Posted by Gareth Cutter on 3rd March 2009 to
Industry More useful information for marketing managers has been published by the DMA, following on from the figures reported in our last blog post about email marketing strategies in Q2 2008.
It appears that most marketing managers are gearing their strategies towards retention as a way of strengthening cash-flow during the recession economy; all in all, 82% of marketing campaigns sent between April and June 2008 were focused on keeping existing customers, a percentage increase of 8% on Q1 of the same year.
In-house email lists are traditionally regarded as the strongest and most profitable to businesses because the contacts have almost always been qualified with an 'opt-in' agreement. Recipients of retention campaigns are also more likely to be receptive to messages because trust and familiarity has been built over consecutive campaigns, meaning an increased likelihood of buying.
The average frequency of mails sent to contacts per email service provider (ESP) per month has also increased to an average of 5.44 email, presumably as a means of stimulating increased spending and stronger loyalty.
We advise that those who do increase the frequency of their mails to also increase their messages' relevancy and targeting. To justifiy the increase, subscribers will expect the new mails to be at least equal, if not superior to the ones that came before in these areas. It is also advisable to give recipients the opportunity to opt-out of more frequent campaigns in exchange for less frequent volumes to avoid any unsubscribes.
Put these measures in place and retention campaigns might be the very glue that holds your customer base together in 2009. If you would like to measure your own performance against the benchmark study and pick up some extra ideas on how to plan your campaigns, you can purchase and download the full DMA National Email Benchmarking Report by following this link.
