Research conducted by UK based email service provider Emailcenter has found that seven out of 10 consumers wish to stop receiving emails from a company because the messages contain no relevant content.

And, although relevant offers and promotions were identified as the key factors in encouraging consumers to engage with an email message, 65% of consumers said that three out of every four emails in their inbox are not of interest to them.

“Marketers are sending the same generic offers to all customers, instead of tailoring content to the individual,” says Emailcenter’s Sean Duffy. “Relevant and tailored content is a key factor in why consumers respond to email campaigns.”

“Another key finding from the research shows that most consumers receive several marketing emails a day, meaning marketers have to work harder to stand out from the crowd,” adds Duffy.

“There is also evidence that marketers are abusing the trust of their customers,” the company says, “as consumers feel that they did not subscribe to one in three of the marketing emails they receive.” The number of emails consumers receive is also higher than expected.

Duffy concludes: “As email is a relatively inexpensive tool, marketers are able to use sloppy practices and still achieve a high ROI. Marketers are employing the dangerous strategy of only seeing the short term uplift in sales from sending emails in this way and are ignoring the long term damage it does to the customer database.”

Readers can download a free copy of the full report, “Consumer Views on Email Marketing 2009: Relevance is the key”, from the Emailcenter website.

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