1.3 Trillion E-Mails and Growing
| Category: E-mail Marketing | Date: 2002-07-15 |
E-Mail advertisements, a time-eating curse for consumers and business people alike as well as an overload nightmare for computer-system administrators, are likely to multiply in the next several years. And its your entire fault.
E-Mail truly is the "Killer-App". It is used by almost 200 million users daily. Approximately 78% of all users use it, create it and send out approximately 4.7 messages to their colleagues and friends.
According to Ernst & Young, some 14% of the e-mail recipients go to the web site that is referenced in an e-mail.
According to new research from IMT Strategies, a marketing research firm, permission e-mail marketing is five times more cost-effective than direct mail, 20 times more than web banners -- and consumers like it! The study reveals that customers clearly distinguish between permission e-mail and unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE), also known as "Spam". Further, leading marketers that ask for and receive permission to send e-mail to their customers are finding that their messages are not only welcome, but also are greeted with response rates that far exceeded other targeted marketing vehicles such as Web advertising and direct mail, as well as unsolicited commercial e-mail.
IMTs research says that more than half of all e-mail users feel positively about permission e-mail marketing, and nearly three quarters of users respond to permission e-mail with some frequency. By contrast, the findings show that UCE can hurt the brand image of companies who use it: 67% of customers had "very negative" reactions to receiving Spam. Surprisingly, marketers have a hard time telling the difference between permission e-mail and UCE.
At a cost of pennies per message sent, permission e-mail offers marketers the chance to improve their marketing economics without the stigmatizing brand impact of Spam.
According to a cross-section of leading Fortune 500 and e-commerce marketers, including Xerox, Hilton, GTE, Federal Express, Beyond.com, Deja.com, eFax and Match.com, the cost-effectiveness of permission e-mail relative to other marketing vehicles like web banner ads and direct mail is their number one priority in the next 12 months for driving e-business.
IMT Strategies predicts this will cause a "race for permission" over the next two years. "The window of opportunity is closing on marketers," Mr. Bruner asserted, "when you combine rapidly growing e-mail volumes with diminishing consumer tolerance for UCE." He believes "direct marketers will have a two to three-year window to build permission relationships with customers and prospects before they shut the door on e-mail solicitations." In an effort to build vital "relationship share" with their target markets, companies will spend at least $1 billion on permission e-mail marketing by 2001, according to IMT Strategies forecasts.
OTHER FINDINGS INCLUDE:
* Almost half of e-mail users with greater than two years experience feel they get "too much" e-mail.
* Less than one-third of customers have responded to UCE more than once, while more than twice as many or 70% have responded to permission e-mail offers more than once.
* Loyalty and response through permission e-mail strategies improve over time; users with over two years of experience view permission more favorably and UCE more negatively than new users.
* The majority of marketers (70% of 169 campaigns reviewed) do not measure the performance of their e-mail marketing campaigns, despite the wide availability of measurement tools.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO MARKETERS:
* E-Mail to only opt-in responders.
* Make sure that your offer is of interest to the receiver. Use lists that are specific to your product or service.
* Test various e-mail list against each other always use a control group to measure your success.
* Keep cost of acquisition and reactivation to measure success of the campaign.
* Dedupe your internal list with that of your purchased list to eliminate irritating your customers.
About the Author
Robert McKim
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
E-Mail truly is the "Killer-App". It is used by almost 200 million users daily. Approximately 78% of all users use it, create it and send out approximately 4.7 messages to their colleagues and friends.
According to Ernst & Young, some 14% of the e-mail recipients go to the web site that is referenced in an e-mail.
According to new research from IMT Strategies, a marketing research firm, permission e-mail marketing is five times more cost-effective than direct mail, 20 times more than web banners -- and consumers like it! The study reveals that customers clearly distinguish between permission e-mail and unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE), also known as "Spam". Further, leading marketers that ask for and receive permission to send e-mail to their customers are finding that their messages are not only welcome, but also are greeted with response rates that far exceeded other targeted marketing vehicles such as Web advertising and direct mail, as well as unsolicited commercial e-mail.
IMTs research says that more than half of all e-mail users feel positively about permission e-mail marketing, and nearly three quarters of users respond to permission e-mail with some frequency. By contrast, the findings show that UCE can hurt the brand image of companies who use it: 67% of customers had "very negative" reactions to receiving Spam. Surprisingly, marketers have a hard time telling the difference between permission e-mail and UCE.
At a cost of pennies per message sent, permission e-mail offers marketers the chance to improve their marketing economics without the stigmatizing brand impact of Spam.
According to a cross-section of leading Fortune 500 and e-commerce marketers, including Xerox, Hilton, GTE, Federal Express, Beyond.com, Deja.com, eFax and Match.com, the cost-effectiveness of permission e-mail relative to other marketing vehicles like web banner ads and direct mail is their number one priority in the next 12 months for driving e-business.
IMT Strategies predicts this will cause a "race for permission" over the next two years. "The window of opportunity is closing on marketers," Mr. Bruner asserted, "when you combine rapidly growing e-mail volumes with diminishing consumer tolerance for UCE." He believes "direct marketers will have a two to three-year window to build permission relationships with customers and prospects before they shut the door on e-mail solicitations." In an effort to build vital "relationship share" with their target markets, companies will spend at least $1 billion on permission e-mail marketing by 2001, according to IMT Strategies forecasts.
OTHER FINDINGS INCLUDE:
* Almost half of e-mail users with greater than two years experience feel they get "too much" e-mail.
* Less than one-third of customers have responded to UCE more than once, while more than twice as many or 70% have responded to permission e-mail offers more than once.
* Loyalty and response through permission e-mail strategies improve over time; users with over two years of experience view permission more favorably and UCE more negatively than new users.
* The majority of marketers (70% of 169 campaigns reviewed) do not measure the performance of their e-mail marketing campaigns, despite the wide availability of measurement tools.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO MARKETERS:
* E-Mail to only opt-in responders.
* Make sure that your offer is of interest to the receiver. Use lists that are specific to your product or service.
* Test various e-mail list against each other always use a control group to measure your success.
* Keep cost of acquisition and reactivation to measure success of the campaign.
* Dedupe your internal list with that of your purchased list to eliminate irritating your customers.
About the Author
Robert McKim
DBMarkets@aol.com
http://www.msdbm.com
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