16 Nov 10 E-mail Marketing – What Is Its Place in Your Marketing Budget?
The question posed in the title has more to do with the actual place in the budget document than has to do with the amount allocated for e-mail marketing. In an attempt to find how important e-mail marketing is for an organization, MarketingSherpa, an online market research company, has asked 1,500 email marketers for MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey the following question:
Q. Does your organization have a separate line item for email marketing in the budget?
The answer to this has unearthed the place of email marketing in a budget document. Finding it was important to see if email marketing is given due weight or not.
47% of total respondents said that e-mail marketing is not listed separately in the budget, whereas, 32% said that it is explicitly mentioned as a line within interactive marketing budget. 13% said that it is mentioned within CRM, or customer services heading, while 9% said it is mentioned under lead generation heading. (See image).
What all these mean?
Finding it was important because the place of email marketing in the budget document suggests how a company perceives it, and how much budget is going to be appropriated to it. For example, a company may invest more in email marketing if it sees it as a lead generation tool, but the company may pump in less cash, if it is seen as just another marketing channel. In this case, the company may decide to cut on some other channel to fuel email marketing, or vice versa.
This knowledge was therefore important. It was not mere of academic interest.
Tags: Academic Interest, Benchmark Survey, Budget Document, Crm, Customer Services, e-mail marketing, email marketing, Find Mail, Generation Tool, Image, Interactive Marketing, Invest, Lead Generation, Market Research Company, Marketers, Marketing Budget, Marketing Channel, Marketing Organization, Marketing Survey, Respondents
13 Nov 10 “Anything for a Better Experience,” – US Consumers
This is what consumers of the United States have told to the researchers of RightNow Technologies. Well, not in so many words.
According to a study titled, “” conducted by RightNow Technologies, 85% of the US consumers are willing to pay a premium for a product if they get better experience. Some of them have said that they would pay as much as 25% extra for better service (10% respondents said so). 76% of American consumers can pay 5% premium for better experience, whereas, 55% are willing to pay 10% more for the service. (See image for the complete data).
In the same study, 55% of the respondents cited better customer service as the reason for buying from the company they buy now, and 40% said they have switched to competitive products because of the customer service they offer.
Better experience and better customer service are the things that stood out in the study. It appears that people of the United States, despite their struggle with the recent economic slowdown, are willing to pay more if a company promises a better experience and give better customer service.
Tags: American Consumers, Better Customer Service, Competitive Products, Economic Slowdown, Extra, Image, Reason, Respondents, Rightnow Technologies, Struggle, United States
02 May 10 Credit Card Reform Wrong footed the US Consumers
Credit card reform was one of the many steps taken by Pres. Obama to pull the US economy from the ugly jaw of recession that engulfed many innocent families taking away countless many jobs. People were cheerful about it, but now as the promise had been acted upon and the law has been put in place, people are not cheerful. People are confused, angry, and ambivalent about it, as found by the Nielsen Company in a study.
Nielsen BuzzMetrics has done a thorough study to gauge the mood of the consumers, and for that the company sieve through 45,000 Usenet forums, 8,000 discussion forums, and 135 million blogs. According to the Nielsen Company, the main focus was on finding the following:
- How are consumers reacting?
- How are card companies communicating changes?
- What actions do consumers plan to take?
- Who is to blame?
- Which companies are being implicated?
The study revealed that buzz related to Credit Card Act tipped off big time in May 2009, and it continued making round until it petered out n February 2010, when the law was put into effect. (See image for trend).
People who went gaga on the announcement of Credit Card Act 2009 started to oppose it when Obama signed the bill to make it a law. People have many complains ranging from having not enough protection to fear of misuse by the company, etc. Only time will tell how justified this fear is, meanwhile see the image below to get the complete data.
Tags: Act, Big Time, Buzz, Consumers, Credit Card, Discussion Forums, Economy, Gauge, Image, Innocent Families, Jobs, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Nielsen Company, Obama, Promise, recession, Sieve, Ugly, Usenet Forums
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