After the holidays, it has become clear that email marketing is still winning big for online retailers compared to social media. Email is outperforming social media 3-to-1 to be exact, according to the Direct Marketing Association.
This could explain the rise in emails sent this past holiday season: the volume was higher than ever according to Chad White from Retailemailblog.com – see his post about the 16% rise year-over-year here.
Social sales and clicks take a dive
Wonder how much social sales contributed to online revenue on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Less than 0.5 percent. That’s not a lot, if you think of all the buzz generated on the many social networks. The number of clickthroughs via social networks dropped with 26 percent compared to 2011, according to an IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark report published recently (source).
Overall, online sales grew a whopping 30 percent compared to 2011, which goes to show how important online has become as a general channel for online shopping and therefor, online marketing as a whole is important too. However, not all channels perform equal.
Sticking to email marketing is the best thing to do then, and retailers have been learning how to use it more effectively too. They are setting up their email marketing messages as more personalized communications instead of the ol’ batch and blast ways, and it pays off. Also, putting in triggered campaigns for wish lists, others also bought and abandoned shopping cart actions have high value compared to the effort and investment needed in terms of time and money.
Need some email marketing campaign examples for 2013? Check out this recent article.
Email marketing ROI steady
Email marketing has seen a ROI this year of $39.40 according to the Digital Marketing Association in the USA, while search provided an ROI of $22.38, banner ads at $19.71 and social networks came in last at $12.90.
These figures are similar to those from last year, where email marketing was the winning channel as well, clocking in at an ROI of $40. See the related article here: Thrive with email – the best performing online marketing channel .
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