Last week I did an experiment. I tried to opt-in to receive e-mails from 246 different brands in the apparel and accessories market sector. All of the brands were large brands listed in the Brandweek Directory. Here are the results:

Out of the 246 brands attempted, I was able to sign up for unique e-mails from 71 brands. Some of this was due to that fact that multiple brands listed in Brandweek Directory all resolved to the same parent company's URL and in many cases they only had one e-mail sign-up for the entire line of products. The majority however simply did not offer an e-mail newsletter sign-up on their site.

Out of the 71 brands that did offer an e-mail sign-up, after seven days I've only received e-mails from 22 brands. Out of those, only two brands offered a double opt-in.

So, to summarize: less than 30 percent of all brands in this category offered any type of e-mail sign-up. Less than 30 percent of all who offered e-mail actually responded with a welcome letter on signing up. Less than 10 percent of those who sent a welcome letter provided a double opt-in. Or to put it another way: only 10 percent of all the brands examined provided an e-mail list with a welcome letter attached to sign-up. Less than 1 percent of all brands provided a double opt-in e-mail program.

Why do so many companies make such a lousy first impression when it comes to their e-mail strategy? Posted by: DTB at 9:52 PM  |  Permalink