E-Mail Marketing Still Works

E-Mail marketing still works...but consumer standards of relevance are high. First, the good news: permission-based e-mail is great at getting consumers to buy. Half of US adult e-mail users surveyed in April 2008 for Merkle's "View from the Inbox" study, conducted with Harris Interactive, said they had made an online purchase in the previous year as a result of permission-based marketing. In addition, e-mail was second only to customer reviews on Web sites for influencing online purchases...and e-mail was roughly equal to search results in terms of influencing online purchases. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Sometimes a little reinforcement is a good thing. This new Harris Interactive study is really no surprise. In fact, we've written about e-mail's adaptability and our addition to it before. Despite the proliferation of social networking, IM and texting, e-mail remains an integral part of our daily communication routine and doesn't appear to be a dying breed. In fact, feeds via e-mail (and not direct to reader) happens to be how the majority of you subscribe to this blog! But consumers expect some respect from marketers. Consider: Some noteworthy insights from the study:

• About one-third of respondents in the study said they "had stopped doing business with at least one company" as a result of poor e-mail marketing practices

• 53% of e-mail users said that they were only willing to get marketing or promotional messages e-mails if the offers were relevant to them

Another noteworthy story from this survey is the fact that online ads (atleast sales related ones) perform poorly —almost universally—across all age groups. It will certainly be interesting to see how these trends transform over time as the "MySpace Generation" starts to mature.

23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies

Eye-tracking studies are hot in the web design world, but it can be hard to figure out how to translate the results of these studies into real design implementations. These are a few tips from eye-tracking studies that you can use to improve the design of your webpage. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A great post from the blog virtualhosting.com containing several tips and observations from a variety of eye-tracking studies. Of course, every site is unique, so make sure to conduct your own website research rather than relying exclusively on others. But, it never hurts to read about what others have found out...

Some of my favorite tips (click 'Full Story' to read them all):

1. Text attracts attention before graphics.

4. Readers ignore banners.

7. Type size influences viewing behavior.

10. Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones.

15. Bigger images get more attention.

16. Clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixation.

18. Users spend a lot of time looking at buttons and menus.

19. Lists hold reader attention longer (like this one, see it works!).

20. Large blocks of text are avoided.

22. White space is good.

How Not To Run An In-Store Kiosk

For those of you new to this issue, Best Buy was caught using a duplicate website to fool customers who tried to compare internet prices with in-store prices.

Customers who asked why the price was higher in the store were often told that "the sale must have ended" in the time it took them to drive to the store. They were then told to "check the website" to see for themselves, then were shown an identical-looking website that displayed different "in-store" prices. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A bit of a dated story, but still relevant, especially with this great post from the Consumerist.com (if you did not read the whole story, you should). I would assume that most normal people would read this story and react with a standard 'what were they thinking?' question. After all this is a major corporation, whose employees (at least some of them) thought, at some point in time, that this scheme was a good idea. It certainly proves that even the largest companies do not always think about the long-term effects of a business decision...let alone how the customers will actually react.

So how does this apply to the interactive / travel side of things...simple, tell your consumers the truth. Be open and honest with them. If they want to unsubscribe from your email list, then let them. If the don't want a brochure about fishing in your state, town, county, then don't trick them into ordering one. Focus on the consumers who do show an interest in your location, they are already interested and they want to know more. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?