调查报告：Email 营销战略
通过对电子邮件营销的重要性、有效性、使用方式等方面进行调
查，得出了一些非常有价值的结论：
·邮件列表仍然是最常用的手段；
·邮件列表的规模通常很小，70%的邮件列表少于 1000 人；
·邮件列表的主要目的是促销产品和服务、建立社区和沟通；
·新闻邮件在建立顾客关系方面非常重要；
本文对网上营销战略研究具有重要的参考价值。
附录：调查报告原文（MarketingMan 编辑）
Email Marketing Strategy
（1999-11-28）
Email is not only a useful tool for communication on the Internet but
also a very important marketing tool on the Internet.
· How do web marketers use emails to market their businesses on the
Internet?
·How important is such email marketing to web businesses?
·How effective is email marketing in branding, building relationship
and selling products or services?
· What are the effective email marketing strategies? How to develop
your own email marketing strategies?
These are the questions currently with no answers. But web
marketers are waiting for the answers. This "Email Marketing
Strategy" survey was designed to answer these questions.
process
As a research project in the web marketing research series:
Exploring the Web Business Markets, LinkExchange Daily Digest
and WebCMO conducted a survey about email marketing strategy
between April and June of 1999. The survey announcement was
posted on LinkExchange Daily Digest and WebCMO Journal of
Web Marketing Research. There were total of 372 responses to the
survey. After removing the duplicates and unqualified observations,
there were 346 left in the analysis.
3. Major findings
The analysis has generated many interesting results:
a. Email mailing lists are popular among web businesses. More than
68% surveyed said their web businesses have at least one email
mailing list;
mailing lists are small in numbers. About 70% web
marketers said their email mailing lists have less than 1000
subscribers;
c. Generating revenue (7%) and branding (7%) are not the primary
purposes of maintaining an email mailing list. The top three primary
purposes are: promoting products/services (32%), building
community (23%) and communication (21%);
% of the email mailing lists have op-in policy while 84% have
op-out policy;
e. Email newsletter is more effective in building customer
relationship. With an 1 to 5 scale rating, (where 1 means "very
ineffective" and 5 means "very effective" ), the average ratings are:
building customer relationship (),
building a community (),
promoting products/services (),
branding ()
and generating revenues ();
57% of the responses said that email marketing is important
or very important to their web businesses. However at the same time,
about 64% thought they did not devote enough efforts to develop
and execute their email marketing strategies;
publish the email newsletters frequently, to communicate with
the subscribers and to meet readers' needs are the key drivers to
develop a successful email mailing list.
4. Detailed findings
In this survey design, we try to understand each aspect of developing
an email mailing list for a web business.
· When to start to build an email mailing list
We first asked the survey respondents about the history of their web
businesses and then about the history of their email mailing list.
.· How long has your business been on the Internet?
Less than 6 months
22%
6-12 months
20%
13-24 months
18%
25-36 months
19%
More than 3 years
20%
.· How long have you been publishing your email newsletter(s)?
Less than 6 months
54%
6-12 months
21%
13-24 months
15%
25-36 months
5%
More than 3 years
5%
Although these two groups of numbers won't tell us exactly on
average when a web business starts to build its email mailing list, we
see the discrepancy between the two groups. Many web businesses
started to build their email mailing lists long time after they started
their web businesses. And many web businesses even haven't started
to build their email mailing lists yet.
Is it not important to build an email mailing list? Or some web
marketers haven't realized the importance of email marketing?
If you don't have your own email mailing list, it might be the time to
start to build yours.
·Size of email mailing lists
The size of email mailing lists determines how effective your email
marketing strategies are.
.· How many mailing lists does your web business currently have?
0
32%
1
34%
2
14%
3
7%
4-5
6%
More than 5
8%
.· How many subscribers does your email newsletter have?
Less than 500
55%
500-1000
14%
1001-2000
4%
2001-5000
10%
5001-10000
5%
10001-20000
1%
20001-50000
4%
More than 50000
6%
Most email mailing lists are relatively small: about 69% are less than
1000 subscribers. Only about 10% of the email mailing lists have
more 10,000 subscribers. The size of your email mailing list is also
determined by what business you are in: if you are in a b-to-b
business, you are less likely to get a big subscription number.
· Dynamics of email mailing lists
The information about when to start an email mailing list and the
size of an mailing list discloses only the static status of an email
mailing list. Here we introduce some number to describe the
dynamic growth of a mailing list.
