Thursday, 22, Jul 2010 10:58
While social media is a growth area in online marketing, ecommerce organisations should continue to focus on more established channels like email.
This is according to a new report from Econsultancy entitled How We Shop in 2010: Habits and Motivations of UK Consumers, which shows that few consumers actually ask for product recommendations on social networking websites.
However, almost four in ten shoppers said they had been prompted to make an online purchase as a result of email marketing communications, while 27 per cent said they had bought something offline due to the same promotional tactic.
Despite this, the report indicated that more could be done by firms to improve their email marketing strategy, as 50 per cent of consumers said emails were devalued by irrelevant information and a similar proportion claimed messages hold no value because they did not have a special advantage by receiving them.
Linus Gregoriadis, UK research director at Econsultancy, commented: "Despite the rise of social media, the role of the email channel is secure.
"Email is extremely effective as long as companies are targeted and relevant when communicating with consumers. Companies need to use both channels in an appropriate way."
Recent figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index showed that Britons spent £4.4 billion on online shopping last month, a 20 per cent increase compared with June 2009.
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