Email marketing: 3 relevance lessons from the best companies
This post is a translation of the record by Daniel Burstein from the MarketingSherpa blog.
Daniel analyzed the case studies of the nominees for the MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2014 for the relevance of mail marketing campaigns and gave his assessment of the campaigns of the award participants.
Let me remind you that relevance is "the ability to conform to something, to be significant, important, relevant . " In this case, we are talking about the relevance of the marketing message to the interests of the recipient of the email.
')
Next comes the translation. My comments are in italics.
October 25, 2013
“Okay, emails should be relevant. I understand it.
But what to do? I don't understand where to start. ”
(Complaint email marketing at the Summit MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2011).
Since I was one of the judges for the MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2014, sponsored by ExactTarget, I had the opportunity to assess how far marketers have advanced [in the direction of mail marketing relevance] in recent years.
I am one of those who are skeptical about the opinion that software can solve all the problems of marketers (it seems to me that the idea of ​​a “magic solution” is heavily “oversold”), it’s impossible not to admit that marketing automation solutions help me marketers move forward in giant strides in terms of creating more and more relevant letters.
This is partly due to the fact that such solutions provided new [technical] opportunities for marketers, in part because their appearance led marketers to be more customer-oriented and think more about the needs of their customers.
Do you have problems with sending relevant emails to your subscribers?
Must be! Because it is really difficult.
To "turn on" your brain, here are three examples of successful campaigns from the winners of the MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2014.
If you offer more than one product or service, most likely you have different types of customers. To establish relevant communications with them, you need to understand which of these products they like the most.
Creative Co-Op (online home furnishings wholesale store), winner in the “Connect and Integrate” category (E-commerce subcategory), used order data analysis and a marketing automation solution to notify buyers of products, which those ordered earlier and which may need to be ordered again.
“The Creative Co-Op marketing campaign used several data sources to create relevant [delivery times] and relevant [content] emails. We analyzed the order history to send personalized e-mails, notifying the buyer that the goods he ordered, went on sale of commodity balances, and also showed these goods in a letter, linking information with the goods. This integration of data allowed for an incredibly effective mail marketing campaign, ”said Caitlin Kelly, senior account manager at Whereoware , who was responsible for implementing the campaign.
What was the result? The campaign was one of the most profitable initiatives of Creative Co-Op in the field of mail marketing, which resulted in a return on investment (ROI) of 808% ROI only in the first month.
Here is another useful insight for companies that sell this type of sales, from Caitlin: “Interestingly, the call to visit the site led to a significant increase in sales among the goods in the usual range. Customers came to see the products on sale, but they bought other products during the visit, ”says Caitlin.
“The fact that we communicated with wholesalers as individuals brought a significant profit to Creative Co-Op for both the goods on sale and the goods in the usual range,” she continues.
When I asked Caitlin what she could advise marketers who want to deliver more relevant emails, she mentioned three key elements of a successful campaign made on marketing automation solutions: data, personalization, triggers.
“Treat customers as individual customers with individual interests. To create a successful personalized offer you need data. Most marketers have sources of such data, they just did not think about it or did not analyze the data. For example, a marketer may have data on the history of orders, but he did not think about comparing them with the assortment of the store or data on visits to the site. By combining several sources of information, you can create a trigger campaign that will be personalized for the recipient of the letter and will most likely increase the conversion percentage [per order]. ”
See case study campaign details prepared by Whereoware.
The current peak of interest in content marketing is justified. When you give potential clients useful information and train them, they will readily become your clients.
But it’s not enough just to have good content.
You should have a good strategy for creating relevant content. This is important because as your potential customers (leads) consume your content and participate in the lead nurturing program, what was once relevant to them may cease to be so. In content marketing, the distance that separates “gorgeous” content from “so-so” content is less than the distance that distinguishes the stage star from the singer released in circulation.
Why is content marketing so hard? Just because the first time we tell our customers something [valuable], they think we are great. But when they hear the same information a second time, they perceive us as banal.
IHS , the winner in the “Deliver and Automate” category (subcategory of “Lead Gen”), simply refused its general newsletter Jane's Defense . Usually for any company, a newsletter is the most important element of content marketing. But HIS has narrowed its focus on content marketing to the main target audience (military, civil service representatives, intelligence agents, as well as companies from the aviation and defense industries).
Let Byron O'Dell, senior director of demand management in the corporate marketing department, allow me to…
“IHS used email marketing, marketing automation solutions, and a thoughtful content strategy to change communication with this complex segment. We moved from a monthly general mailing to a lead generation system that allowed subscribers to choose which messages they want to receive, based on their interests, and also set up [send advertising] based on their actions, ”says O'Dell.
This is how the algorithm of such a program looks like [working with leads] ...
As a result of the transition to such a program, IHS increased the degree of interaction with subscribers 10 times.
"It is very difficult to carry out such complex content marketing and marketing automation campaigns," O'Dell writes in his application for participation in the award. “For us, the very first, most important step was to identify the resources (the team), then look at the situation from a new angle and re-evaluate the current processes.”
The first two examples were related to marketing automation solutions. In order not to exaggerate their meaning, I will give the opposite example.
If you are using a marketing automation solution and are trying to create a relevant email marketing campaign for a B2B audience, the choice of software may affect how you create the message. As a result, you will focus on what will allow you to create convenient chains of trigger messages. For example:
However, no marketing automation platform will help you [automatically] create messages that will be interesting.
