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Articles:
DoubleClick: 2002 Consumer Email Study
Good Email Marketing Wins Over Consumers
Email Marketing Encourages Online Purchases
Email Marketing Proves Effective
Permission Is Key To Email Marketing
Net Shopping Brightens Glum Sales Season

Charts:
E-Mail Marketing Budget Growth among US Marketers
US E-Mail Marketing Services Spending
US Consumers Preferred Method of Contact from Online Merchants
Comparative Estimates: Internet Users in N. America
US Internet Retailers' Average Customer Acquisition Cost per New Customer

Good Email Marketing Wins Over Consumers

Oct 15 2002:
eMarketer reports that well-executed email marketing permission campaigns can have a positive impact on consumers attitudes towards companies.

This is according to a recent survey from Quris which found that a large number of consumers believe that the quality of email permission programs influence their opinions about the companies sending them.

The study found that 67 percent of US consumers said they liked companies who, in their opinion, did a good job with permission email marketing.

Around 58 percent of consumers said they opened those companies’ emails, while 53 percent said that such emails affected their personal buying decisions.

According to the report, only 25 percent of consumers expect permission emails from well-known brands to be much better than those from other firms.

- eMarketer.com

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Email Marketing Encourages Online Purchases

Oct 30 2002:
Around 69 percent of American email users have made purchases online after receiving permission-based email marketing, according to a recent DoubleClick survey.

The study indicates that 59 percent of US consumers have purchased offline as a result of receiving a permission-based email, while 39 percent have bought from a catalog.

Additionally, 34 percent of American consumers have purchased via a phone after receiving marketing emails, while 20 percent have purchased via postal mail.

The DoubleClick survey found that the ‘from’ line is the most important factor motivating consumers to open emails, followed by the ‘subject’ line.

Nearly 70 percent of male respondents said they were more likely to open permission-based mails that contain news or compelling information in the subject line. Women were more likely to open email that cited discount offers in the subject line, with 64 percent stating that this would influence them to open emails.

The report indicates that unsolicited spam is the biggest concern among email users, followed by the frequency with which they receive permission-based email.

- DoubleClick Inc.

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Email Marketing Proves Effective

Nov 01 2001:
New research from DoubleClick indicates that over 88 percent of online consumers have made a purchase as a result of receiving permission-based email, up from 61 percent last year.

The research also found that 37 percent had clicked through an email and purchased immediately, up from 20 percent last year.
On average, online consumers spent USD1,023 over the past year, up from USD750 the previous year. Eighty-six percent have bought from the same merchant on more than one occasion, up slightly from 83 percent last year.

When asked what sort of offers they would like to receive by email, 77 percent said special offers from online retailers and 65 percent said offers from local retailers or restaurants.

On average, online consumers now receive 36 permission-based email marketing messages every week, up from 18 last year. Forty percent of those polled said email was one of the main reasons they were loyal to particular online merchants, up from 30 percent last year.

The DoubleClick study was conducted by NFO WorldGroup.

- DoubleClick Inc.

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Permission Is Key To Email Marketing

Oct 24 2001:
A new report from Forrester advises email marketers to provide relevant content in their messages, and to keep those messages short and reasonably infrequent.

These are the best ways to ensure that consumers will not cancel their subscriptions to marketing lists.

Forrester points out that travel-related email marketing has the lowest cancellation rates. On average, only 5 percent of consumers have unsubscribed from these lists.

Fifty-six percent of consumers that receive permission-based email marketing are aged between 16 and 34, and most do not have children. Forty-six percent have been online for over two years, and 44 percent have a university degree.

They spend an average of 9 hours online every week, and 95 percent say that email is their principle online activity. Forty-one percent say email is a great way to discover new products, 36 percent read most of the promotional emails they receive, and 9 percent forward these emails to friends.

Forrester also says that double-opt in lists, which require both subscription and confirmation, have the most positive effect on customer acquisition and retention.

- Forrester Research

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Net Shopping Brightens Glum Sales Season

Sunday, December 22, 2002 Posted: 8:46 AM EST (1346 GMT)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- More consumers pointed and clicked through their holiday shopping lists this year, snapping up toys, DVD players and digital cameras as their comfort with online shopping continued to grow.

In the heady days of the dot-com boom, some market watchers predicted the demise of the traditional brick and mortar retailer. While that did not happen, online shopping seems to be one of the few survivors of the technology bust.

People are shopping online this year more than ever before and shifting more of their spending budgets to the Internet, analysts said.

Nielsen/NetRatings said there has been a 44 percent increase in shopping online since the beginning of the season, with toys and consumer electronics posting double-digit growth.

We are finally seeing a true shift of offline to online, said Patrick Gates, senior vice president of commerce for America Online, a unit of AOL Time Warner, CNN's parent company. "Overall growth for (offline retail) is expected to be 4 percent and online is going to be up about 20 to 30 percent. The pie isn't getting bigger, people are shifting share."

By 2005, Christian Dussart, professor and co-director of MIT Sloan School of Management's Digital Business Strategy program expects online sales to exceed 5 percent of total retail sales and surpass catalog sales.

Bargains, convenience and the ability to comparison shop contribute to the growth expectations.

The problem for manufacturers and retailers is that the Internet is helping people become more price conscious and they can shop around, Dussart said. "Margins are shrinking and price is becoming much more important than brand."

Going from click to brick
America Online's Gates attributed some of the growth to the fact that some of the old-style retailers have finally figured out how to succeed online, with consistent messaging on the Web and in the stores and connected customer service, for example.

Retailers this year are making it possible for customers to buy or reserve items online and then pick it up at their local store -- another factor in the growth this far, analysts said.

Free shipping has also helped, taking away the perception there is a penalty to buy online, Strand said.

Sites that offer free shipping, which is increasing to almost all sites, and sites that sell books, toys, apparel and music are really the ones that are likely seeing the heaviest sales, said Jupiter Research analyst Ken Cassar.

Still, some are bit more tempered about the growth.

Even though it looks like it's going to be a great year for e-retail sales, we're still estimating e-retail sales will only be 1.4 percent of total retail sales (excluding travel) for the quarter, up from 1.3 percent a year ago, said Mary Brett Whitfield, senior vice president with Retail Forward.

She does not expect total online sales comprising more than 4 percent to 5 percent of total sales in the next five to six years.

Online retailing is still operating off a very small base -- with $10 billion to $12 billion per quarter for the entire industry compared to the $1.43 billion Wal-Mart Stores Inc. tallied on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Whitfield said.

Nielsen/NetRating's Strand said the majority of sales are still made in brick and mortar stores. About 75 percent of people known to shop online say over 75 percent of their purchases were made in stores, Strand said.

While more dollars will be spent online, Strand said the industry is expecting a muted season because of sentiment as spending budgets have not increased much from last year.

Making it to the home stretch
While Wednesday was the deadline for most online shoppers who wanted to avoid paying for express shipping, brick and mortar retailers still have almost a week left in the season.

A poll recently conducted on the AOL service found that, of its 1.8 million respondents, 34 percent had not even started shopping by this past weekend.

As a whole, retailers have been having a rough season.

Earlier this week, many U.S. retailers reported another week of dismal weekly sales, leading them to discount merchandise in order to reach holiday sales targets.

After a strong start on "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start to the holiday shopping season, retailers are still trying to woo consumers into stores with heavy ad campaigns and deep discounts on items like electronics, compact discs, clothing, jewelry and appliances.

Retailers ring up about a quarter of their annual sales in November and December and for some specialty retailers, such as electronics stores and apparel chains, the two-month period accounts for the bulk of full-year profits.

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