Study: Loyalty leads in email effectiveness

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By: RickFerguson |

Posted on March 28, 2017

Study: Loyalty leads in email effectiveness Loyalty marketers know that well-designed and executed loyalty programs create an environment of permission and trust that facilitates dialog, stimulates offer response, and helps fuel strong customer relationships. A new study released by Yes Lifecycle Marketing confirms the trust customers place in loyalty communications: Evaluating nearly 8 billion 2016 emails, the study found that loyalty program emails substantially outperformed other types of email promotions across all evaluated metrics. Trust, it seems, is a key driver of effective email promotions.   The Yes Lifecycle Marketing study, titled "What's the Big Deal? A Look Inside 6 Different Types of Email Offers," evaluated six different categories of email promotions: Free shipping, complimentary gifts, loyalty program incentives, purchase-based promotions (BOGO), and discount-based promotional offers. Here are some key stats (text courtesy of Yes Lifecycle Marketing):  

  • Offers were used in 30% of all email subject lines and in nearly half (44%) of retail-only subject lines.
  • Across all industries, incentives related to loyalty programs outperformed all other offer types, generating the highest open, click and click-to-open (CTO) rates. Loyalty incentives generated an average 17 percent open rate compared to a 12 percent open rate for all offers.
  • When looking at individual offer types, open, click and CTO rates were also considerably lower for emails with offers in the subject line than for those without. The only exception was loyalty incentives, which boasted a 9% higher open rate, 20% higher click rate and 12% higher CTO rate compared to messages with no offers. 
  • Yet for retail, offers promoting a specific ‘% off’ drove the highest conversion rates from all other messages, with 7.9% of all clicks leading to a purchase.

Money quote from the study:  

"The excellent performance of loyalty offers is not surprising; some of these messages are targeted to existing loyalty members who are likely to be more engaged. Other loyalty messages, which may not necessarily be targeted to just loyalty members, are still very effective due to the use of language that communicates exclusivity, urgency and status. Regardless of which type of recipient marketers are targeting, they benefit from the use of offers that 'reward' their subscribers; the exclusivity of the offer and the potential to achieve status with the brand are strong motivators for consumers."

Download the full report here.