A study on the antecedents of customer loyalty for e-mail marketing

Abstract

E-mail, having advantages in speed and cost, has been widely used as a marketing channel in the expanding online market place. In this environment, this study is to examine antecedents of customer loyalty for e-mail marketing. The research results inform how e-mail can be an efficient tool for creating customer loyalty. In the competitive e-mail marketing place where only selected e-mails are read by customers, many e-mail marketers have proposed conducting permission-based e-mail marketing via an opt-in or opt-out method (Macpherson, 2002; IMT Strategies, 2001). However, permission with opt-in or opt-out is only a one-time procedure in the customer acquisition stage. As such, it is impossible for the marketer to keep pace with changes among customer preferences and interests with this method. Moreover, this approach is no longer a differentiated and innovative method since most e-mail marketers have already adopted permission-based e-mail marketing as a necessary marketing step. From this perspective, I have examined factors affecting e-mail loyalty for the long-term success of e-mail marketing and investigated whether favorable attitudes and concerns regarding e-mail sent by a company are converted to loyalty to that company. The sample data was collected from 1,531 e-mail users and the main research results are as follows. 1) Greater use of the Internet by an individual results in, the more e-mails in that individual``s e-mail box. Moreover, that individual is less likely to open e-mail as the amount of e-mail received is increased. 2) E-mail satisfaction is affected by the information quality, the level of customization, interactivity, system quality and channel integration. E-mail satisfaction builds up e-mail loyalty. 3) E-mail loyalty leads to loyalty to a company. This research extracts the influencing factors for e-mail loyalty formation and presents empirical data demonstrating that e-mail marketers could increase company loyalty by util...