Online Shoppers Like Receiving Print Advertising
Direct Mail
Market research firm ForeSee asked over 10,000 U.S. online shoppers how they preferred to hear about upcoming sales and promotions from favorite web retailers.
Not surprisingly, being online shoppers, email promotions came out on top. Yet, the second favored communications method with online consumers is print mail -- a full one-quarter of all respondents said a print catalog or a direct mail promotional piece received at home is valued most.
Social media sites, such as Facebook, were preferred by only 8% of respondents.
How do you prefer to hear about sales and promotions? |
% of Respondents |
Promotional emails |
64% |
Postal mail |
25% |
Company’s website |
21% |
Television |
11% |
Don’t want communications |
10% |
Social media websites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) |
8% |
Mobile text messages or alerts |
5% |
Radio |
3% |
Other |
2% |
ForeSee found that traditional marketing influenced not only more online traffic; it delivered better-quality traffic. Some of the most satisfied site visitors arrived at the site because of previous familiarity with a brand (38%), promotional emails (19%), newspaper, magazine, TV and radio ads (8%), and word-of-mouth (8%).
About: As part of ForeSee's annual ForeSee Results E-Retail Satisfaction Index (U.S. Holiday Edition), more than 10,000 online shoppers what most influenced their visit to a retail website. ForeSee then used the scientific methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to analyze which sources drove the best quality traffic.
Source: ForeSee, The ForeSee Results Report on Social Media Marketing, February 3, 2011.