Nick Fuller, integrated email and multichannel marketing expert, responds to analyst Forrester’s “Email Affinity Report,” which suggests email is declining in its effectiveness as a marketing medium

Nick Fuller, integrated email and multichannel marketing expert, responds to analyst Forrester’s “Email Affinity Report,” which suggests email is declining in its effectiveness as a marketing medium

A recent report on consumer attitudes to email by Forrester Research has showed a trend across Europe for declining consumer attention and an increasing likelihood to delete.

Although the reasons often vary by country (particularly around attitudes to privacy), the overall picture is pretty consistent and amply reflects the need for an improvement in relevance as marketers seek to adapt this most established of digital channels to a changing landscape, according to Nick Fuller, director of strategy and analytics at integrated email and multichannel marketing solutions provider e-Dialog International. He contends that few sectors face a more taxing challenge in delivering this relevance than retail.

The importance of knowing your customer

“For a start, a retailer’s focus on relevance has to be multi-faceted; it’s not just about what they offer but what the user is interested in at that point and how best to deliver the content to them,” said Fuller. Some of the savviest retailers are creating detailed user preference centres that drive communications. A great example of this is Net-a-Porter. The online retailer allows users to define – right down to by brand and item – the specific content that they receive in email communications.

“Ensuring that such great content is best represented though also requires focus on the devices on which it is consumed; emails are increasingly being read on mobile devices so that best of breed retailers design and deploy with this very much in mind – delivering quality of user experience, as well as an understanding of how the calls to action have to be adaptable for the medium.”

Pureplay online brands have been among the first adopters of intelligent commerce technology, new digital marketing techniques, dynamic site design and a focus on usability, he said. “However, in recent years they have faced new challenges in adapting to developing channels as consumers have chosen to browse and transact in different ways,” he continued. “Creating that site visit and browsing event is one of the fiercest of battlegrounds in which traditional means of site discovery, such as search engine management (SEM) and search engine optimisation (SEO), are now just a fraction of all of the options open to marketers.”

Hitting the right customer targets, first time

Fuller added: “A hugely important development in marketing, which is being tested by many major retailers right now is retargeting. This means ensuring that the ads seen when browsing sites are most relevant to our recent buying intentions. Rightly, with the spectre of recent European legislation around cookie use looming large on the horizon, the industry is currently redoubling its efforts in consumer education of cookie use. A very transparent approach is needed to reassure consumers of the anonymised nature of the supporting technology, which allows retailers to target their customers with more relevant content.”

Social, of course, is also high on the list of important areas, according to Fuller. He cited eDigital Research carried out a study last month, which showed an increasing number of retailers offering exclusive content to Facebook users who ‘like’ their brand and gain their attention. Of course the challenge often preoccupying brands right now is how to turn that social ‘noise’ into transactions and here some retailers are blazing a trail of enabling transactions within Facebook rather than creating interest and then driving users to a site; the future of Facebook Mall and technologies that embed inventory and checkout functions will be keenly watched by many. However, Facebook’s tight grip on these solutions might limit its immediate widespread effectiveness.”

When it comes to the purchase itself, he said mobile technology in particular continued to offer both an opportunity and a threat. “Our customers are increasingly starting to run SMS-based discount coupon programmes to drive physical footfall into retailer locations,” he added.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about relevance – retailers need to be making it easier for consumers to find what they want and buy it there and then.”