5 Worrisome Email Marketing Practices Missed By Top Ecommerce Companies

Who ever said email was a thing of the past? Not us. Email indeed still plays a vital role in the digital marketing world. The difference now is however, that consumers are checking their emails via multiple devices making responsive designed templates a must for marketers. Beyond the email experience your transactions with your customers have to be seamless, quick and easy if you want to catch your customer’s attention in this day and age. You need to be engaging and innovative with your digital marketing approach.

Mapp conducted a study identifying the benchmarks and best practices in omni-channel digital marketing. 49 of the top ecommerce companies in the UK were analyzed via these multiple channels: email, mobile apps, and social media. Today, we will focus on some surprising missed opportunities in email marketing practices that these top companies failed to carry through to the end.

Email Marketing Practices – 5 Missed Opportunities:

1. Give Your Customers Preference

Giving your customers the freedom of choice allows them to unsubscribe for instance from you newsletter easily. Our study showed only 13% of the UK companies had a preference center on their website. However, France took the lead here with 81% of their companies having a push preference center and 43% in Italy. Offering your customers the choice to choose gives the customer the ability to choose his/her likes and dislikes. If you take that away from them you aren’t giving an opportunity for the ultimate customer journey.

2. Make Your Customer Feel Welcome

Sending a welcome email can be your most crucial email you will send to your customers. This is because their attention is at its peak and therefore the best opportunity to ensure an immediate order. It is also a way of greeting your customers and showing your appreciation for their interest in your brand.

Sending a #welcomeemail can be your most crucial email you will send to your customers.

Unfortunately, only 22% of the companies sent a welcome email either by email or via their website.

3. Engage on all levels including video

Videos are a great way to interact with your customers visually. Finding different and creative ways to engage with your customers will keep you ahead of your competition. It will also make your brand ahead of the game. It has been proven that visuals are processed and perceived faster by the human brain and therefore the most preferred method of consuming content that is visual. In our study, however, only 9 percent utilized video content to engage their customers in their emails in the UK, 11% in the Netherlands and the remaining countries 4% or lower. It is clear that visuals are an extremely interactive way of engaging with your customers and therefore this is certainly a missed opportunity that should be implemented into future email campaigns.

4. Re-Activation Email

The logical course of action when a customer has not been active over a period of time is to re-engage the customer. A well invested and committed relationship requires constant re-engagement with your customer to let them know your brand is there for them. However, only 15% of the companies sent out a re-activation email including an offer to re-engage the customer with the brand. This is a missed opportunity to re-engage with your customers over a period of inactivity.

5. Individualization

When we talk about Individualized Marketing, it is important to keep in mind that it isn’t enough to request information; you should follow through and utilize this information for the benefit of your customers. For instance with birthdays, our study found that 29% of the companies requested a date of birth at any time however, only 7% actually sent a birthday offer or email.

Our study found that 29% of UK companies requested a date of birth but only 7% sent an #email

As Itay Levy Managing Director, Mobile Center of Excellence at Mapp states, “Don’t ask for permission or information if you don’t plan on using it. Carefully consider what you want to ask. Don’t forget that we are asked for something, we expect something in return.”

Final Remarks

Email marketing can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing mix, but it depends on how you play your cards. In order to ensure a truly effective campaign these key points need to be addressed and executed correctly.

Want some quick tip to improve your email marketing? Check out our Mapp in Action videos!