E-mail

Problems for America's biggest retailer have Wall Street worried about the strength of the economy.

Best Buy has quickly revived email support due to customer demand after the electronics retailer pulled an email contact from its website in December. Happy Customer first reported on Dec. 11 that an email contact form had disappeared from the customer service page and the company was placing a higher priority on live chat to communicate with customers. Best Buy told Happy Customer at the time that the decision was based on a survey of online shoppers and that email is "unable to offer the same level of in-the-moment assistance."

The first one lands before the sun comes up: "Sale! Our buyers' favorite picks up to 50% off." An hour later, there's another: "4 deals inside and everything ships free!" By the time you get to work, even more: "Exactly What She Wants: Chic Shoes and Handbags on Sale Now!" In the avalanche of messages hitting inboxes this time of year, retailers' emails work extra hard to stand out, with painstakingly-crafted sales pitches that nudge you through a desired progression that starts with opening the email, reading it, clicking through to the website and, finally, the holy grail, making the purchase.

How do you execute a mobile-friendly email campaign in a way that actually improves sales? I've seen many "good ideas" produce unimpressive and even disastrous results. The best way to make sure you achieve your objective is to split test an email campaign that you've optimized for a smartphone against your standard creative.

Best Buy has eliminated the email contact form on its customer service page, saying it's instead pouring more resources into live chat. The option to email the company from the customer service page was pulled last week. The company told Happy Customer that email is "unable to offer the same level of in-the-moment assistance." The decision was also influenced by customer feedback, as 20 percent of respondents to a survey of Best Buy's online shoppers said they prefer live chat.

During the manic shopping period around the Thanksgiving holiday, sometimes refered to as "Cyber Week," there was a huge jump in the number of emails opened on mobile devices compared to the same period in 2011. Knotice analyzed over 2.8 million emails and found a 50 percent increase in the number opened from a mobile device during the Thanksgiving retail frenzy period. Overall, 45 percent of emails sent by retailers were opened on a mobile device, including tablets.

Cyber Monday has been the busiest email marketing day of the year for the past five years straight and will surely retain the top spot again this year. Nearly 93 percent of major online retailers sent at least one promotional email to their subscribers on Cyber Monday, making it the busiest email marketing day ever. Last year, 88 percent of retailers sent email on Cyber Monday.

Every year at this time, savvy retailers finalize their game plans to get the most out of this season of buying. In 2011, Shop.org's eHoliday survey revealed that nearly 85 percent of retailers sent an email to their customers promoting Black Friday deals. The so-called "spray and pray" strategy of sending generic emails to everyone on your list is certainly the traditional approach to trying to capture the most sales. Will it work? Yes. Can you do better? Absolutely!

Sometimes it's refreshing to hear a brand admit that it's put together a fairly elaborate effort not to reel in more fish (i.e., customers) right then and there, but just to make sure the lake remains stocked with prospects. Home decor retailer Kirkland's is using in-store QR codes, Facebook, Twitter and display ads on publisher sites for its "Home for the Holidays" campaign — but not necessarily to sell stuff. Jessica Charlton, social media lead for Kirkland's, said the key campaign goals were to simply increase the retailer's email list and bring back past customers. Brand-new purchasers? Pure gravy.

With all the different ways to communicate with customers and prospects these days, marketers can easily lose sight of what's really effective. Email has consistently proven to have the best return on investment of any marketing channel out there — better than paid search, better than social media, better than affiliates, the list goes on. That said, many marketers aren't tapping into the full potential email offers. From deliverability issues to email campaigns not being integrated with other marketing channels to messages not being optimized for mobile devices, there are a host of reasons why brands are leaving money on the table when it comes to their email program.