The Internet is an incredibly powerful and empowering medium. It’s changed our lives in countless ways that we take for granted. Instead of going down to Tower Records to buy that new record (yes, I am that old) I can download the album instantly. Rather than wonder when that package will show up, I just go to FedEx’s website and track the delivery process. If I need a 2.5mm to 3.5mm jack to make my old noise cancelling headphones work with my iPhone, I don’t have to find a RadioShack and deal with the guy with the pocket protector anymore. I can Google and find a bunch of vendors who sell that obscure part (long tail anybody?). Those are a few small examples of how the Internet has changed things in my life and there are many, many others.
The top three empowering aspects of the Internet’s development in the last 15 years or so has been the emergence of the Web itself, web directories and search, and web-based, free email services. I’d like to talk a little bit about the latter in this post, the empowerment of consumers from the mass adoption of email in their personal lives.
Habeas, the world leader in online reputation management services, periodically fields a study with our research partner Ipsos to understand consumer attitudes and usage patterns for email and the Web. We have just started publishing the results from our May 2008 study and we found some encouraging and interesting things in the results. The study interviewed over 3,000
1. Consumers love email
67% of Internet users say they prefer email, more than any other medium (postal mail, phone, fax, web, SMS, etc.) for communicating with businesses. 65% of Internet users said they expect email to still be their preferred communications medium in five years. The 18-34 year old demographic (the social networking generation) supported email with slightly stronger numbers.
Net: Personal email use is ubiquitous in penetration and increasing in frequency among North American consumers. We prefer to communicate with businesses via email versus other mediums and don’t expect that to change in the next 5 years.
2. Consumers are increasingly concerned about online crime and therefore selective about who they do business with online
69% of Internet users say they are concerned about becoming a victim of online fraud via email.
When asked how to distinguish fraudulent and legitimate email – the leading method was that the consumer had asked for the email and received emails from them previously.
Consumers are also using multiple personal email boxes, over 61% had 2 or more, which they are using to segregate trusted email from less trusted email.
Net: For email senders, it’s no longer about getting into the inbox – it’s about building a trusted relationship with consumers who have empowered themselves with multiple free webmail accounts – and getting into the consumer’s trusted inbox.
3. There are steps that senders can take to build trust with Consumers
Consumers were quite clear about what makes them trust a sender – and what makes them not trust a sender.
Net: Consumers want control. They are empowered by the Internet (see introductory paragraph) and expect that empowerment to extend to their email experiences. Consumers want to give you their permission to receive email. Consumers want email weekly, not daily. Ideally, consumers want control over the frequency and content of their email. And do not share their email address with others. Consider how to install a preference center for your subscribers. Think about how to segment your list so your campaigns deliver the most relevant content possible to your customers.
So what’s the takeaway – build a great online reputation through adoption of best practices in email. You’ll get two wonderful benefits, both improved email delivery rates to the inbox and the trust of your subscribers. If you can accomplish the latter – you’ll have a great competitive advantage – you will have established an ongoing dialogue with your customers and prospects in the Internet’s leading medium today and into the future.
