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Independent Consumer Research Shows Marketers Will be Rewarded for Delivering a Healthy Dose of Relevance in E-mail

With high frequency and lack of interest cited as the top reasons for consumers not opening and reading e-mail messages, a new research report from e-Dialog, a GSI Commerce (Nasdaq: GSIC) Marketing Services division, shows that more than half of U.S. and U.K. consumers’ e-mails would be opened and read if marketers would demonstrate that they knew the consumer. This is especially true for mobile e-mail users who are more sensitive to frequency on the small screen.

According to the detailed report, Manifesto for E-mail Marketers: Consumers Demand Relevance from e-Dialog’s Centre for Digital Marketing Excellence, the vast majority of consumers want marketers to demonstrate they know:

The report is based on the Consumer Insight on E-mail Relevance commissioned onlinesurvey of approximately 2,000 consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. The study was conducted on e-Dialog’s behalf by Forrester Consulting, a global independent research company.

The data shows that a large segment of consumers across all vertical industries want marketers to exhibit intimate knowledge of their preferences, interests and purchase history. This segment, referred to as ‘preference seekers,’ is more likely to subscribe to e-mail and is therefore more tolerant of frequent e-mail messages. Yet the need to deliver relevant messages to this segment is even greater, since their inboxes appear to be more cluttered than non-preference seekers.

“Our research clearly shows that most consumers will open and read messages that are personalized to them based on preference data,” commented Simone Barratt, managing director, e-Dialog International. “In fact, preference seekers are clearly more engaged and interested in receiving tailored messages. This could be a very profitable segment to a brand, but marketers need to work hard to satisfy subscribers through more robust preference capture and relevance empowering tactics, including frequency-metering, testing, and behavior analysis.”

With an overwhelming 86 percent of surveyed consumers on average wanting companies to ask about their e-mail preferences at registration, the research paper advises marketers to ensure every page of a Web site has a link back to a central subscriber preference center. In addition, it tells marketers what information they should collect at registration and how they can improve the ability to capture product and category preferences from existing subscribers.

“Ever since consumers started transacting online, they’ve been sharing information about themselves that enable marketers to direct targeted content to them. And now, with the proliferation of applications like online banking and social networking, it’s almost as if an e-mail address is part of a person’s digital identity,” commented Andrea Orvis, group director of strategic services for e-Dialog. “So when consumers sign up for e-mail, they’re more willing to provide a piece of their personal information in exchange for something special and exclusive. Marketers need to hold up their end of the promise.”

Available for download now at www.e-dialog.com/manifesto, the extensive report from e-Dialog examines key findings on what consumers want included in the messages they receive, such as highly tailored product recommendations and task-oriented notices, and even more importantly, how marketers can achieve greater relevance in their e-mail programs. The report also provides a series of specific recommendations from e-Dialog’s e-mail marketing experts. Four additional reports drilling deeper into the topics of mobile and social marketing, as well as into consumers’ views of e-mail relevance in the retail and travel verticals will be released in the coming weeks.

About e-Dialog

Established in 1997, e-Dialog empowers marketers to meaningfully connect with customers by engaging in relevant conversations through e-mail, mobile devices, social networks, e-commerce and at the point of sale. e-Dialog’s multichannel suite gives marketers direct access to timely customer insight that drives targeted and opportunity-rich consumer dialogs. With e-Dialog, marketers quickly evolve customer relationships from the newly acquired to the highly engaged.

Consistently recognized by top analyst firms for both outstanding service and first-class technology, e-Dialog is a global provider to some of the world’s most recognized brands, including  AirTran Airways, Avis Budget Group, Boots, British Airways, CVS/pharmacy, Nintendo, the NFL, PETCO, Reuters, the Royal Bank of Scotland group of companies, and The TJX Companies. With offices in Boston, London, New York and Seattle, e-Dialog is a wholly owned subsidiary of GSI Commerce Inc. (Nasdaq: GSIC). For more information, visit www.e-dialog.com.

e-Dialog Media Contacts:
Jean Borgman
(508) 451-5944
jborgman@e-dialog.com

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