E-mail marketing works for offline sales, Sears says.

Multi-channel retailers can benefit from e-mail marketing, says Sears Roebuck and Co. Sears is using e-mail campaigns to drive traffic not only to its web site, Sears.com, but also to its stores. It averages about one e-mail campaign a week.

"It`s proving to be quite an opportunity for Sears,” says Joe Charno, vice president of online management and marketing. Charno notes that Sears uses e-mail to promote all its endeavors: Sears.com sales, offline promotions and programs for Sears credit cardholders. "Our database has grown significantly thanks to the success we`ve had with e-mail marketing," he says.

Sears is still working on developing customer segments, Charno says. "We try not to send blanket e-mails to all our customers," he says.

One thing Sears is not rushing into, despite its popularity, is graphic emails. “We have not gone too far with flash graphics. We are finding success where we are and we want to make sure the experience is clean and quick for our customers,” says Charno. “Some graphic emails take time to download. If we can’t deliver the right experience to everyone we won’t go there until the technology is proven.”