New data shows that while email may be an important marketing channel for retailers, it's emails with deals and discounts that really influence purchasing.
More than eight in 10 consumers said they have purchased something in the past six months because of an email they received from a brand, according to a survey of 470 American consumers conducted by ExactTarget, a Salesforce company.
The No. 1 factor that respondents said converted them to buy: whether the email included a promotion. Nearly three-fourths of respondents said this was what convinced them to make a purchase.
It's important to note, the survey asked about brand marketing, as opposed to retail marketing in particular, but we think the data is still a good indicator of how email can be used to drive retail sales.
Download the charts and data in Excel.
Interestingly, email is not an effective channel for reminding consumers about a particular item they might need. Only one in 10 consumers said they purchased an item because of an email reminder. Retailers are probably better off retargeting consumers with online ads — such as those that target people based on their Web browsing history.
The survey also found that email-driven purchases weren't necessarily completed online. Fifty-six percent of consumers who made a purchase because of an email they received, did so offline, compared to 64% who did so online on a PC. (Customers might have completed purchases both online and offline, which is why responses do not total to 100%.) This supports a Forrester study we analyzed recently which found that more than half of all U.S. retail sales this year will be influenced by the Web. Meanwhile, 46% of respondents said they'd converted on mobile after seeing a brand marketing email.
