70% E-Mail Subscribers Would Give More Personal Information for Greater Personalization, Relevance, Timeliness According to a study by Truverse
Friday, 13 January 2006
Truverse, provider of next-generation dynamic e-mail communications, on Monday released the findings from a recently completed market research study of e-mail subscriber behaviors and preferences. The broad survey found that subscribers are still interested in receiving e-mail offers and e-newsletters, which is surprising considering the continual drop in e-mail open rates, but in exchange, subscribers want control over what they receive from senders and when they receive it.
As expected, two-thirds of respondents said that in general they were unwilling to provide any personal information at sign up beyond a name and e-mail address.
However, respondents said that if they believed that the personal information would improve the personalization, relevance and timeliness of their e-mails, nearly 70 percent said they would be willing to provide more information during sign up.
Moreover, 85 percent of respondents said they would view control over content and timing of messages as appealing. Nearly 80 percent said they would answer a few more questions at sign up to ensure more control.
"As the Internet has become more of a participatory medium, e-mail users are expecting more and demanding control over what fills their inboxes," said Carey Ransom, Truverse’s co-founder. "E-mail users continue to have more than a dozen e-mail subscriptions on average, but they are requiring much more control over the content, frequency & timing, interactivity and format of the messages they receive.”
Carey continued, “No longer is a 'sign up for our list' sufficient for e-mail updates or e-newsletters. Subscribers want to know what they are going to get, how it is going to improve their dialogue and experience with the sending company, and that the company cares about them as an individual prospect, customer or partner."
Additional findings from the survey support that change is afoot in e-mail communications:
· The average e-mail subscriber acknowledges that he or she is subscribed to nearly 14 e-mail marketing lists or e-newsletters, with about a 50/50 split between business and personal interests.
· Only 26 percent of people are satisfied with the interaction options (such as reply, rate, remind or forward) available to them in the e-mail list messages they receive. Less than 40 percent of people are satisfied with the timing and frequency of those messages. When messages do not meet subscribers' expectations, more subscribers ignore future messages (58 percent) than unsubscribe from the list (55 percent), which may explain the high level of inactivity among most marketers' list subscribers.
· Respondents sought information and news from senders about specific products and services that they owned (64 percent); tips and advice (60 percent); and specific offers for "subscribers only" (79 percent).
· In response to the opportunity for more control, subscribers asked that sending companies give more explanation to them about their control options over what content they will get and when they will get it (74 percent); an example e-mail with the personalization and control (70 percent); and a summary of the company's privacy practices (50 percent).
Ransom followed, "A subscriber's attention is more and more strained by the deluge of daily e-mails he or she receives. Messages that are unexpected, irrelevant and unclear do damage to the companies that send them, and miss tremendous opportunities to build and extend customer, prospect or partner relationships. Smart organizations are realizing the real value of e-mail is in increasing dialogues between an organization and its constituents. Truverse's revolutionary technology platform enables dynamic personalization of corporate e-communications by leveraging a company's knowledge and content, and individually packaging it to reflect the unique qualities of each recipient."