Retailers missing a trick with emails

Over two-thirds of emails from UK retailers have no personalisation at all, a new industry study reveals.

Most of the UK’s top retailers adopt a one size fits all approach to their email marketing, according to the report. 87% of messages sent following a purchase were identical to those sent to cold prospects and only 13% of retailers customised their emails based on gender.

The study shows that retailers are missing opportunities for personalised targeting and cross-selling from their email marketing. The vast majority of retailers apparently made no attempt to drive cross-sell, up-sell or repeat purchase based in the customers previous online buying behaviour.

Only one retailer (Amazon.co.uk) followed up an online purchase with an email marketing message tailored to that purchase.

However, there were some encouraging results, with 93% using triggered emails following a purchase to reassure and build customer loyalty and 67% keeping online purchasers informed on the progress of their order, through the use of timely emails.

Top five post-sales email targeting tips

1. Invite web customers to sign up during checkout – ask for the most important data.

2. Incentivise customers to sign up to your email marketing – e.g. with loyalty points, discounts off future purchases or exclusive special offers or previews.

3. Map put the data you need to collect from your customers, the data you can collect from their transactions, and how can you use it to personalise and tailor post-sale communications.

4. Use customer surveys as part of your post sale messages to collect valuable data on the customer experience and help build loyalty and trust.

5. Don’t forget basic triggered communications like order confirmations – purchasers expect this at minimum.

There are some good resources on this subject on the DMA website including the DMA Email Marketing Council’s two white papers: Guide to data analysis and segmentation and Split testing.

For more information on how to use Email marketing as part of an integrated marketing campaign please call CFL on 01225 782669 or log onto www.cflmarketing.co.uk