The Great Mobile Email Marketing Couponpportunity

We've written quite a bit lately about the Mobile Email Marketing Revolution -- namely, that a growing chorus of research firms, Wall Street brokerages and good old fashioned common sense is predicting that the day when more people access and interact with the web and email on mobile devices than on PCs is rapidly approaching. (For some mind blowing stats, check out Mobile Email Marketing: Stats for Thought and Mobile Email Marketing: More Stats for Thought).

Here are some recent studies that provide additional food for thought about the huge opportunity presented to retailers by the ability to deliver coupons to peoples' mobile email accounts, with the goal of driving brick and mortar -- not just online -- sales.

1) Email already drives in-store sales. Nearly half of consumers respond to email by making purchases in-store. (Epsilon, "Global Consumer Email Study," June 4, 2009). This number should grow -- and also be highly measurable -- as consumers appreciate the ease and convenience of receiving and redeeming relevant coupons that have been delivered to their mobile email inboxes.

2) Consumers want mobile coupons, but they won't pay extra for them.  73% of consumers say they sign up to receive coupons via SMS or MMS, but only if the messages would be free (Yankee Group, "Mobile Commerce for the Holidays," November 11, 2009). Of course, this is a major advantage that email has over SMS and MMS: email costs recipients nothing, while SMS and MMS messages usually come with additional charges. Not to mention that on slick new smart phones like the iPhone, Droid or Palm Pre, coupons delivered via email render in a much more compelling fashion.

3) The revenue opportunity is enormous. The number of mobile coupons redeemed in North America is expected to grow tenfold next year, with triple-digit increases following in 2011 and 2012. The value of these transactions will balloon from just $5 million this year to more than $2.3 billiion in 2013. (Yankee Group, ibid).

Of course, retailers can already send discounts and coupons to people via email, but with everyone using smart phones, doing so will become much more strategic as consumers are able to receive and take offers with them for the ride to the mall in real-time, abandoning the old school and less convenient process of printing them out at home.

-Jordan Cohen