Retailers are both behind and ahead of the curve when it comes to e-mail.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from Silverpop. Only 68% of the firms studied, for example, have “apparent” e-mail programs, according to Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey. But those that do are responsible about it.
“We don’t didn’t see any disrespectful, customer-ignoring practices,” said Nussey in an interview during the ACC catalog conference in Orlando. “We also didn’t see much sophistication beyond batch and blast.”
To glean these findings, Silverpop studied the Web sites of 175 companies that participated in last year’s catalog conference, including multi-channel players like Crate & Barrel, Neiman Marcus, JC Penney and CompUSA.
But that wasn’t an easy job because 23% did not include e-mail registrations on their home page.
Except for discount buy-out promotions that a company may not want to publicize, a company should “never bury the call action by placing it off page,” argued Elaine O’Gorman, vice president of marketing for Atlanta-based Silverpop.
In addition, one quarter failed to offer even a simple explanation of benefits in an effort to persuade visitors to register.
And what kinds of information do offer? Of the firms with e-mail programs, 45% offered notices of sales and promotions. Only 14% offered newsletters, and 11% offered catalogs or other types of direct mail.
Meanwhile, almost 80% offered only one category of information despite that consumers want tailored products.
Also limited was the amount of information requested by the retailers. Of those studied, only 37% asked only for an e-mail address, and 39% asked for more detailed information, including postal address. Only 25% asked for phone numbers and demographic data.
And when customers did register, less than half of the firms sent a confirmation message. Worse yet, a mere quarter of those messages were personalized.
On the positive side, 80% said those who send confirmations said they do so on the same day And 76% include product or brand names in the messages.
But their sophistication seems to end there. Barely 12% asked recipients to add them to the recipients’ address book or white list.
“Marketers should think about how they respond when they meet someone for the first time,” O’Gorman said. “You score points when you use the person’s name.”
Silverpop will release the full report in June.
The catalog conference is co-sponsored by Primedia, the publisher of Direct and Multichannel Merchant, and the Direct Marketing Association.
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