The holiday Season is winding down, and you probably have some fatigue. You also may have noticed that your email inboxes over the last few weeks filled with messages from online stores claiming to offer everything from coupons for 50 percent off, to free overnight shipping.
In fact, the number of emails sent by Remarkety store owners to their own customers in 2014 rose an almost whopping 80 percent during this time period compared to the rest of the year. It seems like Cyber Monday has extended itself to an entire month.
Remarkety helps eCommerce businesses design and send behavior based emails to their customers. We looked at how our users sent email in 2014 to their customers and discovered the number of emails sent by month rises sharply beginning in September.
Here are the trends:
- From September to October the average number of emails sent rose 30 percent
- An additional 15 percent on top of that are sent from October to November
- The biggest jump, from November to December sees a rise of around 35 percent (That’s 80 percent in total since we began tracking in September)
In the last month alone, I noticed my own personal email inbox receiving on average of upwards of ten to 15 emails a day offering deals, bargains, and sales from my favorite online stores. This number was much larger than any other year I could recall. From “Black Friday” on, every time I refreshed my email it seemed like two or three more messages were there tempting me to buy something, with a deal I probably could not pass up. I mean, “Buy one, Get one free, and an additional 30 percent off” (Only if you act in the next 24 hours) – how can anyone refuse that? Add some “Free Next Day Shipping”, and it’s basically a done deal – I’m making that purchase and I’m not thinking twice.
This online coupon above, from New York and Company, is one example of an email I received from this company in the past few weeks. The email titled “Holiday Madness Continues! Act Now!” announced the entire store was at least 50 percent off, and that there was additional bonus I could receive if I acted that day only by entering a special code.
Old Navy, and The Gap also sent an email with a “Countdown to Christmas” offering another enticing deal. For every 25 dollars you spend, you received a 20 dollar gift for a future purchase, and an additional 10 dollars off your entire order. They gave you a 5 day window to shop, and sent an email or 2 every day reminding you of the sale every day until it ended. They also offered free 2-day shipping.
I took advantage of both of these offers. I thought that the sales were big enough, and the additional bonus (whether it was extra percent off, or free giftcards) was worthwhile. The free 2-day shipping ultimately sealed the deal. If I could have the package in a short amount of time, for a small amount, I was shopping at that store.
Remarkety store owners agreed that sales coupons that were combined with a either free shipping or additional bonus code had the best purchase rate in all of their campaigns run – especially if a time limit was imposed. Most of their customers acted upon these types of deals more than any other.
The rest of the year, however, these deals seem few and far between. I’d get an occasional email from a store I recently made a purchase at advertising an upcoming sale, or offering me a small coupon for being a loyal customer. Nothing too consistent, and stores rarely put a shortened time limit on of any it.
Considering that this year’s Black Friday brought in a record number of sales for ecommerce stores – topping over 2 billion dollars (wow!), it’s not that surprising that email campaigns are playing a huge part in the shopping process. While a large quantity of campaigns are important during the holiday season, quality is more important in the “off-season.” Stores owners should be taking advantage of all of this shopping by tracking the holiday behavior of their shoppers to see what people are doing between October and December. They can then begin analyzing that data to enhance their customized email campaigns throughout the rest of the year.
Remarkety is a great tool for not only tracking these trends, but also creating the targeted email campaigns to accompany them. Creating campaigns that include personalized coupon codes, or spotting a trend for a specific group of shoppers and creating a campaign based on that trend are great ways to re-engage shoppers during non-holiday months. Shoppers are always on the look-out for a great deal.
Was it the coupons, was it free shipping and returns? Finding that information will help keep sales consistent, even when it isn’t the holidays.
For additional articles:
–Four automated email campaigns you should be running
–3 marketing strategies to increase purchase frequency
–The difference between email marketing and email Remarketing
