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E-MAIL WORKS FOR DIRECT MARKETING

Posted on November 1, 2002

      E-mail can drive purchases in other channels -- including offline stores -- according to research funded by Web ad technology player DoubleClick.

      The study, conducted by Beyond Interactive and Greenfield Online for DoubleClick, surveyed 1,000 consumers and found that 68 percent of the respondents said they have made purchases online after receiving e-mail. More surprising, however, is the finding that 59 percent of those polledsaid they had received e-mail marketing and then made purchases in retail stores.

      Additionally, 39 percent said they bought something through a catalog after e-mail marketing, 34 percent through call centers, and 20 percent through postal mail.

      According to the study, 78 percent of online shoppers have made a purchase after clicking on an e-mail. About 33 percent said they clicked an e-mail and made an immediate purchase, while 35 percent said they clicked through and made a later online buy. Another 9 percent said they clicked through and purchased later offline.

      The upshot is that e-mail has an impact on consumers who receive an e-mail and don't click, according to the findings.

      However, few multi-channel marketers take advantage of tools to track post-delivery or post-click conversions, or to reconcile offline purchasing activity with online marketing efforts.

      The DoubleClick study also found that the majority -- 60 percent -- of consumers open e-mails based on the "from" field.

      Already, the industry recognizes that the sender has an important impact on consumers' willingness to open e-mails -- hence the number of marketers and vendors who employ "forward to a friend" buttons for their campaigns.

      But such mechanisms might become far more commonplace, as DoubleClick found a growing number of impediments to typical e-mail marketing efforts. Respondents said they receive 60 percent more e-mail per year than they did in 2001 -- 254 e-mails in their in-box weekly, on average.

      About half of the respondents also said they have their e-mail sorted into a "bulk" or separate e-mail folder, into which they rarely look. Three-quarters of the respondents who use a bulk folder rarely or never read mails directed to the folder.

      "When executed effectively, and with respect for consumer preferences, e-mail has a dramatic impact on purchasing behavior, not only online but also in stores, catalogs and through call centers," said Court Cunningham, senior vice president at New York-based DoubleClick. "The results highlight the importance of measuring the impact of marketing activities over time and across multiple channels."

      Meanwhile, findings from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) indicate that major direct mailers are adopting e-mail in growing numbers -- although the online channel remains relatively immature.

      Research conducted by the New York-based trade association during its annual "State of Postal and E-Mail Marketing" survey found that 71 percent of direct marketers increased their use of e-mail.

      Still, it's difficult to see whether the trend has eroded the use of offline direct mail. In the short term, it appears that offline mailing continues going strong. The research found that most direct mailers either maintained or increased their mail volume during 2001, with only 21 percent reporting a decrease.

      But compared to years before mass-market acceptance of e-mail, offline direct marketing has taken a hit, the DMA found. In 1997, about 70 percent of mailers were increasing mail volume from the prior year. And as tensions mount in the offline mailing space -- prompted by factors like rising postal costs -- there's likely to be further modifications to the picture.

      Indeed, cost-related factors accounted for most direct mailers' interest in the channel, with about 60 percent citing the relative inexpensiveness of online direct marketing as their main reason for adopting e-mail, the DMA found.

      E-mail also seems to be proving more effective than direct mail for many marketers, the DMA found. Online marketers participating in the study reported a 35.2 percent increase in responses in 2001, while 25 percent of offline mailers reported the same. Only 6 percent of online mailers said they saw a decrease in response rates, while traditional direct mailers reported a 21 percent fall.

      "Increasing postal rates and a challenging economy forced many direct marketers to test new strategies in search of innovative ways to communicate with customers," said H. Robert Wientzen, president and chief executive of the DMA. "As a result, e-mail marketing has rapidly evolved from a relatively unsophisticated medium of mass promotion to a highly specialized medium used to drive revenue, deepen customer relationships, and influence prospect behavior."

      The new findings come on the heels of a report by GartnerG2 that found that e-mail would significant cut into direct mail volume, and would grow from $948 million in 2000 to $1.5 billion in 2005.

      Still, the DMA found that e-mail marketers still wrangle with a number of limiting factors. For one thing, e-mail marketers are pressured by privacy concerns to adopt increasingly different list strategies than those that offline mailers have long found successful, according to the study. While 35 percent of postal mailers said they rent or exchange e-mail lists, only 8 percent of online mailers said they do the same.

      For consumer-focused companies, the gap is even wider: 8 percent of online marketers rent or exchange lists, compared to 54 percent of their offline counterparts.

      E-mail marketers also are divided on techniques for increasing mail effectiveness. Compared to offline mailers, e-mail marketers favor tools like personalization (used by 57 percent of the respondents), demographic segmentation (49 percent), outside databases (45 percent) and geographic segmentation (44 percent).

      More than 90 percent of postal mailers, on the other hand, tend to use techniques including internal housefiles (93 percent), prior mail histories (93 percent), personalization (91 percent), national change of address information (90 percent) and re-mailing to multi-buyers (90 percent.)

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