According to a new survey from Experian CheetahMail, "Free Shipping report: Benchmark data and analysis for email marketers," reported by Internet Retailer, 70% of respondents from online
companies offering business and consumer products and services, catalogers, and multichannel retailers had higher conversion rates on e-mails offering free shipping than on other types of marketing
e-mails. Of the 70% with higher conversions, 78% saw increased transaction-to-click-rates, and 47% had higher average order values in free shipping e-mails compared to other marketing e-mails.
Transaction-to-click rates for free shipping e-mails in the consumer products and services industry were 60.7% greater on average compared to other marketing e-mail messages, and more multichannel
retailers used free shipping promotions in the first quarter of this year compared to Q1 of 2008-up from 47% to 55%.
With free shipping offered as an incentive more often, retailers should
carefully plan such promotions and be selective about when they offer the deal, opines the report. To create the most profitable and successful free-shipping e-mail campaign, Experian suggests the
following:
- Free shipping on overstocked items tends to perform poorly. Marketers should pair free shipping offers with products consumers are interested in
- Constantly
running free shipping offers may dilute their effectiveness, Experian says. Offering free shipping for a shorter period is typically more successful than offering it over a longer
period
- Divide the subscriber list into groups of customers based on their product interests, then offer those groups the products with free shipping
Sara Ezrin, senior
strategy consultant, strategic services, Experian CheetahMail, says "... taking account of the fact that we have seen holiday e-mail volume increase at least 20% or more year over year for
businesses in all industries, e-mails should be optimized to maintain subscriber engagement... The free shipping report data and analysis is extremely timely... "
Please visit Internet Retailer here for the report summary, or releases
from Experian CheetahMail here.