Editorial Articles

In June this year, we conducted the annual e-Dialog Global E-mail Attitudes Survey into consumer e-mail trends. We investigated the attitudes of 13,000 consumers in 13 countries across Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific and the survey universally revealed the ongoing power of e-mail marketing, not only as a tool for driving offline purchases but also as a powerful means of promoting brand advocacy across social networks.

The UK sample exemplified the global trend, revealing that almost half of consumers had bought offline, in the high street or over the phone, as a result of receiving a marketing e-mail. However, perhaps more significantly, the results indicated the chain reaction of activity that is prompted by receiving a marketing e-mail.

The research showed that 60 per cent of consumers would undertake further research into the brand as a result of receiving an e-mail and a quarter would connect further with the brand by signing directly into the product’s social networking site.

These results resonate particularly strongly in view of recent suggestions that the emergence of the social media age has effectively sounded the death knell for marketing e-mails. Far from this being the case, it is clear that e-mail now provides a key starting point for the online marketing journey. As opposed to being usurped by social networking, e-mail is the catalyst for sending consumers on a cycle that allows them to enter the social media landscape. It therefore acts as a vital trigger for prompting sharing activity, and consequently aiding brand discovery and advocacy.

With this in mind it is also clear that businesses which use e-mail solely as a direct-sales tool are missing a major opportunity. While e-mail is a key means for driving online sales, this alone does not provide an accurate reflection of its full impact and marketers need to reassess their ROI from the e-mail channel. A brand that has the mechanisms in place to draw people to a social network has the added advantage of being able to use email to prompt viral conversation and foster advocates who can spread the campaign message much further than an individual inbox. 

The power of marketing e-mails in prompting viral conversation and directing consumer engagement has important implications for all digital marketing channels in the social media age. Cohesive messaging across each platform is clearly essential for a brand’s online strategy, but co-coordinating marketing communications across online and offline channels can also provide substantial sales opportunities for UK marketers. In the e-mail attitudes survey, on top of the 43 per cent of UK consumers who said they had already made offline purchases following an e-mail, 47 per cent said that they would be more likely to make e-mail-prompted offline purchases in the future.

The 60 per cent of UK consumers who would undertake further brand or product research after receiving an e-mail was on a par with the global average of 63 per cent, but higher than the European average of just 50 per cent. This indicates the receptiveness of UK consumers towards brand interaction – a further 42 per cent of the UK sample also said that just receiving a marketing e-mail would prompt them to click-through and look at a product, even if they didn’t ultimately choose to buy it.

The results of the e-Dialog Global E-mail Attitudes Survey clearly show that e-mail is no longer a simple delivery mechanism. It is now a fully interactive medium that allows online businesses to engage directly with the consumer, prompting the product research and links to social networks that are required to encourage brand advocacy.

Luke Griffiths
VP Professional Services, e-Dialog International