MarketingSherpa: 57% of Consumers Will Give Email Addresses to a Local Retailer

I know, this is old news. But I know that I'll need this information somewhere down the line so it's best to blog it. Which brings me back to the mission of this blog as a personal KM device, and a way to share ideas with others. Can't forget the personal KM elements...

How can you take advantage of the fact that people trust local retailers with their email addresses? Well, for one, start with your in-store promotions!

Have consumers will fill out a card to receive email alerts when asked to by a clerk at a local small business such as a beauty parlor, car-repair shop,
or restaurant.

When you couple this with data from Quris' email study last summer, that revealed consumers vastly prefer receiving email from local "traditional" businesses to any other type of marketing messages, it opens up a world of opportunity.

Realistically, the whole idea of leading the proverbial "SMB Horse" to the proverbial "E-Marketing Waters" has been a hard road for some . Many SMB (small to medium size business) owners are not e-biz savvy, and take time to convince. In fact, recent research bears out that only 11% of SMBs are using pay-for-performance search.

For nearly every SMB out there, e-mail marketing and loyalty programs are an outstanding idea. For those small business owners who actually have a head for business, they'll reap the benefits of their technologically backward competitors sitting on the sidelines.

Even the local business that collect email addresses aren't doing anything with the data. I know I've given my email address to several local businesses that I frequent (my car dealer comes to mind), yet I can't remember ever receiving a single email from them. I do, however, get two pieces of double sided 4 color process direct mail from my car dealer weekly.

Yeah, and I bet that crap does you a lot of good. Is it that we're not pitching them properly or that it's a corporate mandate? I think a lot of that garbage is sent down from the mother ship.