44% of major retailers use `send-to-a-friend` feature in e-mails
Only 44% of major retailers use a “send-to-a-friend” feature in their e-mails, and of those that do, many use practices that diminish its effectiveness, according to a new report from RetailEmail.Blogspot, a blog tracking the e-mail marketing campaigns of 88 major retailers.
For example, 46% of retailers using send-to-a-friend require the subscriber’s name, even retailers who already know the subscriber’s name because they required it during the sign-up process, the study found. 18% also require the subscriber’s e-mail address, which all the retailers already have. “Requiring subscribers to re-enter information that the retailer already has creates a barrier to usage, discouraging the subscriber from forwarding the message,” RetailEmail says.
Many major retailers also squandered the opportunity to sign up the recipient of the forwarded e-mail, with only 44% including a newsletter subscribe link at the top of the forwarded e-mail, according to the study.
In addition, only 51% of send-to-a-friend e-mails contain a privacy statement of some sort at the top of the forwarded e-mail. “Trust is a major hindrance to people using retailers’ STAF systems,” RetailEmail says. “People want to know that they are not unknowingly signing up their friends to receive the retailer’s e-mails.”
Only 8% of retailers include a send-to-a-friend form in their e-mails, as opposed to a link that leads to a send-to-a-friend form, the study found.
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