The Email Wars

Eighty five percent of companies failed to personalize the first e-mail message sent to new subscribers, Return Path discovered with its new Return Path Subscriber Experiences study. This lack of customization, combined with other missed opportunities, leaves marketers unable to leverage the true power of email marketing.

Return Path, the leading e-mail performance management company, conducted the study by subscribing and studying the e-mail programs of 61 companies from the retail, consumer goods, travel, and media/entertainment industries.

The problem is not lack of data. Marketers are collecting information at sign-up that could be used to personalize their initial and subsequent e-mails. In fact, seventy percent of the companies studied collected additional information beyond a subscribers’ e-mail at sign up. Yet, 75% of the companies that collected that additional information did not use it to personalize their e-mails.

http://www.returnpath.net/blog/2008/06/research-study-creating-great.php

Return Path has recorded a webcast with Bonnie Malone Fry reviewing the study findings. Download that webcast here: http://www.returnpath.net/landing/subscribers. Downloading the webcast will also trigger an email message with a link to the study.