DMA News June 2010

Welcome to the DMA news for June 2010.

The DMA News is updated regularly to bring you up to speed on the latest developments at the Direct Marketing Association.

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New research jointly published by the DMA and fast.MAP has revealed poor targeting and a lack of understanding of consumers' email usage as the central challenges for email marketing practitioners.

According to the findings of the inaugural Digital Tracking Study, 64 per cent of consumers say they find less than one in 10 of the marketing emails they receive as interesting or relevant.

Additionally, access to email is far more restricted than is commonly assumed. Just 40 per cent said they have email access at work, and 11 per cent said they read their emails via their mobile or smartphone.

The research also reveals the basis on which consumers rate the value of the marketing emails they receive.
For the emails that are correctly targeted and relevant, three in five say that 'money off' offers are their preferred email content, far ahead of second-placed 'free delivery' notices on 18 per cent.
More than 60 per cent said they would be motivated to forward a marketing email to friends and family if they deemed it to have informative content, with a similar number saying they would share an email if they found it humorous.
Commenting on the findings of the report, Chris Combemale, Executive Director of the DMA says that while email marketers aren't being smart enough about the way in which they target consumers, the good news is that 85 per cent of consumers are spurred into positive action by relevant marketing emails.

The biannual Digital Tracking Study will monitor the development of email and social media marketing to provide insight for marketers into emerging trends and consumer behaviour around digital marketing.
The report can be downloaded from the DMA website: www.dma.org.uk.
That's all for now, see you next month.