Click here or click the cover to download How 300 Retailers Use Email Marketing.

“What’s in the report?”

Find out everything about how 300 small retailers use email marketing, including:

– how many signup prompts
– where signup prompts are
– how many segment lists
– how many offer signup bonuses
– if they use double opt-in
– their email service providers
– how often they email
– how often emails go to spam
– kinds of signup prompts used
– bonuses offered for signup
– which list selects are asked for
– average number of selects
– how many are Google Trusted stores
– if they send welcome emails
– how many clicks to unsubscribe
– what happens after unsubscribe
– which niches they are in
– annual revenues
– how their emails look on an iPhone
– social media buttons in emails
– which social buttons in emails
– sharing icons on product pages
– which icons on product pages
– whether or not they have apps
– which app platforms they use

 

Highlights from the report:

 

Who Are These Retailers?

Annual revenues of retailers from the studyTheir annual revenue is between $5 and $25 million. I define a “retailer” as a company that

• sells mostly to consumers, not businesses
• has a checkout cart on the site
• is not primarily a manufacturer of products that are distributed to other retailers

I selected this group from the list of Second 500 Retailers put out by Internet Retailer in 2012, and also added another group of retailers from the Inc Magazine 5,000. I did not use every retailer from either of those lists because I wanted companies that were selling goods, not services. I also wanted companies that were selling mostly to consumers, not to businesses. The companies here are almost entirely U.S.-based with a handful of them operating out of Canada.

If I had to pick one common denominator for all 300 companies, it would have to be growth. These retailers are growing – rapidly. Sales for this group grew roughly 15% in 2012.

Growth is great, but it puts strains on a company. Add the strain of rapid growth on top of the speed of change in Internet marketing, and you can easily see why so many Marketing Directors feel overwhelmed.

Niches & Annual Revenue

97% of these “small” retailers are firmly settled into a specific niche.

That gives them an edge against Amazon and other mega-retailers. By specializing they can offer more expertise and a deeper product selection than the generalists can.

They can also better tailor their message to engage with their customers. They can’t be all things to all people but they can focus intently on their niche and deliver products and information to that group in a way that a mega-retailer can’t.

Which niches and markets the 300 retailers fall into

More of what’s in the report:

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