Retailers are overlooking opportunities in viral social media marketing, Marketing Week reports.

A recent report by dotMailer has found shortcomings in integrating email marketing and social media with many retailers “getting it wrong” and failing to keep up with consumers’ demands.

The report, which assessed emails of 36 UK retailers last month, found that 73% of the retailers featured in last year’s report achieved lower scores this year.

Crucial elements, such as a links to share content on social networking sites or “forward to friend” option were missing in the majority of the emails.

Efforts in targeting and personalisation were also poor – only three of the 36 campaigns used personalised elements and only four tailored their emails to the recipients.

But there were also a few that got it right. HMV and Republic shared the top spot both improving their email marketing campaigns from last year. Joint second place was achieved by New Look and lingerie retailer Figleaves.

Source: Marketing Week