Email mar­ket­ing can be a incred­i­ble chan­nel for dri­ving con­ver­sions. A Blue­hor­net study has revealed that a large pro­por­tion of con­sumers val­ue email dis­counts. Can brands bet­ter lever­age the use of email dis­counts to increase rev­enues and sales?

Email mar­ket­ing experts Blue­hor­net have pub­lished a com­pre­hen­sive report, “2014 Con­sumer Views of Email Mar­ket­ing”, packed full of insights on con­sumer email habits and behav­ior.

Some of the most reveal­ing finds are in just how much con­sumers are influ­enced by email mar­ket­ing dis­counts codes, being both the main rea­son they sub­scribe to brand mar­ket­ing lists, and also trig­ger­ing oth­er behav­iors such as aban­don­ing carts as they search for avail­able dis­counts.

Of the more than 1,000 con­sumers across the U.S. sur­veyed, 80.1 per­cent said the most impor­tant rea­son they signed up to mar­ket­ing emails was to receive dis­counts.

Forty-two per­cent of those sur­veyed also spec­i­fied that receiv­ing “mon­ey off the price” was the most attrac­tive kind of dis­count for them.

Also worth noth­ing is that just over 10 per­cent of those sur­veyed said that they “pur­pose­ful­ly aban­don cart[s] to trig­ger discount[s] by email.” This isn’t an insignif­i­cant fig­ure by any means, and real­ly illus­trates the val­ue with which shop­pers regard email dis­count codes.

Here are five key take­aways from Blue­hor­net’s 2014 Email Mar­ket­ing Report.

1. Be Generous & Active In Providing Discounts

With some 80 per­cent of cus­tomers admit­ting that the main rea­son they sub­scribe to brand emails being to obtain dis­counts, brands need to ensure they meet con­sumer expec­ta­tions for mon­ey sav­ing. Blue­hor­net sug­gest exper­i­ment­ing to dis­cov­er what types of offers work best for a brand’s audi­ence, ensur­ing also to take age into con­sid­er­a­tion, as it affects the types of coupons and offers to which they respond.

2. Test & Optimize Email Frequency

Email mar­keters need to find the right fre­quen­cy of email sends to min­i­mize unsub­scribes. Hav­ing data avail­able to seg­ment and tar­get audi­ences helps keep con­tent rel­e­vant, and ensures read­ers stay engaged.

3. Leverage Consumer Communities, Engagement, Participation

Of those sur­veyed in Blue­hor­net’s sur­vey, more than 10 per­cent of email sub­scribers sub­mit­ted prod­uct reviews after the retail­er asked, and con­sumers are near­ly three times more like­ly to post a pos­i­tive review than a neg­a­tive one.

4. Take A Mobile-First Approach

This can’t be empha­sized enough. Smart­phones have made emails mas­sive­ly more suc­cess­ful than ever before.

With 65 per­cent of unopened emails remain­ing unread per­ma­nent­ly, it’s cru­cial to ensure emails are opti­mized for mobile as this is often the first inter­ac­tion users will have with mes­sages. As the report states in no uncer­tain terms “for mar­keters, this means that if you aren’t tak­ing a mobile-first approach, you are miss­ing – and pos­si­bly los­ing – a large per­cent­age of your audi­ence.”

5. Listen To What Your Subscribers Need, Want

So often, email mar­keters over­look the sim­ple fact that sub­scriber lists are actu­al­ly filled with peo­ple! Not just email address­es. Blue­hor­net fin­ish the report with a pow­er­ful mes­sage: “Treat them with respect, lis­ten to their wants, pro­vide con­tent that meets their needs, and you will enjoy a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship.”

Does your busi­ness have a great strat­e­gy for offer­ing email dis­counts? Dis­cuss and leave a com­ments below!