Cyber Monday e-mail increased this year with 55% more retailers sending promotional e-mail on Cyber Monday this year than last year, according to RetailEmail.Blogspot, a Web site that tracks e-mail marketing campaigns of major retailers.
This year, 68% of the largest online retailers sent at least one promotional e-mail on Cyber Monday, making it the biggest e-mail marketing day of the year to date, up from 44% last year.
“I think one of the big reasons that it is up this year is that retailers are making a really big push to bring the retail sales early this year, because of the instability in the economy,” said Chad White, founder of RetailEmail.Blogspot and director of retail insights at the Email Experience Council. “Retailers are using e-mail to help this.”
In addition, 25% of the largest online retailers sent at least one promotional e-mail on the Sunday directly preceding Cyber Monday, making it the biggest Sunday for e-mail marketing this year, up from 12% last year.
“It’s another selling occasion in the early core of the holiday season,” White added. “Its close to Black Friday, so it is feeding off of it, and the term Cyber Monday is accepted by consumers, so they are more open to it.”
This year, 16% of the retailers that sent e-mail on Monday mentioned Cyber Monday by name, including Staples, Sears, TigerDirect and DisneyShopping.com.
Last year, Cyber Monday was only the sixth most popular day of the year to send retail e-mails. It was outperformed by two of three Echo Mondays — the Mondays following Cyber Monday but before Christmas — in December and the day after Christmas, which saw the greatest percentage of retailers sending promotional e-mail, at 53%.
“Last year, Echo Mondays saw a higher amount of e-mails, so we expect to see more e-mails on these Mondays this year,” White said. “There is something magical about Mondays for retail sales during the holidays.”
