outlook 2010: MARKETING - Multichannel Merchant...less than $10 million Most-popular media used by respondents with sales of at least $10 million We’re all sick of recession-inspired

outlook 2010:

Popular media used

Own Website

E-mail Paid search Social media Banner adson otherWebsites

Percentage of respondents



B-to-b B-to-c

81.9

%

89.9

%

85.9

%

48.5

% 60.6

%

38.4

%

76.9

%

42.3

%

Own Website

E-mail Paid searchSocial media Consumerpublications

Businesspublications

Banner adson otherWebsites

33.5

%

42.3

%

25.1

%

47.9

%

74.4

%

32.1

%

40.6

%

79.5

%

74.4

%

47.9

%

32.1

%

26%

25.1

%

25.1

%

Own Website

E-mail Social mediaPaid search Banner adson otherWebsites

Affiliatemarketing

Solo mailers/direct mailother than

catalogs

92.3

%

85.8

%

61.9

%

52.9

%

47.1

%

40.6

%

40.6

%

Consumerpublications

34.8

%

47.9

%

Most-popular media used by respondents with sales of less than $10 million

Most-popular media used by respondents with sales of at least $10 million

We’re all sick of recession-inspired axioms such as “flat is the new up.” But as the results of our Outlook 2010: Preparing for the Upturn survey make clear, such maxims become ubiquitous for a reason. When more than two-fifths of respondents report hav-ing missed their annual rev-enue goals last year, it’s easy to surmise that for many, flat sales were a worthy aspiration.

But to quote another hoary adage, “there’s no-where to go but up.” And the overwhelming majority of respondents expect sales to increase this year. What’s more, they plan to invest more in social media, e-mail, and other marketing tools to help ensure their growth.

Media mash-up From the No Surprise Here Department: When asked

MARKETING Multichannel marketers are shaking off the disappointments of the past year and planning to invest in multiple media in order to return to growth mode. Text by Sherry Chiger / Charts by Lisa Santo

[outlook 2010: Marketing]

“If you had more money in your marketing budget, what would you spend it on?”

B-to-cB-to-b

OtherSearchMore-sophis-ticated e-mail

programs

Print catalog/direct mailcirculation

Data/analyticsfor bettertargeting

Affiliatemarketing

OtherSearchMore-sophis-ticated e-mail

programs

Print catalog/direct mailcirculation

Data/analyticsfor bettertargeting

Affiliatemarketing

Sales of at least $10 million

Sales of less than $10 million

15.8

%

17.8

%

6.9%

6.2%

19.8

%

40.9

%

40.1

% 53.2

%

50.8

%

29.8

%

27.3

%

33.9

%

36.4

%

7.6%

5.9%



20.7

%

33.5

% 52.1

%

49.8

%

54.1

%

23.2

%

32.9

%

32%

38.4

% Merchants with sales of at least $10 Million are the Most likely to invest in data/analytics

which media they used to promote their catalogs, Websites, or stores, respon-dents’ number-one choice was their own Website, with 85.2% citing it as a promo-

tional channel. Indeed, the only startling element here is that nearly 15% of respon-dents didn’t promote their business via their own site.

E-mail was, again not

surprisingly, the second most popular medium, used by 79.7% of respondents. And regardless of company size and target market, the company’s own Website and e-mail were the two most-used marketing channels.

Digging deeper, though, variances became appar-ent among respondents of differing audiences and sales volume. For instance, while social media was the third most popular channel among business-to-consum-er marketers, with 60.6% using it, it ranked only num-ber five among business-to-business merchants, with a more modest 42.3% using it.

And while fewer than one-third (32.1%) of businesses with annual sales of less than $10 million used paid search, nearly twice as many (61.9%)


“Which metrics have become more important to your business in the past 12 months?”

Sales of at least $10 millionSales of less than $10 million

B-to-c

B-to-b

OtherNoneWebsite related

Search related

E-mail related

Catalog related

Affiliate related

OtherNoneWebsite related

Search related

E-mail related

Catalog related

Affiliate related

14.9

%14

.6% 23

.7%

14.1

%

40.8

% 52.9

% 61.8

%

36.4

%

50.7

%

71.8

%

77.0

%

15.5

%

22.6

%

25.9

%

29.5

%

55.7

%

56.8

%

40.2

%

44.7

%

69.5

% 78.9

%

14.4

%

11.1%

4%

1.9%

9.2%3.3%

1.6%



Social media iS Still hot: 66% of reSpondentS Said they plan to Spend more on it in 2010 than they did in 2009

of those with sales of at least $10 million did so.

Overall, the larger busi-nesses were nearly twice as likely to avail themselves of a particular medium than

their smaller counterparts. Whereas 40.6% of the larg-er respondents used affili-ated marketing, just 23.7% of the smaller ones did.

