As one of the most effective advertising methods available, email is (or should be) a marketing must. Retailers can easily drive traffic and boost sales by sending out e-mail blasts, which are faster and more cost-effective than sending additional mailers to consumers. Julie M. Katz, a Forrester analyst, estimates that it costs about $2 for every thousand e-mails sent. The Direct Marketers Association estimates that marketers earn $45.06 in ROI for every dollar they spend on e-mail campaigns. That compared with $7.28 for catalogs and $15.55 for direct mail.
Lately though, among increased efforts to get consumers in-store and drive online traffic, email has become less about the consumer and more about the bottom line. Who cares if I have to alienate 90% of my consumer base by sending 7 emails a day as long as I make a sale to the other 10%?
A recent Internet Retailer survey of 174 Web retailers, including those that operate stores, found that almost half have increased the number of monthly e-mails they send compared to a year ago. Chad White, director of retail insights for the Email Experience Council, says the number of e-mails stores sent for the week ending Oct. 17 increased 8% compared to the same week a year earlier.
Forrester Research predicts that retailers and wholesalers will send 158 billion marketing e-mails this year. Moreover, that number is expected to increase 63 percent to 258 billion in 2013.
What is this email surge doing to consumer retention and long-term brand building?
According to Forrester, online consumers are annoyed with e-mail volume and are beginning to turn to social networking sites, texting and other communication channels. The big problem, according to Stephanie Miller, vice president of market development for consulting group Return Path Inc., is that less than 20 percent of retailers’ e-mails are targeted, although those capabilities exist and are easily accessible.
Dan de Grandpre, founder of dealnews.com, said that stores are blasting e-mails that offer discounts across many categories instead of just one item. Most of the e-mails come from apparel and furnishings chains, which have been hardest hit by the economic slowdown.
The solution?
Think like your consumers. Take advantage of all the email can offer, including customized, relevant information. Email is great to highlight promotions and introduce new products and events, but if that is all you are using email for, your consumers will catch on…and log off. Matching advertising to content benefits consumers. Sending an orange chicken recipe? In one click, let consumers buy the rice to serve their chicken with.
Shopping online is easy. Grocery shopping online is even easier and lots of people are trying it:
More buy groceries online – study
October 28, 2008 Source: Google News
Online grocery shopping has overtaken internet sales of electronic items for the first time, new figures have shown.
More consumers than ever are now doing their supermarket shopping online, outstripping gadget and other electronic sales, according to the MyVoucherCodes website.
Customers appeared to be looking for bargains on essential items such as bread and milk, turning to online supermarket sites for exclusive offers and discounts on home delivery, sales statistics suggested.
The “top four” online shopping sectors are currently grocery (31%), electronic items such as computers, televisions and gadgets (25%), clothing and fashion items (21%) and holidays (15%).
A study of 4,238 consumers by the website found 44.2% shopped at Tesco, 23.2% at Asda and 11.7% at Sainsbury’s.
The average online shopping basket cost £53 a week, the poll found.
Customers in the north west used online supermarkets the most, followed by those in the south east, London, the south west and the north east.
MyVoucherCodes managing director Mark Pearson said: “We were amazed at the fact that supermarket sales are now beating PCs and TVs when it comes to online shopping, and this is surely down to the fact that people are looking to find the best bargains to get them through everyday life in these tough economic times.
“As you would expect the supermarkets are masters when it comes to marketing and we are seeing an increase in discount and voucher codes relating to free deliveries of groceries to encourage more people to use their online services.”
During the Association of National Advertisers’ annual conference, executives sounded off on advertising agencies’ archaic workflow processes, which hinder simple approvals and overall speed to market. To increase efficiency and promote new initiatives, many said they would bypass agencies altogether in favor of working directly with media companies.
“We’re going to pilot a number of different relationships where we go direct with media companies,” said Gary Elliott, VP of corporate marketing at Hewlett-Packard.
“If I were an agency, I would be really worried about being disintermediated,” said Becky Saeger, CMO of Charles Schwab. “More and more the agencies are almost in the way sometimes…we know that [media companies] understand what we’re trying to do with our brand so we get higher quality input and not have to rely on our media agency to be in the middle all the time.”
Marketer’s relationships with publishers have begun to create consistency out of continuous media, and corporate, fragmentation. The following are some benefits of using MyWebGrocer for marketing and advertising initiatives:
Direct client-to-publisher communication means MyWebGrocer understands the bottom line objectives and action plan for achieving them.
With over ninety retailers, MyWebGrocer is the largest online publisher of grocery advertising, reaching millions of unique grocery shoppers monthly.
Each advertiser has a team of dedicated employees to assist with everything from set-up and graphic design, to quality assurance and reporting.
Online campaign lead times can be as short as 48 hours.
Because MyWebGrocer developed its network from the bottom up, advertisers know exactly where, when, how and at what point in the purchase path their advertising will appear.
In a response to the economy MyWebGrocer has developed a new feature to bring savings to retail grocer’s customers. This money saving widget is designed to highlight the weekly items on sale at your local grocer. Users can download it for their Blogger, TypePad, Pageflakes, Netvibes, Freewebs and iGoogle pages using Widgetbox.
ShopRite will be the first MyWebGrocer customer to launch the savings widget on October 20th. Widgets pull content or services from some other place on the Web and in this case a retail grocer’s website. Widgets can be thought of as mini website but with only the content the users are interested in. User’s log on to their social networking pages and the widget will display grocery items that are on sale in their favorite store. From there, the user can click and build their printable online shopping list or shop online.
“MyWebGrocer’s goal is to provide relevant and timely information to the Grocery consumer. Savings are what shoppers want in this tight economic environment and we are excited to launch a first in a series of widgets that will enable consumers more control over what and when they receive information from our grocery retailers. ” Said Alec Newcomb Vice President Business Development at MyWebGrocer.
MyWebGrocer’s 90 retailers serve 85% of the United States enabling a unique insight into what grocery consumer’s want in today’s market. Widgets are another important element in providing retailers with the tools they need to engage their customers where they are online.
As we face time crunches we need to find ways to get the most out of hours. You cannot buy time, or find time. Time is the same and it is constant. What we do and how we delegate are ways to get the most of our time. You delegate a lot in your life. Think about it; most people send their kids to school, take your clothes to the dry cleaner, pay for garbage removal instead of trips to the dump, go to a hairdresser instead of cutting our own hair – I wish my mom thought of that for me when I was a kid (kidding mom!)
Grocery shopping, though necessary, is another thing that takes a lot of our time. With online shopping with MyWebGrocer shopping application, you can create multiple lists, and then when you need something, you place your order. You can still add and remove items and combine lists. Then, your personal shopper at the store – who is trained to select the best, brightest, and freshest products – does the shopping for you. What a great way to outsource another part of your life, make better use of that precious time you have, and get the best items for your family.
