调查报告：Email营销战略
（网上营销新观察 MarketingMan 编译 1999-11-28）
【摘要：】
通过对电子邮件营销的重要性、有效性、使用方式等方面进行调查，得出了一些非常有价值的结论：
·邮件列表仍然是最常用的手段；
·邮件列表的规模通常很小，70%的邮件列表少于1000人；
·邮件列表的主要目的是促销产品和服务、建立社区和沟通；
·新闻邮件在建立顾客关系方面非常重要；
本文对网上营销战略研究具有重要的参考价值。
附录：调查报告原文（MarketingMan 编辑）
Email Marketing Strategy
（1999-11-28）
1.Objectives
Email is not only a useful tool for communication on the Internet but also a very important marketing tool on the Internet.
· How do web marketers use emails to market their businesses on the Internet?
·How important is such email marketing to web businesses?
·How effective is email marketing in branding, building relationship and selling products or services?
· What are the effective email marketing strategies? How to develop your own email marketing strategies?
These are the questions currently with no answers. But web marketers are waiting for the answers. This "Email Marketing Strategy" survey was designed to answer these questions.
2.Survey process
As a research project in the web marketing research series: Exploring the Web Business Markets, LinkExchange Daily Digest and WebCMO conducted a survey about email marketing strategy between April and June of 1999. The survey announcement was posted on LinkExchange Daily Digest and WebCMO Journal of Web Marketing Research. There were total of 372 responses to the survey. After removing the duplicates and unqualified observations, there were 346 left in the analysis.
3. Major findings
The analysis has generated many interesting results:
a. Email mailing lists are popular among web businesses. More than 68% surveyed said their web businesses have at least one email mailing list;
b.Most mailing lists are small in numbers. About 70% web marketers said their email mailing lists have less than 1000 subscribers;
c. Generating revenue (7%) and branding (7%) are not the primary purposes of maintaining an email mailing list. The top three primary purposes are: promoting products/services (32%), building community (23%) and communication (21%);
d.89% of the email mailing lists have op-in policy while 84% have op-out policy;
e. Email newsletter is more effective in building customer relationship. With an 1 to 5 scale rating, (where 1 means "very ineffective" and 5 means "very effective" ), the average ratings are:
building customer relationship (3.8),
building a community (3.6),
promoting products/services (3.5),
branding (3.5)
and generating revenues (2.8);
f.About 57% of the responses said that email marketing is important or very important to their web businesses. However at the same time, about 64% thought they did not devote enough efforts to develop and execute their email marketing strategies;
g.To publish the email newsletters frequently, to communicate with the subscribers and to meet readers' needs are the key drivers to develop a successful email mailing list.
4. Detailed findings
In this survey design, we try to understand each aspect of developing an email mailing list for a web business.
· When to start to build an email mailing list
We first asked the survey respondents about the history of their web businesses and then about the history of their email mailing list.
.· How long has your business been on the Internet?
|
Less than 6 months |
22% |
| 6-12 months | 20% |
| 13-24 months | 18% |
| 25-36 months | 19% |
| More than 3 years | 20% |
.· How long have you been publishing your email newsletter(s)?
| Less than 6 months | 54% |
| 6-12 months | 21% |
| 13-24 months | 15% |
| 25-36 months | 5% |
| More than 3 years | 5% |
Although these two groups of numbers won't tell us exactly on average when a web business starts to build its email mailing list, we see the discrepancy between the two groups. Many web businesses started to build their email mailing lists long time after they started their web businesses. And many web businesses even haven't started to build their email mailing lists yet.
Is it not important to build an email mailing list? Or some web marketers haven't realized the importance of email marketing?
If you don't have your own email mailing list, it might be the time to start to build yours.
·Size of email mailing lists
The size of email mailing lists determines how effective your email marketing strategies are.
.· How many mailing lists does your web
business currently have?
| 0 | 32% |
| 1 | 34% |
| 2 | 14% |
| 3 | 7% |
| 4-5 | 6% |
| More than 5 | 8% |
.· How many subscribers does your email
newsletter have?
| Less than 500 | 55% |
| 500-1000 | 14% |
| 1001-2000 | 4% |
| 2001-5000 | 10% |
| 5001-10000 | 5% |
| 10001-20000 | 1% |
| 20001-50000 | 4% |
| More than 50000 | 6% |
Most email mailing lists are relatively small: about 69% are less than 1000 subscribers. Only about 10% of the email mailing lists have more 10,000 subscribers. The size of your email mailing list is also determined by what business you are in: if you are in a b-to-b business, you are less likely to get a big subscription number.
· Dynamics of email mailing lists
The information about when to start an email mailing list and the size of an mailing list discloses only the static status of an email mailing list. Here we introduce some number to describe the dynamic growth of a mailing list.
