Retail email activity spikes on inauguration day

Email marketing activity among the top 100 US online retailers spiked on inauguration day last week, according to new figures.

The latest Retail Email Index statistics posted by Chad White of the Retail Email Blog showed that almost 45 per cent of retailers sent out a marketing message on January 20th.

Overall email activity rose by six per cent over the course of the week ending on January 23rd, with each of the retailers examined in the study sending more than 2.2 emails each on average during the period.

Mr White predicted that email marketing references to Valentine's Day will increase in the next few weeks.

"However, only when Valentine's Day is out of the way will references to St Patrick's Day and, more importantly, Easter, start to build," he added.

Apple is one company that has started to refer to Valentine's Day in its email marketing messages for its iPod Nano product.

The emails call the mp3 player the "ultimate love note", UTalkMarketing reports.