Study Finds Less Than Half of All Marketers Know Customer Communication Preferences

INDIANAPOLIS-(Business Wire)-September 24, 2009 - New data from a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ExactTarget finds that while more than 85 percent of all marketers are executing multichannel campaigns, less than half know what channels their customers prefer.

The study found that while many marketers were relatively immature in their understanding of customers’ preferences those companies with a better sense of customer preferences achieved greater return on investment from their multichannel marketing efforts.

The best results come when marketers let down their barriers and collaborate on campaigns that span channels, according to Forrester’s Customer Knowledge is Marketer Power study commissioned by ExactTarget. The study found the key to selecting the best channels for customer communication is to know something about customer preference and behaviors; however, only 32 percent of the marketers surveyed know how customers behave across channels and only 37 percent know what channels their customers prefer to use.

The study is one of two new pieces of research released today as part of ExactTarget’s Marketing Preferences Research Bundle. The bundle also includes a study conducted by ExactTarget that surveyed more than 1,500 consumers to learn how customers’ online communications habits are evolving.

“The bottom line is that in an industry where new digital communications make it easier to send a variety of messages, it’s imperative that marketers not only send the right message, to the right person, at the right time, but that they use the right channel as well,” said Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of research and strategy. “The ExactTarget Marketing Preferences Research Bundle provides marketers a complete library of research to improve their multichannel marketing effectiveness.”

Key findings featured in the ExactTarget Marketing Preferences Research Bundle include:

Forrester’s Customer Knowledge is Marketer Power findings

80 percent of marketers surveyed claim customer preference is a key factor but only 12 percent ask customers their preferred frequency for email messages.
47 percent of marketers surveyed do not take any actions based on customer preferences.
27 percent of marketers surveyed measure whether efforts in one channel boost results in another.

ExactTarget’s 2009 Channel Preference Study

Consumers prefer email more than 3-to-1 for marketing communications.
Half of consumers consider unsolicited messages from companies whom they regularly conduct business unacceptable – up from 26 percent in 2008.
70 percent of consumers who visit Facebook at least once a month and say they are a “fan” of at least one company/brand and claim they have never given a company permission to send them information through a social network.

The ExactTarget Marketing Preferences Research Bundle is available for download free of charge online at www.ExactTarget.com/Preferences.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email and one-to-one marketing solutions. The company’s software as a service technology provides organizations a single platform to connect with customers via triggered and transactional email, integrated text messaging, voice messaging, landing pages and social media. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget’s software powers permission-based multichannel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Aurora Fashions, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot, Liberty Mutual Group and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, visit www.exacttarget.com or call 1-866-EMAILET.

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