. ·On average how many new subscribers does your email newsletter get EACH WEEK?
| Less than 5 | 36% |
| 5-10 | 24% |
| 11-20 | 11% |
| 21-50 | 9% |
| 51-100 | 9% |
| More than 100 | 10% |
. ·On average, how many subscribers unsubscribe your email newsletter(s) during each publication?
|
Less than 5 |
77% |
| 5-10 | 14% |
| 11-20 | 4% |
| 21-50 | 3% |
| More than 50 | 3% |
.· On average what percentage of the email addresses in your mailing list(s) is obsolete or invalid during each publication?
|
Less than 0.1% |
40% |
| 0.1-0.5% | 22% |
| 0.5-1% | 10% |
| 1-2% | 14% |
| 2-5% | 10% |
| More than 5% | 5% |
These numbers give us a general picture of the growth of email mailing lists. Usually you won't expect a fast growth of your email mailing list. Only about 10% of the email mailing lists have more than 100 new subscribers each week. That is about 5,000 new subscribers each year. However, you have to fight frequently against the numbers of unsubscription and obsolete email addresses. Usually you lose more subscribers with obsolete email addresses than with unsubscriptions.
· Promotions
The general marketing rule applies to email mailing list: if you don't promote, you are less likely to grow. Let's see how web marketers promote their email mailing lists.
. How do you attract new subscribers for your email newsletter(s)?
| Promotion | 48% |
| Sweepstake | 9% |
| Op-in subscription | 73% |
| Op-out mailing list (unsolicited email) | 11% |
. If you promote, how do you promote your email newsletter(s)?
1. Contribution to online discussions/publications
32%
2. Reciprocal promotion with other email newsletters 17%
3. Advertising/sponsorship 23%
(Note: the above two questions allowed more than one answer.)
The most popular method to get new subscribers is online op-in subscription. While there are still about 11% web marketers using unsolicited email to grow their mailing lists. Will that be a dangerous game? We will see the answer later.
·Objectives and effectiveness
People create email mailing lists for different purposes. How effective is email mailing lists to fulfil these objectives?
. What is the primary purpose of your email newsletter(s)?
| Building community | 23% |
| Promoting products/services | 32% |
| Branding | 7% |
| Communication | 21% |
| Generating revenue | 7% |
| Publishing | 4% |
| Other | 7% |
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email newsletter(s) in building a community?
| Very effective | 29% |
| 28% | |
| 26% | |
| 9% | |
| Very ineffective | 9% |
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email newsletter(s) in promoting products/services?
| Very effective | 20% |
| 29% | |
| 35% | |
| 12% | |
| Very ineffective | 4% |
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email newsletter(s) in branding?
| Very effective | 23% |
| 29% | |
| 29% | |
| 13% | |
| Very ineffective | 7% |
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email newsletter(s) in building customer relationship?
| Very effective | 31% |
| 36% | |
| 23% | |
| 7% | |
| Very ineffective | 4% |
. Compare to other web marketing tools, how effective is your email newsletter(s) in generating revenues?
| Very effective | 13% |
| 17% | |
| 26% | |
| 28% | |
| Very ineffective | 17% |
If you want to make money directly from your email mailing list, it seems it is not the best idea. Instead, it is a time and money consuming process. The data show that an email mailing list is most effective in building communities and relationship with your customers.
5. Costs of email mailing lists
Maintaining an email mailing list is a time and money consuming task. Therefore before you create a list, you need to know what you are going to pay for it.
. How often do you publish your email newsletter(s)?
| Daily | 3% |
| Several times a week | 6% |
| Weekly | 24% |
| Biweekly | 12% |
| Monthly | 33% |
| Quarterly | 5% |
| Irregularly | 18% |
. On average how costly is it to maintain your email newsletter(s)?
|
$0 per month |
41% |
| $1-$10 per month | 14% |
| $11-$20 per month | 10% |
| $21-$50 per month | 13% |
| $51-$100 per month | 6% |
|
More than $100 per month |
17% |
. On average how many hours do you (or your staff) need to maintain and publish your email newsletter(s) each week?
| Less than 5 hours | 64% |
| 5-10 hours | 23% |
| 11-15 hours | 4% |
| 15-20 hours | 5% |
| More than 20 hours | 5% |
No pains, no gains. If you want to publish a good email newsletter, you need to invest a considerable amount of time in it. As well, if you want to maintain a large email mailing list efficiently, a good mailing list host service is worth of the money you pay.
As we will discuss later, to publish your email newsletter frequently and to maintain good communications with your readers are the key drivers to success. All these need your investment of time and money.
6. Importance and efforts
Is an email mailing list important to a web business? Have web marketers devoted enough efforts to this marketing tool?
. How important is your email newsletter in the development of your web business?
| Very important | 34% |
| 23% | |
| 26% | |
| 9% | |
| Very unimportant | 9% |
Compare to the importance of your email
newsletter(s) in your web business development, have you
devoted enough efforts to develop and execute your email
marketing strategy?
| More than enough | 4% |
| 14% | |
| 18% | |
| 30% | |
|
Far from enough |
34% |
The basic marketing decision rule is: to put your efforts on the most important factors that influence your web businesses. If you think it is important to maintain your own email mailing list, you have to devote enough efforts in it.
