E-mail Efforts Can Impact Brand

Conventional wisdom places a company’s e-mail communications within the realm of direct marketing, but the channel also has an important effect on how consumers view the sender’s brand, according to findings by Executive Summary Consulting and Quris.

In research funded by Quris, a Denver, Colo.-based e-mail marketing provider, Greenfield Online surveyed about 1,250 frequent e-mail users and found that 56 percent felt the quality of permission-based e-mail communications influences their opinion of the sender.

The survey also found that 67 percent of the respondents said they had a favorable impression of companies they believed conducted well-run e-mail programs. Additionally, 58 percent said they usually open messages from those senders, and 54 percent said they prefer those companies to rivals.

“Direct response people have very little respect for the brand argument, but we found a close correlation,” said Executive Summary principal Rick Bruner. “People are more likely to click if they hold the brand value of e-mail in high regard.”

“First-time trial — sure, that’s the direct marketing realm of things, but when you get further down to establishing preference, loyalty, and evangelism … that’s something that gets farther away from what you’re able to do with traditional direct marketing techniques,” he added. “It’s further down on that spectrum of interactions that make up the brand experience, where we think that e-mail is most effective in terms of driving repeat business.” (segue)

By Christopher Saunders