiday,” White says, “then those again are lost sales opportunities.”
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