February 9, 2012
Cable news networks rank as the top source of political campaign information among Americans, with 36% saying they regularly get their political campaign news from this source, ahead of local TV news (32%), network news (26%), the internet (25%), and the local paper (20%), according to [pdf] a survey released in February 2012 by the Pew Research Center. Read More »
February 8, 2012
Although roughly 3 in 4 SMBs use email marketing tactics such as organic list growth and web-based sign-up forms to generate leads, just 41% include a sign-up form on their Facebook fan pages, according to a survey released in February 2012 by GetResponse. And while a majority optimize their newsletters with clear, recognizable, branded from field names and addresses, less than half include social sharing icons in their newsletters.
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February 7, 2012
Viewers enjoy online videos they discover from a recommendation more than ones they discover through browsing, according to a white paper released in February 2012 by Unruly Media. Examining 4 social video campaigns from leading brands in 2011, the study found that 65% of viewers who watched a recommended video enjoyed it, representing a 14% increase from 57% who enjoyed a video found through browsing. Additionally, those who arrived at a video through a recommendation were 41% less likely to say they did not enjoy the video than those who found the video through browsing (7% vs. 12%). Read More »
February 7, 2012
Benchmark conversion rates for most email types appear higher for B2B than B2C companies in the US, according to [download page] results from an Econsultancy survey released in February 2012, conducted in partnership with the Email Experience Council of the DMA. Within the lead generation category, benchmarks are significantly higher for B2B than B2C companies for newsletter conversion rates (4.1% vs. 1.8%) and sales email conversion rates (3.9% vs. 1.5%). Read More »
February 6, 2012
75% of US organizations say that competition with social media for recipients’ time and attention is either “very challenging” or “somewhat challenging” to their future success in email, according to [download page] a report released in February 2012 by Econsultancy in partnership with the Email Experience Council of the Direct Marketing Association. Other challenges to email’s success include young people abandoning email as their primary channel (69%), getting the deserved budget and attention (65%), and integrating email with other marketing channels (61%).
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February 2, 2012
Women are significantly more cautious than men when it comes to sharing a variety of personal information on social media sites, according to a uSamp survey released in January 2012. Women are 33% more likely than men to say they are definitely not willing to share their physical address (78.8% vs. 59.1%), 39% more likely to definitely not share their location (52.4% vs. 37.7%), and 36% more likely to definitely not share their phone number (77.3% vs. 56.7%).
According to a National Cyber Security Alliance and McAfee study released in November 2011, 51% of Americans are not sharing more information on social media today than the previous year, and almost half have changed the way they use social networks because of safety and security concerns. Read More »
January 25, 2012
Print (15%) proved a far more popular way to find holiday shopping deals in 2011 than Facebook (3%) or Twitter (1%), according to a survey released in January 2012 by Crowd Science. The largest proportion of respondents said that visiting companies’ websites (24%) was their favorite way to find deals, although the same proportion said they had no preferred method. Email newsletters were cited by 13% of respondents, ahead of talking with friends and family (9%) and online flyers (5%). Read More »
January 18, 2012
68.3% of US online holiday shoppers say that the personal product recommendations they received during the 2011 holiday season via email were either very relevant (32.2%) or relevant (36.1%) to them, while about two-thirds said that search delivered very relevant (27.7%) or relevant (38.9%) personalized product recommendations, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by Baynote. Product recommendations delivered in-store via sales associates ranked third (57%) in relevance, with e-commerce sites (56.8%) closely following. There was then a large drop-off to the fifth-ranked method, Facebook, cited by 35.6% of the respondents. Read More »
January 17, 2012
The average number of promotional email campaigns set by top retailers to each of their subscribers reached a peak of 177 in 2011, representing a 16% increase from 152 in 2010, and a 51% rise from 2008 levels, according to Chad White, research director at Responsys and author of the Retail Email Blog. On average, retailers sent their subscribers nearly 15 email campaigns a month, with February being the slowest month at just over 12 campaigns, and December the busiest at almost 22. December was also among the fastest-growing months, on par with November with 20% year-over-year over growth, and slightly behind March (+21%).
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January 17, 2012
The proportion of online shoppers who say that the personalization of their shopping experience on smartphones (16.8%) or tablets (15.5%) did not meet their expectations during the 2011 holiday season far exceeds those who felt that way about their experience on a traditional e-commerce site (6.64%), according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by Baynote. Facebook also lagged, with 15.7% saying the personalization of their experience on the social network did not meet their expectations.
Facebook fared the worst in terms of privacy, with 21% saying that it did not meet their expectations, ahead of smartphones (15%), tablets (12.7%), and e-commerce sites (5%).
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