Nearly half (47.1%) of the

larger respondents placed banner ads on third-party Websites, compared with just one-quarter (25.1%) of the smaller businesses. And while 40.6% of respon-dents with sales of at least $10 million used some sort of direct mail other than catalogs, among the smaller respondents the figure was a scant 14%.

What’s more, 5.4% of respondents with sales of less than $10 million said they didn’t use any media to market their business (which makes one wonder how they manage to stay in business at all). Of the respondents with sales of at least $10 million, only 0.6% said as much.

Just over half (51%) of all respondents said they used social media to promote


E-mail metrics tracked: b-to-b vs. consumer

E-mail metrics tracked: small vs. large

B-to-c

B-to-b

OtherNoneUnsub-scribes

Spam complaints

SalesOpen rates

Lifetime value

Deliver-ability

Cost to

acquire

Click-throughs

Sales of at least $10 millionSales less than $10 million

OtherNoneUnsub-scribe

Spam complaints

SalesOpen rates

Lifetime value

Deliver-ability

Cost to

acquire

Click-throughs

61.2%70.8%

29.4%

36.5% 48.2%

45.8%

25.9%

21.9%

54.7%

59.4% 64.7%

71.9%

27.1%

32.3%

52.4%

53.1%

54.2%80.8%

25.6% 43.7%

33%64.2%

17.7%

31.8%

42.9%73.5%

61.1% 79.5%

21.7%

40.4%

39.4%68.9%

5.3%17.2%

11.2%12.5%

0 1.6%

1% 0



more than a third of the respondents that missed their revenue goals for 2009 said they fell short by more than 20%

their business. But that per-centage is likely to increase this year. Certainly spending on social media will: 66% of survey participants planned to spend more on it this

year than they had last year. The only channel that

more respondents intended to increase spending on was their own Website, with 67.8% expecting to boost

their spend. Consumer publications was the area where spending cutbacks were most likely, with 13.2% of respondents planning to decrease promotional ex-penditures there. Radio also proved less popular, with 11.8% intending to reduce their spend on the medium.

More than half (59.2%) of total participants said they planned to increase their e-mail marketing expendi-tures this year. Nearly as many (51.9%) put more- sophisticated e-mail pro-grams on their wish list, making it the number-one channel they’d spend on if they had more money in their marketing budget. Data and analytics for bet-ter targeting ranked second, with 40.8% saying they’d


Types of e-mail sent: b-to-b vs. consumer

Types of e-mail sent: small vs. large merchants

B-to-c

B-to-b

NoneOtherTriggerReactivationProspecting

Sales of at least $10 millionSales of less than $10 million

NoneOtherTriggerReactivationProspecting

58.8

%

52.9

%

49.2

%

51.3

%

48.6

% 60.7

%

14.1

%

14.1

%

8.5%

6.8%

57.5

%

50.3

%

37.2

%

61.6

%

42.5

%

69.5

%

14%

13.2

%

11.6

%

4%Percentage of respondents


spend more in that area. Given that respondents

were able to select multiple answers to this question, one might wonder why more people didn’t check this op-

tion—or the other options, for that matter. Just 34.2% said they’d spend more on search if they could, 28.1% on catalog and other direct mail circulation, and 18.9%

on affiliate marketing; 6.9% selected “other.” Could it be that the majority of survey participants were satisfied with their analyt-ics, direct mail, search, and affiliate efforts?

e-mail mattersRespondents deemed e-mail metrics second only to Website-related metrics in terms of business impor-tance. Nearly three-fourths (73.8%) of participants said site-related metrics became more vital during the past year, while 56.1% said the same of e-mail metrics.

As for the types of e-mail metrics tracked, sales were the most popular, with 68.4% measuring them. Click-throughs were close behind, measured by 65.9% of re-spondents, followed by open rates (56.3%). A shameful 12.1% admitted to not track-ing any e-mail metrics.

Just as the larger compa-nies were more likely than the smaller ones to promote their business via a number of marketing media, so they were more apt to track e-mail metrics. Although 5.3% of businesses with


“Does it look like you’ll have met revenueexpectations for 2009?”

Fell short by more than 10%

Fell short by up to 10%

Met expectations

Exceeded by up to 10%

Exceeded by more than 10%

Respondents with annual sales of less than $10 million

14.4%

13%

29.8%

21.6%

21.2%

Respondents with annual sales of at least $10 million

15.1%

17.8%30.3%

28.3%

8.6%

sales of at least $10 million said they’d didn’t look at any e-mail metrics, among re-spondents with sales of less than $10 million the figure was an unhealthy 17.2%.

