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Study: Online Retailers Plan to Focus on Search, Email Marketing & Social Media During Recession

2009-05-05T16:29:26Z

While the U.S. economy is still puttering through a recession, a new marketing study from the National Retail Federation's Shop.org and Forrester Research found that at least some online retailers have been able to take greater marketshare in the last few months. About 46% of the 117 retailers polled in this study also said that they had no plans to scale back their original budgets for 2009, though 54% of all respondents expect their overall growth to slow during the next 12 months. Over the last few months, shoppers have become increasingly price-sensitive, and this has clearly helped some online retailers to outperform their brick-and-mortar competitors.

]]> While some online retailers might be weathering the economic downturn better than their competitors at the local mall, 30% of the respondents also said that they would cut spending on their web retail operations this year. Among those who are planning to cut costs, 88% say that they will scale back their hiring plans.

Email Marketing a Top Priority

Those companies that are seeing the current downturn as a chance to expand and that are planning to spend more on their online efforts this year, say that they will focus their investments on search (80%), email (65%), and social marketing (60%). According to this report, these businesses see email as one of the most important means to communicate with their customers and most plan to use it to inform customers of new product launches, promotions, and to get customer feedback. 90% of all respondents listed a focus on email marketing as a top priority.

Companies Won't Scale Back Social Media Campaigns

Interestingly, the study also found that those companies that are growing faster than expected during this downturn are also more likely to embrace social media. Even those companies that are planning to scale back their online operations this year still plan to experiment with social media campaigns.

Imaged used courtesy of Flickr user jakerome.

Comment from johngreen45 on 2011-01-11

2011-01-11T08:28:49Z

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Comment from christian dating on 2010-10-22

2010-10-23T05:32:40Z

ya, i agree - email marketing is pretty useless. Soo many people just delete ALL email now that spam is so prevalent. I get at least 25 spam messages per day. I think after a while, it really de-sensitizes you to email marketing at all, where the email would have to come from a friend or a retailer that you know and like for me to open it now.

Comment from Bodybuilding.com Coupons on 2010-09-16

2010-09-16T19:51:27Z

I thought email marketing was dying. With all the spam everyone gets into their inbox daily it makes you sick of all email offers regardless!

Comment from John on 2010-09-16

2010-09-16T19:49:15Z

All the internet gurus are busy in trying different methods and trying different products to settle there debts.

Comment from irishpoetry on 2010-08-27

2010-08-28T02:14:33Z

Interesting read - I certainly hope their forecasts will come to pass.

Comment from Nikki on 2010-08-16

2010-08-16T20:15:12Z

Well, statistics being statistics, a cause/effect relationship may never be proven. All you can do really is read the signs and hope for the best.

Comment from Fitness Babes on 2010-06-28

2010-06-28T17:55:16Z

Maybe the cause/effect relationship isn't entirely clear here. The e-tailers may be experiencing a surge in business that's independent of the global economy.

Comment from P90x Reviews on 2010-04-20

2010-04-20T11:46:25Z

Glad to see this as I work in the online arena

Comment from wow guide master on 2010-04-02

2010-04-02T15:39:28Z

Situation is so bad that I don't think these all options will work out. One has to only wait and watch for good times to come back.

Comment from The Maker on 2010-03-20

2010-03-20T23:52:44Z

Well, e-mail marketing will ever work. Obviously companies are making money with it, so why should they stop it? And what monitoring? The is and there cam't be monitoring for this...

Comment from Drvig on 2010-02-23

2010-02-23T19:19:07Z

All the internet gurus are busy in trying different methods and trying different products to settle there debts.

Comment from London Limousines on 2010-02-18

2010-02-18T09:45:13Z

Although it is important to keep records for tax purposes,
it is not the only reason (or even the primary reason) good
accounting records should be kept. Another frequent reason
clients request financial statement preparation is to obtain
bank financing.

Comment from travel turkey on 2010-02-10

2010-02-10T08:42:15Z

The email spamming is now very heavily monitored. Much of the internet in this decade is focusing on the elimination of spam and email marketing

Comment from Bodybuilding.com Coupons on 2010-02-08

2010-02-08T22:20:37Z

I for one believe that online shopping and internet marketing in general is recession proof. People who say otherwise? I dare you to look at my bank statements!!

