New study reveals more than 80% of top retail marketers fail to maximise or exploit the potential of customer data collected online
New study reveals more than 80% of top retail marketers fail to maximise or exploit the potential of customer data collected online
Retail marketers are failing to exploit the potential customer data available to them, with more than 80% omitting to ask potential customers for simple yet invaluable insight, according to research from digital marketing automation and customer insight technology provider Emailvision.
The study found retailers were not gathering relevant information from their online customers such as gender, address or date of birth or using that data to create more meaningful, personalised interactions with their prospects and customers.
Top 100 e-retailers reviewed
Emailvision reviewed the websites and sign-up processes of the top 100 UK e-retailers, as defined by e-retail trade body IMRG (based on site traffic), to develop its first Retail Email Benchmark Study [PDF download].
The study found that over 80% of top retailers do not maximise their data capture potential from online sign-up forms. Although half ask for first name and surname (58% and 51% respectively), the majority (82%) failed to ask for gender, 86% didn't ask for an address and 81% didn't ask for a date of birth – all of which can be used to provide better targeted campaigns for customers.
In addition, although 95% of companies did have an email campaign generation programme in place, the vendor was keen to highlight that the remaining 5% of UK retailers were missing out entirely on a key revenue generator.
Standing out from the crowd
“Marketers need to be increasingly effective in what is an ever-challenging climate,” said Henry Smith, director of product marketing at Emailvision. “Retailers are seeing increased inbox competition with a multitude of offers and promotions falling into consumers’ inboxes every day. In order to better stand out from the crowd marketers need to unlock the potential of their data to build better customer relationships, based on trust and move from broadcast to dialogue marketing.”
Although not one company put through Emailvision’s benchmark study demonstrated best practice in all elements of the sign-up, M&S, New Look, Debenhams and Very outperformed their competitors, demonstrating the best online sign-up processes to maximise their customer intelligence potential.
Emailvision also earlier this month announced its acquisition of behavioural targeting and predictive analytics technology provider PredictiveIntent. The company said its technology would extend Emailvision’s software-as-a-service based customer analytics and email, mobile and social campaign management offering. The aim being to deliver content and promotions tuned to the behaviour and characteristics of their subscribers, fans, followers and website visitors.
