Bizsuccess

Monday, November 16, 2009

By: Susan Gunelius

A new study from Experian reports that marketing emails which include coupon offers in the subject lines are opened 24%-25% of the time while emails without coupon offers are opened just 16%-18% of the time.

The study also tells us that emails with coupon offers also generate more click-thru rates (approximately 4% for emails with coupons vs. 3% for emails without coupon offers).

Still not convinced that it’s worth it to include a coupon offer with your marketing emails?  Here are some more statistics from the Experian study as reported by eMarketer:

• 80% of online coupon mailings saw higher transaction-to-click rates and transaction rates than mailings without coupons.
• 78% of survey respondents that sent online mailings with coupons earned higher revenues per e-mail than those without coupons.
• 46% of U.S. household use online coupons.

Of course, including a coupon with your marketing emails means you’ll earn a bit less per transaction than you would without a coupon, but the click-through rate and increase in revenues per email should balance out or surpass those losses.

Think of it this way, if you send an email and no one is compelled to open it, then you lost your time and money with little or nothing in return.

However, if you send an email and 1 out of 4 recipients is motivated to open it based on the offered coupon, then you have another chance to try to convince them to click-thru using compelling copy in the body of the email.  That’s two chances (the email subject and the email body copy) that you get to motivate recipients, and two chances are always better than one!

Given the current economic downturn, the upcoming holiday season, and these statistics from Experian, it seems like sending marketing emails with online coupons (or in-store coupons if you don’t have an online store) is a perfect marketing opportunity!  Just make sure the coupon offer is one that appeals to the audience who will receive the email.  A coupon is useless if the right audience doesn’t get it.  Match your offer to your audience for maximum success!

To get started with your email marketing campaign, read about 5 Web Sites for Sending Small Business Marketing Emails.