Email Popular Online Medium For Retailers

Google released a study this week on retailers advertising budgets for the 2009 Holiday Season (apparently July isn’t too early to start thinking about retailer sales over the Christmas holidays!). The study was performed by an independent marketing research company to understand retailers’ tactics in planning for the upcoming 2009 Holiday Season. The research company interviewed 600 business to consumer retailers that was made up of 473 multi-channel retailers, and 127 online only retailers.

The study points out the growing confidence in online advertising in both large & small companies. One finding the study concluded was that online advertising makes up the highest percentage of advertising budgets for retailers, which equals one-third of overall advertising spend. These same retailers also feel that online advertising results in the strongest ROI for them.

Multi-channel & online only retailers both responded to say that the reason they focused on online advertising is to generate online sales, with online only retailers being more likely to use online advertising for this reason.

So which form of online advertising is the most popular for retailers?

Both groups of retailers interviewed include email marketing advertising in their online marketing efforts. Both multi-channel & online only retailers consider email marketing as the most popular advertising medium (online only retailers use email marketing with a combination of other online marketing efforts). The respondents went on to say that email marketing is the primary form of online marketing which they plan to use for the 2009 Holiday Season; it had also been the most popular method for the 2008 Holiday Season for them.

What are the benefits of email marketing?

Email marketing is a highly interactive & extremely low-cost online advertising medium. Email marketing allows retailers to:

• Deliver a message to the exact customer base desired
• Integrate with Google Analytics to track customer engagement from email to website
• Highlight promotions with online coupons, and track redemption of coupons in-store/online
• Reinforce brand position, awareness & customer loyalty with segmented groups or entire customer base
• Encourage online engagement with your brand.

6S Marketing offers various email marketing services including:

• Email campaign strategy & development
• Email creative & content consulting
• Testing & distribution services
• Campaign reporting, and;
• Integration of email marketing campaigns with Google Analytics & other web analytics tools, as well as CRM tools.

One main point to take away from the study conducted by Google is that search engine advertising along with email marketing are the preferred advertising mediums for online only retailers, where as multi-channel retailers prefer only email marketing. For the 2009 Holiday Season, or any time of year, a highly effective online marketing campaign should contain an email marketing strategy. Contact 6S Marketing for a free quote on their email marketing services.

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