To use an email mailing list to build an online community and to build relationships with your customers will be more effective and less costly than other methods.
7. Policies
Here we analyze the different policies adopted by web marketers in their email mailing lists.
. Does your email newsletter have an op-in policy?
Yes 89%
No 11%
. Does your email newsletter have an op-out policy?
Yes 84%
No 16%
. Do you know the demographic information about your email newsletter(s) subscribers?
Yes 49%
No 51%
. Do you customize your email newsletter to meet individual subscribers' needs?
Yes 23%
No 77%
. Do you provide HTML version email newsletter(s)?
Yes 27%
No 73%
. If you provide HTML version email newsletter(s), what percentage of your subscribers subscribe HTML version email newsletter(s)?
| Less than 5% | 18% |
| 5-10% | 23% |
| 10-20% | 11% |
| 20-30% | 11% |
| 30-50% | 11% |
| More than 50% | 25% |
Most email mailing lists adopt the basic op-in and op-out rule. About half of the mailing lists claim that they know the demographic information about their subscribers. We did not dig further to find out how they obtain that information.
HTML version email mailing list is an interesting issue. About a quarter web marketers provide HTML version email newsletters. The subscription to HTML version newsletter is somewhat to our surprise: about 15% said their HTML version subscribers exceed 50%. But we shall be cautious with these numbers because we have a small sample (44 observations) on this question.
8. Commercial value of an email mailing list
Mailing list sponsorship is a resource of revenue. What is the commercial value of an email mailing list?
. Does your email newsletter accept sponsored promotion?
Yes 41%
No 59%
. On average, how much do you charge for sponsored information? (please convert the price to per thousand subscribers)
|
Less than US$5 |
18% |
| US$5-US$10 | 24% |
| US$11-US$15 | 7% |
| US$16-US$20 | 18% |
| More than US$20 | 34% |
. What is the average response rate when you promote your own products/services via your email newsletter(s)?
| Less than 0.5% | 18% |
| 0.5-1% | 16% |
| 1-2% | 19% |
| 2-5% | 17% |
| 5-10% | 14% |
| 10-20% | 10% |
|
More than 20% |
6% |
. What is the average response rate to your email newsletter sponsors' promotion?
| Less than 0.5% | 19% |
| 0.5-1% | 18% |
| 1-2% | 23% |
| 2-5% | 23% |
| 5-10% | 12% |
| 10-20% | 5% |
|
More than 20% |
0% |
. How difficult is it to find sponsors for your email newsletter?
| Very difficult | 26% |
| 29% | |
| 21% | |
| 14% | |
| Very easy | 11% |
he value of an email mailing list is from its audience. It is a very targeted audience. It is interesting to see that in general it is more effective to carry your own information than carry others.
9. Unsolicited emails
Unsolicited emails are attractive because it costs much less. But at the same time people are scared by it because it may bring unexpected consequences to a web business. Please read the numbers below with caution. The statistics is based on a relatively smaller sample size (about 56 observations).
. Have you used unsolicited emails to promote your products/services?
Yes 24%
No 76%
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, what is the positive response rate of such unsolicited email promotion?
| Less than 0.5% | 29% |
| 0.5-1% | 19% |
| 1-2% | 9% |
| 2-5% | 22% |
| 5-10% | 10% |
|
More than 10 |
12% |
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, what is the "flamed" response rate of such unsolicited email promotion?
| Less than 0.5% | 48% |
| 0.5-1% | 15% |
| 1-2% | 19% |
| 2-5% | 9% |
| 5-10% | 6% |
|
More than 10 |
4% |
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, have you ever suffered any loss by sending unsolicited emails?
Yes 22%
No 78%
. If you have used unsolicited email promotion, do you recommend such unsolicited email promotion to other web marketers?
Yes 28%
No 72%
10. Key drivers to success
To develop an effective strategy, we need to understand what the key drivers are to the success of an email mailing list. Using the Key Driver Analysis technique, we have identified the relative importance of the factors that may influence the success of an email mailing list. All together, these factors contribute about 50% to the success of an email mailing list.
1. The contents in my email newsletter are unique. 2%
2. I honestly follow the op-in and op-out policies. 1%
3. My email newsletter meets readers' needs. 18%
4. I spend a lot of time in editing my email newsletter. 5%
5. My email newsletter is published frequently. 34%
6. I keep promoting my email newsletter. 11%
7. I have good communications with my email newsletter subscribers. 28%
8. My email newsletter has enough space for readers to discuss relevant issues. 2%
The result from Key Driver Analysis shows that to publish frequently, to communicate with the readers and to meet their needs are the key to success.
（ 资料来源：http://www.webcmo.com)
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