Study: Email marketing in retail must get personal by Jordie van Rijn @jvanrijn

Personalization in retail
In April a new study about email marketing in Dutch retail came out. The study was conducted amongst 500 retailers who have their roots in the offline world, for instance with a physical store.  For those retailers their emailings can have a big impact on bottom line sales and customer loyalty. And more so personalized emailings. If the message catches on, it can lead to a store visit and the next buy. So, what is the state of personalized email in retail?

Personalisation statistics
The study showed that only 24% of retailers personalize their email newsletters with the name of the recipient. Even less use the preferences of the subscriber to segment their newsletters: 21%. Its remarkable these numbers are so low.

Personalization in email marketing is confusing?
There is some confusion about the term personalization. What does it actually mean? Have you ever heard two email marketeers talk about personalization? They will probably be talking about two totally different strategies, but they both fit under the personalization umbrella.

And that is understandable, because personalization means a diferent message for each recipient based on personal data. But it doesn’t say how much of the data is used. So it could mean that you are deeply into the data, highly differentiate your messages and take personal profiles into account. This personalisation is also referred to as segmentation. It could also mean that you use “dear [firstname]” in the salutation of the email.

A closer look gives a different view
If we look at the percentages of the retail email research a bit closer we see there is not that much difference in percentages of using name and using preferences (24 vs 21%). A careful conclusion might be that if you use the name for personalization, you are using the personal data in your email marketing and will be very likely to also know personal interests and or profiles. However, that is not true. A part will use both name and personal data, but the use of a personal salutation has given mixed results in the past. Use of segmentation on the other hand is a must-use tactic. So there is partial overlap. Our advice: use profile data first and then test the use of salutation.

Shocking statistics
The numbers are shocking. How could it be that only 21% uses personalisation and segmentation? You could think that a good general newsletter should deliver enough value. But think about that a bit longer,

No difference between potential, current and best customers? Just send that email to the customer that just filed a serious complaint? With offers he is just not interested in? Truth is, a lot of retail email is only about sales promotion an getting people to the store. Personalisation will help you do just that. So get to the next level and keep the interestability up.

What about loyalty in retail
In 2009 the CMO council released research: The relevance drives response and relationships. In comparison to the above retail email percentages, it makes you wonder. The research shows that 94% of the respondents usually percieved the communication of a loyalty program as personalized or based on recent purchases. So it is possible to get more personal. 16% even thought the communication was always personalized.  That should have quite an impact on the customer experience.

Maybe the retail should focus on their loyalty marketing a bit more? What do you think? Leave a comment!

Takeaway: Only 21% of retails segment their email. Maybe they should think of their bottom line results and the consumer… and get personalizing.

Until next time!
Jordie van Rijn
Twitter @jvanrijn