Along the same lines, whereas only 4.0% of the larger respondents said they didn’t send any type of e-mail, 11.6% of the smaller participants confessed as much. But while the larger

businesses were more apt to use trigger e-mails (69.5% vs. 42.5% of the smaller re-spondents) and reactivation e-mails (61.6% vs. 37.2%), smaller companies were more likely to use e-mail as a prospecting tool. Whereas 50.3% of respondents with sales of at least $10 million sent prospecting e-mails, 57.5% of those with sales of less than $10 million did.

More than two-thirds (69.3%) of respondents said that, in addition to deploy-ment and handling opt-outs, their e-mail service provid-ers (ESPs) offered data and analytics assistance. ESPs also handled file mainte-nance and hygiene for 55.2% of respondents, and consult-ing services for 31.1%.

Again, larger businesses were more likely to employ


“Does it look like you’ll have met profitabilityexpectations for 2009?”


12.3%

16.7%

28.9%

24.5%

17.6%


36%

16%

18.7%

6%

23.3%

Fell short by more than 10%

Fell short by up to 10%

Met expectations

Exceeded by up to 10%

Exceeded by more than 10%

ESPs for such services. For instance, 62.2% of respon-dents with sales of at least $10 million had their ESPs handle file maintenance and hygiene, compared with 49.3% of the smaller businesses.

Dollars and centsThe stats regarding respon-dents’ ledger sheets make for some disconcerting

reading. The plurality of survey participants—41.1%—said that they most likely fell short of their revenue goals for 2009.

More than a third of those respondents missed their sales goals by more than 10%. Another 29.4% of participants exceeded their revenue expectations, while 29.5% said they expected to have met their goals.

Business-to-business merchants fared the worst in terms of revenue expec-tations: 45.7% said they most likely missed their goals. Of the b-to-b respon-dents who fell short, 38.3% did so by more than 10%.

On the flip side, 34.4% of the business-to-consumer merchants exceeded their sales goals, as did 32.9% of respondents with sales of


“What’s your revenue outlook for the next 12 months?”

Respondents that sell primarily to businesses

Expect growth of more than 10%

Expect growth of up to 10%

42.6%

35.8%18.2%

1.7% 1.7%

Respondents that sell primarilyto consumers

45.4%

34%14.9%

3.1% 2.6%

Expect flat revenue

Expect decline of up to 10%

Expect decline of more than 10%

at least $10 million, but only 27.4% of those will sales of less than $10 million and 26% of b-to-b merchants.

Somewhat fewer respon-dents fell short of their profitability goals than had their revenue expectations: 36.9%. Slightly more than a third of those, however, fell short by more than 10%. Here the discrepancy between b-to-b and b-to-c

participants was negligible; 37.9% of the b-to-b busi-nesses fell short, compared with 36.4% of the b-to-c respondents.

On the other hand, far more smaller businesses fell short of their profit forecasts than larger ones. Among respondents with sales of less than $10 mil-lion, 42.1% expected to have missed their profit-

ability goals, compared with 29.3% of respondents with sales of at least $10 million.

But you can’t keep a good man—or multichan-nel merchant—down. More than three-quarters (77.9%) of respondents expected sales to increase this year. What’s more, 45.2% of those hopefuls were truly optimistic, anticipating sales growth of more than


MetHoDologY On December 17, 2009 an e-mail invi-tation was sent out from the editor of Multichannel Merchant to subscribers to the print publication. As an incentive to participate, survey respondents were of-fered the opportunity to win one of four $50 Amazon gift certificates. Subsequent mailings were sent to subscribers of the Multichannel Merchant MCM Weekly, i-merchant and O+F Advisor e-newsletters.

By February 21, 2010, the closing date of the survey, 886 responses had been received. Of those, 594 (77.5%) indicated that their company marketed products directly to consumers and/or businesses through a print catalog and/or e-commerce Website, and those active respondents form the basis of the result to the survey.

“What’s your revenue outlook for the next 12 months?”

Expect decline of more than 10%

Expect decline of up to 10%

Expect flat revenue

Expect growth of up to 10%

Expect growth of more than 10%



50.7%

17.8%

2% 1.3%

28.3%

41.1%

35.9%

16.3%

3.3%3.3%

10%. Clearly the consen-sus is that the worst of the economic maelstrom has passed.

All the same, most re-spondents were not plan-ning to staff up quite yet. Just 35.9% expected to add staff this year. Respon-dents with sales of at least $10 million were the most likely to hire, with 47.4% expecting to increase their

staff, compared with 27.8% of the smaller companies.

Among the survey par-ticipants expecting to add staff, 49.7% anticipated hiring employees to assist in e-commerce marketing. More than one-third (38.1%) planned to hire database marketing or data analyt-ics specialists, and 36.8% expected to recruit e-mail marketing staff. l

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outlook 2010: MARKETING - Multichannel Merchant...less than $10 million Most-popular media used by respondents with sales of at least $10 million We’re all sick of recession-inspired