The ''I Love E-mail'' Must reads..

Client: Moosejaw 
Mountaineering


Vendor: Silverpop


Objective: Retain email subscribers while creating a subscription preference center.


Outdoor goods retailer Moosejaw Mountaineering faced the predicament of keeping consumers informed about promotions and events via email while not bombarding them to the point that they would unsubscribe. "I wouldn't say our unsubscribe rates are high, but any unsubscribe is a loss that I'd rather keep as customers," says Eoin Comerford, VP of marketing at the company.


STRATEGY: Moosejaw emails subscribers twice a week — Mondays and Thursdays. The Monday email promotes a product, discount or sale, while the Thursday email serves as a reminder of the earlier email or functions as a brand message. Subscribers automatically receive both emails. 


However, Loren McDonald, VP of industry relations at email service provider Silverpop, calls high-frequency email the "No. 1 reason" consumers unsubscribe from retailers' mailing lists. "It's become a real issue in the retail industry," he says. "Retailers have discovered how successful email is — and oftentimes then, management says to just send more."


In April, Moosejaw added Silverpop's Snooze tool to its unsubscribe landing page, letting consumers temporarily halt the delivery of email messages while remaining opted-in. The tool serves as a safety for consumers turned off by the company's twice-weekly emails but unable to manage their preferences. Comerford says Moosejaw will launch an email subscriber preference center by the fourth quarter of this year so consumers can customize their preferences. He calls the Snooze tool "a step in a direction" for keeping customers from unsubscribing. "Right now we don't have a preference center where you can choose your frequency, but that would be the next step to recapture those folks," says Comerford.


McDonald says Silverpop is working to enable marketers and consumers to customize the timeframe of the email hiatus, but Comerford says the 90-day default setting suits Moosejaw's needs.


"I could see if somebody wants to snooze for a month, if they're buried right now or going away on vacation and don't want to clear up their mailbox with a bunch of Moosejaw emails, but three months, to me, is long enough," he says. "If somebody isn't interested in hearing from me for three months and they tell me they're not going to be interested for a year, I'm not sure that's going to gain me a whole lot."


RESULTS: Since launching the program, 3% of Moosejaw customers who click to unsubscribe from its email list instead opt to put their subscriptions on hiatus. Comerford says the Snooze rate has grown from the 2% to 2.5% range at launch, and adds he expects the number may reach 10% "as the feature gets more recognition."

From the August 01, 2011 Issue of Direct Marketing News

With this year's email click and open rates outperforming 2010's numbers by 23% and 11%, respectively, marketers should prepare for a stronger holiday season than last year, said Chad White, research director at email service provider Responsys. Brands should begin to plan their holiday email campaigns now, given those expectations, he said.

“The smart marketers, frankly, have already started planning for the holidays,” White said.

Planning should involve pre-holiday messaging to streamline end-of-the-year campaigns, such as asking subscribers to update their email preferences and sending surveys to gauge interest in segmented holiday efforts, White said. Marketers can also use pre-holiday emails to sign consumers up for holiday print catalogs, he added.

“Because of print prices and postage being what they are, it's a more tactical advantage in terms of cost savings,” he said.

August and September are the key months for email marketers to conduct their pre-holiday preparations and clean up email programs, because consumers may not unsubscribe in November after being inundated with a higher volume of marketing emails, White said.

“You get into ‘last straw' territory in November,” he said, noting that the consumer would likely have considered unsubscribing prior to a holiday campaign.

The average retailer began its holiday email campaign on October 17 of last year, according to Responsys' “Retail Guide to the Holiday Season 2011” report. The average start date was October 19 in 2009 and October 28 two years prior.

“Retailers are trying to move forward, trying to be first,” said White. “Last year, we saw that Black Friday deals and offers were made available much earlier in November than in past years.”

The volume of emails sent between November 1 and the Friday after Thanksgiving that mentioned “Black Friday” increased 68% year-over-year, according to the report.

The study was based on the responses of 104 top retailers.