Retailers Lag On Email Personalization, Cross-Channel Integration

Nearly half of retailers are missing out on an easy marketing opportunity and not collecting email addresses on social media or in-store according to a new Yesmail study released Monday.

83% of retailers collect email addresses on their company’s website, but only 56% collect in-store and 55% on social media according to the report. In addition, 35% of retailers collect emails addresses through sweepstakes campaigns, 30% on a mobile app and 10% admit to purchasing email lists from third party vendors.

Email marketing company Yesmail polled 200 retailers attending the National Retail Federation’s 2015 Shop.org conference to analyze how well the retail industry has adapted to and incorporated cross-channel marketing, concluding that there is still a wealth of opportunity for retailers to say ‘Carpe Diem’ and incorporate better cross-channel marketing strategies into their business plans.

Although 60% of retailers asserted they integrate their email marketing campaigns with social media, only 36% responded that they leverage social media data and engagement to improve their email marketing campaigns.

Retailers also struggle to leverage personalized email copy to engage with subscribers and 10% of retailers responded that they do not personalize their email marketing campaigns in any way whatsoever.

Although 61% of retailers say they personalize email subject lines based on customer data, a far fewer 36% personalize the email copy. Only 42% of respondents add the name of the email subscriber to the message and 31% personalize emails with recommended feature products.

The retail industry’s failure to leverage personalized copy in their emails originates from the market’s inability to track, report, and incorporate customer data into their email marketing campaigns.

While 69% of retailers say they track email activity such as opens and clicks to improve their marketing performance, only 60% leverage purchase behavior, 50% demographic data, 41% browsing behavior, and 13% psychographic data.

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