. ·On average how many new subscribers does your email newsletter
get EACH WEEK?
Less than 5
36%
5-10
24%
11-20
11%
21-50
9%
51-100
9%
More than 100
10%
. ·On average, how many subscribers unsubscribe your email
newsletter(s) during each publication?
Less than 5
77%
5-10
14%
11-20
4%
21-50
3%
More than 50
3%
.· On average what percentage of the email addresses in your mailing
list(s) is obsolete or invalid during each publication?
Less than %
40%
%
22%
-1%
10%
1-2%
14%
2-5%
10%
More than 5%
5%
These numbers give us a general picture of the growth of email
mailing lists. Usually you won't expect a fast growth of your email
mailing list. Only about 10% of the email mailing lists have more
than 100 new subscribers each week. That is about 5,000 new
subscribers each year. However, you have to fight frequently against
the numbers of unsubscription and obsolete email addresses. Usually
you lose more subscribers with obsolete email addresses than with
unsubscriptions.
· Promotions
The general marketing rule applies to email mailing list: if you don't
promote, you are less likely to grow. Let's see how web marketers
promote their email mailing lists.
. How do you attract new subscribers for your email newsletter(s)?
Promotion
48%
Sweepstake
9%
Op-in subscription
73%
Op-out mailing list (unsolicited email)
11%
. If you promote, how do you promote your email newsletter(s)?
1. Contribution to online discussions/publications 32%
2. Reciprocal promotion with other email newsletters 17%
3. Advertising/sponsorship 23%
(Note: the above two questions allowed more than one answer.)
The most popular method to get new subscribers is online op-in
subscription. While there are still about 11% web marketers using
unsolicited email to grow their mailing lists. Will that be a
dangerous game? We will see the answer later.
·Objectives and effectiveness
People create email mailing lists for different purposes. How
effective is email mailing lists to fulfil these objectives?
. What is the primary purpose of your email newsletter(s)?
Building community
23%
Promoting products/services
32%
Branding
7%
Communication
21%
Generating revenue
7%
Publishing
4%
Other
7%
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email
newsletter(s) in building a community?
Very effective
29%
28%
26%
9%
Very ineffective
9%
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email
newsletter(s) in promoting products/services?
Very effective
20%
29%
35%
12%
Very ineffective
4%
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email
newsletter(s) in branding?
Very effective
23%
29%
29%
13%
Very ineffective
7%
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email
newsletter(s) in building customer relationship?
Very effective
31%
36%
23%
7%
Very ineffective
4%
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email
newsletter(s) in generating revenues?
Very effective
13%
17%
26%
28%
Very ineffective
17%
If you want to make money directly from your email mailing list, it
seems it is not the best idea. Instead, it is a time and money
consuming process. The data show that an email mailing list is most
effective in building communities and relationship with your
customers.
5. Costs of email mailing lists
Maintaining an email mailing list is a time and money consuming
task. Therefore before you create a list, you need to know what you
are going to pay for it.
. How often do you publish your email newsletter(s)?
Daily
3%
Several times a week
6%
Weekly
24%
Biweekly
12%
Monthly
33%
Quarterly
5%
Irregularly
18%
. On average how costly is it to maintain your email newsletter(s)?
$0 per month
41%
$1-$10 per month
14%
$11-$20 per month
10%
$21-$50 per month
13%
$51-$100 per month
6%
More than $100 per month
17%
. On average how many hours do you (or your staff) need to
maintain and publish your email newsletter(s) each week?
Less than 5 hours
64%
5-10 hours
23%
11-15 hours
4%
15-20 hours
5%
More than 20 hours
5%
No pains, no gains. If you want to publish a good email newsletter,
you need to invest a considerable amount of time in it. As well, if
you want to maintain a large email mailing list efficiently, a good
mailing list host service is worth of the money you pay.
As we will discuss later, to publish your email newsletter frequently
and to maintain good communications with your readers are the key
drivers to success. All these need your investment of time and
money.
6. Importance and efforts
Is an email mailing list important to a web business? Have web
marketers devoted enough efforts to this marketing tool?
. How important is your email newsletter in the development of your
web business?
Very important
34%
23%
26%
9%
Very unimportant
9%
Compare to the importance of your email newsletter(s) in your web
business development, have you devoted enough efforts to develop
and execute your email marketing strategy?
More than enough
4%
14%
18%
30%
Far from enough
34%
The basic marketing decision rule is: to put your efforts on the most
important factors that influence your web businesses. If you think it
is important to maintain your own email mailing list, you have to
devote enough efforts in it.
