Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
Email marketing is used to attract shoppers and nurture ongoing relationships with loyal customers. However, many companies are not using email marketing correctly or to its full potential.
A study conducted by Order Dynamics, an omni-channel commerce solutions provider, discovered mistakes retailers are making in regard to customer relationships. Rather than treating customer relationships similar to people dating each other, where the goal is to attract the customer and then convince them to go out on subsequent dates by returning to their store, Order Dynamics found that many retailers are speed dating, creating short-term relationships.
Order Dynamics signed up for 60 retailers’ mailing lists to analyze how retailers use email marketing. The biggest group of analyzed retailers (46 percent) sent between one and five emails during a four-week period, whereas 33 percent sent no emails at all.
Sending emails is important, but making sure the content is relevant to the customer is even more important. Of the analyzed retailers, only 23 percent were performing well in this category, with 33 percent falling below average. Relevancy of email content relates to what the consumer buys or shops for on the retailer’s website, and then the content the retailer subsequently emails the shopper.
Independent retailers can use some of these best practices. For example, send a follow-up email after a customer joins the mailing list. Rather than offering discounts on random products that a customer may not want, retailers can offer general coupons so the consumer can personalize the discount.
To read more about the study, click here.
