Maximizing Email Effectiveness

Last month I was writing a eulogoy to email and pronouncing it dead in the world of effective marketing. I have since has many reasons to rethink my position, and believe that with effective targeting, timely delivery, and thought integration, email may well coexist and live on as a highly effective tool.

Yesterday,  Experian CheetahMail gave us some interesting stats to help us. Email campaigns sent on Memorial Day are more successful at engaging audiences, driving higher transaction rates than other holiday-related mailings, including those sent on Valentine's Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, according to a study by. Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2011/5038/memorial-day-emails-drive-highest-holiday-transactions#ixzz1MKXzXYef

The chart below compares transaction rates for different holidays, and Memorial Day is the clear winner

• Transactions rates for Memorial Day campaigns are over twice as high as those sent on other springtime holidays such as Mother's Day (0.31% vs. 0.13%) and Father's Day (0.31% vs. 0.15%).
• Transactions rates for Memorial Day campaigns are 35.5% higher than Black Friday emails (0.31% vs. 0.20%) and 16.1% higher than Cyber Monday emails (0.31% vs. 0.26%).

Why is this the case? Marketingprofs believes that the sense of urgency created by these emails increases transaction behavior, but I am not so sure. Don't all emails on Cyber Monday have equal if not more urgency built in?

While I am pondering the reasons for this spike in activity, it has clearly given me a new found respect for generating impressive transaction behavior at this time of the year.

Cyndi