To use an email mailing list to build an online community and to
build relationships with your customers will be more effective and
less costly than other methods.
7. Policies
Here we analyze the different policies adopted by web marketers in
their email mailing lists.
. Does your email newsletter have an op-in policy?
Yes 89%
No 11%
. Does your email newsletter have an op-out policy?
Yes 84%
No 16%
. Do you know the demographic information about your email
newsletter(s) subscribers?
Yes 49%
No 51%
. Do you customize your email newsletter to meet individual
subscribers' needs?
Yes 23%
No 77%
. Do you provide HTML version email newsletter(s)?
Yes 27%
No 73%
. If you provide HTML version email newsletter(s), what percentage
of your subscribers subscribe HTML version email newsletter(s)?
Less than 5%
18%
5-10%
23%
10-20%
11%
20-30%
11%
30-50%
11%
More than 50%
25%
Most email mailing lists adopt the basic op-in and op-out rule. About
half of the mailing lists claim that they know the demographic
information about their subscribers. We did not dig further to find
out how they obtain that information.
HTML version email mailing list is an interesting issue. About a
quarter web marketers provide HTML version email newsletters.
The subscription to HTML version newsletter is somewhat to our
surprise: about 15% said their HTML version subscribers exceed
50%. But we shall be cautious with these numbers because we have
a small sample (44 observations) on this question.
8. Commercial value of an email mailing list
Mailing list sponsorship is a resource of revenue. What is the
commercial value of an email mailing list?
. Does your email newsletter accept sponsored promotion?
Yes 41%
No 59%
. On average, how much do you charge for sponsored information?
(please convert the price to per thousand subscribers)
Less than US$5
18%
US$5-US$10
24%
US$11-US$15
7%
US$16-US$20
18%
More than US$20
34%
. What is the average response rate when you promote your own
products/services via your email newsletter(s)?
Less than %
18%
-1%
16%
1-2%
19%
2-5%
17%
5-10%
14%
10-20%
10%
More than 20%
6%
. What is the average response rate to your email newsletter
sponsors' promotion?
Less than %
19%
-1%
18%
1-2%
23%
2-5%
23%
5-10%
12%
10-20%
5%
More than 20%
0%
. How difficult is it to find sponsors for your email newsletter?
Very difficult
26%
29%
21%
14%
Very easy
11%
he value of an email mailing list is from its audience. It is a very
targeted audience. It is interesting to see that in general it is more
effective to carry your own information than carry others.
9. Unsolicited emails
Unsolicited emails are attractive because it costs much less. But at
the same time people are scared by it because it may bring
unexpected consequences to a web business. Please read the
numbers below with caution. The statistics is based on a relatively
smaller sample size (about 56 observations).
. Have you used unsolicited emails to promote your
products/services?
Yes 24%
No 76%
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, what is the positive
response rate of such unsolicited email promotion?
Less than %
29%
-1%
19%
1-2%
9%
2-5%
22%
5-10%
10%
More than 10
12%
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, what is the "flamed"
response rate of such unsolicited email promotion?
Less than %
48%
-1%
15%
1-2%
19%
2-5%
9%
5-10%
6%
More than 10
4%
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, have you ever
suffered any loss by sending unsolicited emails?
Yes 22%
No 78%
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, do you recommend
such unsolicited email promotion to other web marketers?
Yes 28%
No 72%
10. Key drivers to success
To develop an effective strategy, we need to understand what the
key drivers are to the success of an email mailing list. Using the Key
Driver Analysis technique, we have identified the relative
importance of the factors that may influence the success of an email
mailing list. All together, these factors contribute about 50% to the
success of an email mailing list.
1. The contents in my email newsletter are unique. 2%
2. I honestly follow the op-in and op-out policies. 1%
3. My email newsletter meets readers' needs. 18%
4. I spend a lot of time in editing my email newsletter. 5%
5. My email newsletter is published frequently. 34%
6. I keep promoting my email newsletter. 11%
7. I have good communications with my email newsletter
subscribers. 28%
8. My email newsletter has enough space for readers to discuss
relevant issues. 2%
The result from Key Driver Analysis shows that to publish
frequently, to communicate with the readers and to meet their needs
are the key to success.
2022 年 5 月 20 日星期五 20:49:43
:4920:49: 时 49 分 8 时 49 分 43
秒 May. 20, 2220 May 20228:49:43 PM20:49:43
