Email Marketing Is One of The Best Marketing Programs for Retailers

April 15th, 2008 by Joe Colopy

Bronto is very focused on developing our email marketing product for online retailers. Why? We strongly believe that email marketing segmentation, analytics and reporting are significant drivers of online revenue.

The latest research from Shop.org, the online retail arm of the National Retail Foundation, and Forrester seems to agree with us. Recently, they published the “The State of Online Retailing 2008″and according to the report, email marketing continues to be one of the most successful marketing program for retailers. Here are some of the highlights from the report:

Email marketing remains a top marketing priority for retailers in 2008.
Email marketing is widely used among online retailers (92%) to market to their own customers. Over 93% of these retailers plan on making it a higher priority in the upcoming year
The typical retailer in the survey expects to spend $311,634 this year sending emails to its own list of customers.
Emailing to house lists is considered very cost-effective, costing on average $6.85 per order, the lowest cost-per-order among 10 marketing tactics covered in the report. (The average order value from those e-mails is $120.27.)
The average delivery rate on e-mails to house lists is 90%, the open rate is 22% and the annual opt-out rate 6%, according to the report.
95% of retailers send e-mails when a product is shipped, 94% to confirm a purchase, 82% in response to a customer action, 81% when new products are available and 65% to promote online-only deals.
Less common but getting top marks for effectiveness are more personalized e-mails.
Only 42% of retailers send customized e-mails based on customer behavior or purchase data, but 73% rate that a very effective tactic.
58% send segmented e-mails to groups of customers based on stated preferences or purchase data, a tactic rated very effective by 67% of those merchants

Although Shop.org is primarily composed of larger online retailers, we see many of the same trends with mid-sized retailers as well. Either way, the conclusions are the same — email marketing is an essential marketing activity for retailers, especially with turning one-time buyers into long-term customers.

Joe Colopy
Founder and CEO of Bronto