When Seth Godin first penned “Permission Marketing” back in 1999, only 4.4% of U.S. households had Broadband Internet Access (PDF, 2010 U.S. Department of Commerce)
Today, over 63.5% of the same households access the digital world in high speed.
This year’s report notes in its opening lines: “…persons with low incomes, seniors, minorities, the less-educated, non-family
households, and the non-employed tend to lag behind other groups in home broadband use.”
So why then do we like kicking off a dialogue via e-mail?
To fully appreciate the shopper we’re inviting to converse with, we need to set some preconceived notions aside.
First, our shoppers are incredibly varied (the “new frugal” is a reality) and our stores are even more unique. We operate over 800 independently licensed stores controlled by over 200 ownership groups. So in theory, two stores within a five-mile radius could have completely different looks and feels depending on market, owner and neighborhood. Sure, we’re a hard-discount grocer at the end of the day, but we’re as varied as the neighborhoods we serve.
And secondly (and subsequently) we have a tendency to (wrongly) believe that newcomers or folks just undertaking the baptism-by-fire-that-is-first-time-high-frequency-high-bandwidth-internet-usage are somewhat inept or unable to adopt to current web standards (high volume e-mail, social media, cursory web accounts etc…). Again, it should be our goal as Internet/digital/interactive marketers to welcome all proficiencies of tech-savvy into our realm, and make sure that our entire constituency has the ease of access that the “seasoned vets” are accustomed to (and yes, this means more than just building to IE6 standards!).
And this is why (inherently) e-mail works for us.
Our shopper, by nature, gravitates towards e-mail before anything else. (As an aside, think about your initial experiences online, I’m willing to bet nickles-to-dimes that one of the first things you did was listen to the “You’ve Got Mail” chime, or similar…I’m not letting my imagination wander as to what some of you did online first)
If you look at where our folks are hanging out online:
- 67% have a personal e-mail address
- 42% look for recipes, shopping, eating tips
- 33% have trodden in the social sphere (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter etc…)
- 15% have read a blog
It’s clear that the majority go to e-mail first as a lines of communicating and sharing information. Now, our overall percentage of e-mail users does not quite level up to the national average of folks who own an e-mail address (80%), but compare it to other traditional communication mediums:
- 83% have a cell phone
- 40% utilize SMS or MMS (texting)
Now the cell phone ownership number is almost completely in-line with the national average, but what is striking is that only 40% (compared to 65%, nationally) of our shoppers text. The general assumption that we can take away from that is with so many pay-as-you-go and limited data plans available, our shoppers are opting to stay amongst free e-mail services for communication as opposed to text. Granted, SMS will inevitably rule the roost in the not so distant future, as the younger demographics continue to sky-rocket for texting propensity (this doesn’t take into account that we still have yet to definitively identify if folks are comfortable being communicated to with on their personal phone via text).
(I wanted to add a line in here about the transient nature of our shopper, and their likelihood to rent/move, but we are still waiting on the data to be populated before I can truly discount direct or home mailings. Think about it: a shopper that moves and doesn’t text; almost like they were born to hold an e-mail address near and dear. It’s a wonderful assumption, but the “ass of u and me” thing never gets old.)
Our engagement is also strong via email. This year we will send out over 50 million emails and that will result in 7.5 millions views of our circular (in addition to the site visits, coupon finds and other content we will be pumping through the e-mail). But it’s not enough. As Seth Godin put it, “Real permission works like this: if you stop showing up, people complain, they ask where you went.” We need to always be striving for that 100% interaction rate; fostering that need for information and satisfying it through pertinent execution. If we’re willing to take the time out of the day to write it, by god I want to be writing it to someone who cares.
The content stays the same no matter what segment we are speaking to (I’d venture to say our shopper has a higher “bullshit” meter than most, but you can peruse the “Dealing with Dissent” for your own opinion):
- Keep it relevant
- Be memorable in your brevity
- Leave them with real (not perceived) value
This is the line we walk everyday when it comes to cadence, content and delivery.
How much is to much? (I don’t know.) Are we diluting our everyday-low-price strategy by promoting coupons via save-a-lot.com through e-mail? (We’re building on it.) Are we conditioning them to only wait for e-mail and not engage with us outside the channel? (No.) Do our customers even care? (We better allow them to.)
Over the long run, our shopper is not that different than the “traditional” shopper when it comes to interacting online. The difference is we owe it to them to be right the first time, deliver as promised, and to ensure we don’t overstep a boundary (perceived or legitimate) when it comes to communicating via e-mail.
