Commercial e-mail subject lines using the term “Cyber Monday” skyrocketed 184% this year over the 2008 Christmas-shopping season, according to Email Data Source, a firm that monitors the e-mail and twitter activity, and corresponding Web site traffic of thousands of brands.
Not surprisingly, the Cyber Monday subject lines resulted in no discernable spike in Web site activity for any of the brands monitored with two exceptions—Dell and Hewlett Packard, according to Email Data Source.
“I still don’t see any particular spike coming off Cyber Monday brands, with most traffic still being generated on Black Friday instead of Cyber Monday,” wrote Email Data Source founder Bill McCloskey in an e-mail exchange with this newsletter. “The big exception to this is the computer industry with both HP and Dell showing significant traffic spikes both Friday and Monday, supported by e-mail efforts touting cyber Monday specials.”
McCloskey continued: “As [was the case] last year, sticking with traditional sales tactics seems to work over the Cyber Monday tag: CVS sending out an email with a ‘Last day for Holiday Free Shipping’ is a good example: it seems to have generated a nice boost to their Web site.”
Why would Cyber Monday flop as a subject-line? Taking a wild guess here, but maybe it’s because the term means little to nothing to consumers and is increasingly meaningless, period.
The term Cyber Monday was coined in 2005 by the National Retail Federation to refer to the spike in sales online retailers saw on the Monday after Thanksgiving when people returned to work and took advantage of their employers’ broadband Internet connections to shop online.
These days, however, most online shoppers don’t need their employer’s broadband. They have their own.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, as of last June 63% of U.S. adults had broadband access at home. Also, just 7% of Americans are dial-up users at home and a third of them cite price as their main barrier to upgrading to broadband. Obviously, home dial-up users aren’t likely to be a lucrative target for online retailers either at home or at work.
As a result, Cyber Monday has become a non-event that has little to no use as a promotional hook.
But not only have retailers increased their use of the useless term promoting their sites on the Monday after Thanksgiving, they’re increasingly using it in their subject lines for the entire Christmas-shopping season, according to Email Data Source.
“Interestingly, many brands including Sears are using the term well into December,” wrote McCloskey. “Apparently every Monday from Thanksgiving to Christmas is cyber Monday for some brands.”
And apparently every Monday from Thanksgiving to Christmas is Stupid Subject Line Day, as well.