Comment from Diabetes cure on 2010-02-06

2010-02-06T17:39:03Z

The email spamming is now very heavily monitored. Much of the internet in this decade is focusing on the elimination of spam and email marketing.

Comment from scott on 2010-02-05

2010-02-05T21:55:54Z

Email marketing is not as effective has it was 5 years ago. There is a very different mentality to the person online buying today. The buyer is much smarter.

Comment from Karla Spice on 2010-01-27

2010-01-27T19:53:46Z

Email marketing is too easy and too effective to ever go away. When I say effective, I just mean it's better than nothing. One person can use the power of technology to reach out and touch thousands of customers (who in theory have *asked* to be contacted). Try that with a catalogue, website, etc.

Comment from Pink on 2010-01-24

2010-01-25T06:24:39Z

I thought email marketing was dying. With all the spam everyone gets into their inbox daily it makes you sick of all email offers

Comment from p90x workout on 2010-01-10

2010-01-10T17:49:50Z

Email marketing still alive

Comment from Argumentative Essay Topic on 2010-01-08

2010-01-08T14:19:44Z

email spam absolutely not effective now.

Comment from Generic Propecia on 2010-01-08

2010-01-08T14:11:54Z

In business as in all business practices are good. I think it should be legislated to limit this activity!

Comment from toilet repair on 2010-01-05

2010-01-06T03:51:42Z

I found very little benefit to email advertising campaigns in this day and age. Most of the email sent out by marketers never make it past the spam box and when they do, people just delete them as quick as possible.

These companies with multi million dollar budgets should be able to find better methods of marketing. I am thinking some sort of viral advertising or similar.

Comment from Outlet Seller on 2010-01-05

2010-01-05T23:59:42Z

Although email marketing may never be dead, it's really hard to distinguish spam from legit emails nowadays. I'm getting about 30-100 mails per day, most of them spam and I think many people do what I do: Delete them without ever reading them, even if you subscribed a month ago. The interesting stuff gets buried by the crap.

Comment from tramadol on 2009-12-24

2009-12-24T18:49:05Z

I feel embracing social media is also all about learning about the medium, and would expect retailers to put more focus on this to try and figure out how to use it. Plus its currently the buzz thing, so naturally will gain more attention from them.

Comment from ACdiet on 2009-12-16

2009-12-17T04:08:36Z

A tool such as E-goi can combine all the potential of e-mail marketing “and disseminate the information and / or products automatically in social networks.

Comment from Pro on 2009-12-15

2009-12-15T13:12:33Z

Situation is so bad that I don't think these all options will work out. A tool such as E-goi can combine all the potential of e-mail marketing “and disseminate the information and / or products automatically in social networks.

Comment from Cia on 2009-10-14

2009-10-15T01:40:42Z

In business as in all business practices are good. I think it should be legislated to limit this activity!

Comment from Mike on 2009-09-17

2009-09-18T00:51:13Z

I believe email marketing will never die. I feel embracing social media is also all about learning about the medium, and would expect retailers to put more focus on this to try and figure out how to use it.

Comment from Ed on 2009-05-08

2009-05-08T09:56:40Z

I thought email marketing was dying. With all the spam everyone gets into their inbox daily it makes you sick of all email offers regardless!

Comment from Hugo Pascoal on 2009-05-06

2009-05-06T14:45:55Z

I think that companies are already aware of the potential of social networks, but many had not yet established a strategy and do not know how to make the most of them.

A tool such as E-goi can combine all the potential of e-mail marketing “and disseminate the information and / or products automatically in social networks.

I think this article is illustrative:
Broadcast your campaigns to your favourite social networks!

Comment from Robert on 2009-05-06

2009-05-06T12:53:03Z

Email opening rates are already plummeting. Consumers are overloaded. But very focused, very targeted emails to maintain a relationship with core existing customers should still be useful.

Comment from LEADSExplorer on 2009-05-06

2009-05-06T08:24:28Z

Thus we all are going to receive even more emails, that hopefully end up in our Spam box.

Comment from Edunetsys on 2009-05-05

2009-05-05T17:32:22Z

Situation is so bad that I don't think these all options will work out. One has to only wait and watch for good times to come back.