Get Relevant

A great piece from Kevin Newcomb at Clickz on the need for email marketers to get a more relevant approach for their campaigns. Most of the data he cites is from Jupiter Research VP and research director David Daniels.

Some highlights:

About a quarter of marketers surveyed by Jupiter are sending broadcast e-mail campaigns with no differentiation or targeting.

The majority of marketers, 65 percent, are using limited personalization, such as using a customer's name, and limited segmentation, such as demographic targeting or using geotargeting to identify a local store.

Only 11 percent of marketers send targeted campaigns that use a customer's purchase history, click-stream activity, or other data to send a relevant, targeted offer.

Untargeted broadcast e-mails, with no personalization or segmentation, have an average open rate of 20 percent, average click-through rate of 9.5 percent, and average conversion rate of 1.1 percent.

Campaigns triggered from user actions, such as shopping cart abandonment, have a 27 percent average open rate, 9.3 percent average click-through rate, and 2.3 percent average conversion rate.

Lifecycle messaging campaigns, such as product replenishment messages, have an average open rate of 26 percent, average click-through rate of 14 percent, and average conversion rate of 2.8 percent.

Campaigns that integrate Web site clickstream data for targeting perform best of all, with a 33 percent average open rate, 14 percent average click-through rate, and 3.9 percent average conversion rate.

This next set of stats I have asked the author for clarification. I dont know if it is implied these are staff + ESP/agency/software fees = annual salary given here.

Broadcast e-mails require just $109,000 in annual salary
triggered campaigns require about $128,000 in salary resources.
Lifecycle messaging campaigns are considerably more expensive than less sophisticated methods, requiring $263,000 in annual salary resources.
Campaigns using clickstream data require $276,000 in salary.

Jupiter also states
54 percent of respondents saying they clicked on a link in an e-mail because the product or service interested them.

Forty percent do so when copy piqued their interest
35 percent are influenced by the subject line.
Only 12 percent of respondents say a single large image influenced their decision to click
9 percent are influenced by several smaller images.

Enjoy your weekend...