WebTrends has reported that online retailers are moving away from promotions based upon prices to market to their loyal customers to efforts that focus on "relationship marketing initiatives such as email marketing and search engine marketing, which allow retailers to understand visitor intent and leverage behavior-based insights to target customers with relevant messages that strengthen relationships."
They report that almost 25% of those responding say that they will use price as their promotional plan for the holidays, in comparison to 11% in 2005. The usually popular "free shipping" promotion, which was used by over 60% last year, is now only going to be used by 45% of retailers this year online.
The conclusions of the repondents was that they "...ranked email marketing as the most important demand-generation activity for holiday success, with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking second and third. Reflecting this importance, the biggest increases in marketing spending for the holidays will be in email marketing (52 percent), SEM (46 percent) and SEO (38 percent). The biggest decreases in spending will be in online banner ads (17 percent), print advertising (16 percent) and broadcast advertising (14 percent)."
Do you like what you see here? This seems to be a good focus to me. Getting back to relationship oriented marketing rather than gimmicks, should have a far more positive effect; not only during the holiday season, but ongoing as well. What are your thoughts on this?
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