Email Marketing Becomes Really, Really Important

E-commerce brands typically generate 25% to 40% of their annual volume via email marketing. That daily relationship they have with the customer is so darn important. They "have" to collect that email address and not abuse the relationship.

The catalog brand considering getting away from catalogs has a reckless relationship with email marketing. Because they can market via name/address, and each of those contacts generates $4.00 per mailing while each email message generates $0.08 per mailing, the relationship skews heavily toward print. So what if the customer opts out of email marketing? As a result, it's not uncommon for the catalog brand to generate 5% or less of annual sales from email marketing.

If you are thinking of closing the books on print, you build an email marketing plan at least one year ahead of the day catalogs end. You need to meet the needs of customers who are used to shopping a large assortment - and you need to figure that out with a format that encourages the shopping of a small number of items.

In other words, if you have five email marketing messages per week, each workday has to offer a different theme. You need to feature new items, you need to feature best sellers / winners, you need to liquidate the stuff that doesn't sell, you need to align with natural sale events and fake holidays (Cyber Monday) and actual holidays.

Making it harder ... you'll need to have different campaigns/cadences for different audiences.

• Welcome Programs for new buyers in the first three months of their experience with you.
• Separate Marketing Programs for Twelve-Month Buyers.
• Elite Buyers (75%+ Annual Rebuy Rate).
• Loyal Buyers (60% - 74% Annual Rebuy Rate).
• Quality Buyers (40% - 59% Annual Rebuy Rate).
• Average Buyers (20% - 39% Annual Rebuy Rate).
• Struggling Buyers (0% - 19% Annual Rebuy Rate).
• Separate Marketing Programs for Lapsed Buyers.
• Those you should spend money on.
• Those you should experiment with.
  
• Those who are highly unproductive (i.e. don't spend money with these buyers).

This is where a fraction of the audience says "nah, that's too much work".

• Your brand sends fourteen catalogs with 48 spreads per catalog ... creating 672 spreads per year featuring 4-12 items per spread.
• Apply those resources to email marketing.

If you're going to end the catalog, you have to "begin something". Begin anew with old-school email marketing ... you're going to have to begin anew with a lot of marketing disciplines, why not start with one you have aptitude for? Start a year ahead of time, learn, adjust, and then be ready when change comes.