|
If moms are your target market, you can forget about trying to buy their loyalty with cutesy graphics or long-winded offers. Today's email-savvy moms respond to price discounts and free shipping in email messages from a handful of trusted senders.
A landmark study by Lucid Marketing and EmailLabs shows definitively that moms who shop online, especially those with young children, are very particular about their email subscriptions -- where and how they sign up for mailing lists, how often they want to receive mailings, what they want to see in their emails and how they manage their email communications.
"Effective Tactics for Email Marketing to Moms" surveyed 695 moms, mainly those with children under age 10, who had signed up for offers on a major retailer's Web site. About half hold paying jobs in addition to their home responsibilities, including full-time and part-time jobs outside the home, or work at home for an employer or their own business.
Besides finding marked preferences in email communications, the study also revealed mothers differ in attitudes according to whether they worked outside the home or had no outside employment and whether they were parents of one child or of multiple children.
With 75 million moms in the United States influencing 80 percent of consumer household purchasing decisions, and 71 percent saying that email messages influence their buying decisions, the survey results underscore how critical it is for retailers to understand how to deliver value through the email marketing channel.
Key findings in this eye-opening study:
1. Mothers are active, informed email users who allow email marketing to influence their online shopping decisions.
Moms in general purchased about 14 products apiece online over the last year. Moms with jobs or one child bought more on average -- 17 for the working mom and 16 for the one-child mom -- than at-home moms (11 products) or moms with at least two children (12).
Unwanted email presents "somewhat of a challenge" for 40% of email users, the largest bloc of respondents. However, a large group proactively manages their email flow.
Eight of 10 respondents delete unwanted email and move wanted messages to folders, while 57.6% have installed their own anti-spam software, and 45% use email rules. Only 5% either do nothing or let someone else manage their email for them.
Significant groups of respondents also preferred to be contacted weekly (35.3%), monthly (32.9%) or every two weeks (22.6%). Only 3.6% wanted daily emails.
2. Moms limit the field to just a few key players.
The largest bloc of respondents -- 63% -- gets newsletters and/or special offers from only 1 to 5 senders. Another 25% have opted in to 6 to 10 mailing lists.
Moms also are choosy about where and how they sign up for news or promotional offers. Three to 4 of every 10 respondents decline to sign up for offers the first time they visit a Web site, while just over half say their decisions to sign up, whether by checking an opt-in box or leaving the checkmark in a prechecked box, are based on the site's merits.
In other words, it's much harder to get into a mom's circle of trusted email relationships than with users in general, who might maintain 16 to 20 email relationships.
3. Your email must pass two tests in order for a busy mom to decide to open it: the "from" line and the subject line.
According to 56.4% of mom respondents, they use both identifiers -- who sent the email and what its subject is -- to decide whether to open an email. If your email shows up without your company name or brand clearly marked in the "from" line, 4 of 10 of moms won't even open it.
That's another reason to make sure your email prominently displays your company name or brand each and every time. Don't make her guess!
4. Discounts and free shipping are the most attractive subject lines for many moms.
A decisive 72.5% said a subject line promising discounted prices is the most attractive for them, while 60.1% cited free shipping, followed by a specific product mention (37.4%), a specific brand (26.9%) and a time-based offer 21.4%).
Personalization ranked way down on the list -- 4.3% look for their name, and 3.3% look for a family member's name.
5. List product prices and show photos if you want to get Mom to click through to your Web site.
As we said, forget the soft sell. Got a product to promote? Show the discounted price (not just the percentage discount) and show the photo, said more than 60% of respondents.
"Always show how much savings you get," one mom said. "Most busy mothers don’t have time to sit and figure it out. ...Get to the point quickly."
6. Moms' online behavior differs according to their life situation.
Don't make the mistake of treating all moms alike. For example, working moms and those with one child are more wary about signing up for your newsletters or offers.
At-home moms are more likely than moms with full-time jobs to have just one email address and to share an address with another person. (See the Quick Tip in this issue to see what problem this poses to your email-marketing program.) And, moms with more than one child are more likely to sign up for email newsletters that tell them what's on sale.
7. Some of you aren't doing your jobs very well out there.
You captured their email addresses but not necessarily their hearts. Over half of respondents downplayed the value of their email subscriptions: 54.1% scored them 5 or lower on a 10-point scale, where 1 was "no value" and 10 was "extremely valuable."
The study was conducted in May, with results reported at Internet Retailer's convention June 7-8 in Chicago. It was a joint project of Lucid Marketing, a marketing and media services company specializing in marketing to mothers, and EmailLabs.
Want more of the details? Download a copy of the report -
Effective Tactics for Email Marketing to Moms.
|
