 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
VJESI Leadership Survey #3
That's what the respondents to the VJESI Leadership Survey said in the 1/8-1/11/02 survey on managing email marketing in 2002. With a 19% response rate from direct marketing leaders (70% of them VP and above), Tuesday was the most responsive day for both B2C and B2B marketers. B2C found Monday as their second responsive day and Wednesday the third. B2B found Wednesday as their second responsive day and Monday as the third. And both agree to "never on Sunday (or Saturday)." The weekends were found to be the worst response days for everyone.
What is your email marketing strategy for 2002?
Do you rent your email lists?
Moreover, there is a low opinion of the email lists that are on the market. 57% consider the lists average and 33% think they are downright BAD. 54% think they are way too expensive and 42% feel cost is acceptable. One conclusion that can be drawn from this is that marketers are keeping responsive house lists to themselves and not putting them into the marketplace that could dilute their effectiveness.
When they do venture out to rent lists, they use a variety of financial arrangements for email list rental. 30% use the traditional CPM, 22% use CPA, 17% use CPO, 15% use CPC and 15% use all of the above.
Do you enhance your house email file?
Who executes your email program?
What is your methodology for testing email?
How do you measure the success of your acquisition and retention?
The VJESI Leadership Survey is designed to gather the collective wisdom of the direct marketing leadership in addressing business challenges in today's unprecedented environment.
If you want to opt-in and be part of one of the upcoming panels, send an email to vjames@victoriajames.com with OPT IN SURVEY in the subject line. All answers are tabulated in the aggregate and analyzed to produce a big picture. There are no direct quotes or attribution. A detailed version of the survey results are at www.victoriajames.com/SurveySays/survey3results.html
1/08/02 - 1/11/02
Managing Email Marketing
By Victoria James
It's Tuesday and that means today is the best day to send out your email marketing communication.
Not surprisingly, a resounding 84% reported that their email strategy has increased for 2002. Moreover, 65% have increased their allowance for email over their 2001 budget with more than a 10% increase for 58% of the respondents.
Interestingly, while more email activity is in the air, 78% of the respondents DO NOT RENT their lists, 19% do occasionally and a mere 3% do rent their list. Most, (78%) address their rental policy in their privacy policy but 28% still do not.
Approximately half (48%) do not enhance their email lists with outside data of any kind. About one quarter (25%) use demographics, 16% append transactional data and only 10% use psychographics.
Most companies are executing their email program in house (53%), but a little less than half (47%) use an outsourced email service provider.
Methodology for testing email effectiveness, pretty much mirrors traditional mail. 30% test for all variables: creative, copy, offer and list. 19% test for copy only, 18% test for offer only, 13% test the list and 9% test creative. 10% don't test at all.
Most utilize direct marketing basics - RESPONSE RATE AND SALES. 66% measured the success of their acquisition campaign by response rates and sales and 68% measured the success of their retention campaign by response rates and sales. Not surprisingly, awareness as a success measure ranked lowest with 5% for acquisition and 6% for retention. If we can't measure it, we tend not to value it.