When I asked Pamela Markey, senior marketing director at MECLABS, who was also on the jury and evaluated the nominees, which she liked about the winners, she replied: “They appealed to the interests of their subscribers. Marketers were able to literally "get into the skin" of their potential customers. They did not send the information that they could communicate, but what was really important for their clients. ”
An excellent example of this approach is the distribution of the company SunGard Availability Services , the winner in the category of "Connect and Integrate" (subcategory of "Lead Gen").
Data recovery after disasters, cloud solutions, managed services, IT consulting, business continuity services ... then I fell asleep. So what am I talking about?
And, yes, although all these complex IT-solutions for business are very important, they are not so interesting for the audience, such as ... oh God, the Zombie Apocalypse!
Forgetting to turn to “positions” and “business interests”, SunGard managed to create messages that are interesting for any person, which recipients willingly shared on social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. The company received about 2,000 of these censuses.
“This is a good example of how marketers can show creativity and highlight their brand in general [advertising]“ noise. ” It shows how the use of unusual topics, unusual creatives and non-standard messages can cause great interest among the audience even when you address top managers, ”writes Julie Brewer, responsible for marketing communications at SunGard Availability Services, in her application to participate in the award.
Daniel analyzed the case studies of the nominees for the MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2014 for the relevance of mail marketing campaigns and gave his assessment of the campaigns of the award participants.
Let me remind you that relevance is "the ability to conform to something, to be significant, important, relevant . " In this case, we are talking about the relevance of the marketing message to the interests of the recipient of the email.
')
Next comes the translation. My comments are in italics.
October 25, 2013
“Okay, emails should be relevant. I understand it.
But what to do? I don't understand where to start. ”
(Complaint email marketing at the Summit MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2011).
Since I was one of the judges for the MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2014, sponsored by ExactTarget, I had the opportunity to assess how far marketers have advanced [in the direction of mail marketing relevance] in recent years.
I am one of those who are skeptical about the opinion that software can solve all the problems of marketers (it seems to me that the idea of ​​a “magic solution” is heavily “oversold”), it’s impossible not to admit that marketing automation solutions help me marketers move forward in giant strides in terms of creating more and more relevant letters.
This is partly due to the fact that such solutions provided new [technical] opportunities for marketers, in part because their appearance led marketers to be more customer-oriented and think more about the needs of their customers.
Do you have problems with sending relevant emails to your subscribers?
Must be! Because it is really difficult.
To "turn on" your brain, here are three examples of successful campaigns from the winners of the MarketingSherpa Email Awards 2014.
Lesson 1: Turn lemons into lemonade (for those who love lemonade)
If you offer more than one product or service, most likely you have different types of customers. To establish relevant communications with them, you need to understand which of these products they like the most.
Creative Co-Op (online home furnishings wholesale store), winner in the “Connect and Integrate” category (E-commerce subcategory), used order data analysis and a marketing automation solution to notify buyers of products, which those ordered earlier and which may need to be ordered again.
“The Creative Co-Op marketing campaign used several data sources to create relevant [delivery times] and relevant [content] emails. We analyzed the order history to send personalized e-mails, notifying the buyer that the goods he ordered, went on sale of commodity balances, and also showed these goods in a letter, linking information with the goods. This integration of data allowed for an incredibly effective mail marketing campaign, ”said Caitlin Kelly, senior account manager at Whereoware , who was responsible for implementing the campaign.
What was the result? The campaign was one of the most profitable initiatives of Creative Co-Op in the field of mail marketing, which resulted in a return on investment (ROI) of 808% ROI only in the first month.
Here is another useful insight for companies that sell this type of sales, from Caitlin: “Interestingly, the call to visit the site led to a significant increase in sales among the goods in the usual range. Customers came to see the products on sale, but they bought other products during the visit, ”says Caitlin.
“The fact that we communicated with wholesalers as individuals brought a significant profit to Creative Co-Op for both the goods on sale and the goods in the usual range,” she continues.
When I asked Caitlin what she could advise marketers who want to deliver more relevant emails, she mentioned three key elements of a successful campaign made on marketing automation solutions: data, personalization, triggers.
“Treat customers as individual customers with individual interests. To create a successful personalized offer you need data. Most marketers have sources of such data, they just did not think about it or did not analyze the data. For example, a marketer may have data on the history of orders, but he did not think about comparing them with the assortment of the store or data on visits to the site. By combining several sources of information, you can create a trigger campaign that will be personalized for the recipient of the letter and will most likely increase the conversion percentage [per order]. ”
See case study campaign details prepared by Whereoware.
Lesson 2. Assess the situation, redirect customers in the direction you need
The current peak of interest in content marketing is justified. When you give potential clients useful information and train them, they will readily become your clients.
But it’s not enough just to have good content.
You should have a good strategy for creating relevant content. This is important because as your potential customers (leads) consume your content and participate in the lead nurturing program, what was once relevant to them may cease to be so. In content marketing, the distance that separates “gorgeous” content from “so-so” content is less than the distance that distinguishes the stage star from the singer released in circulation.
Why is content marketing so hard? Just because the first time we tell our customers something [valuable], they think we are great. But when they hear the same information a second time, they perceive us as banal.
IHS , the winner in the “Deliver and Automate” category (subcategory of “Lead Gen”), simply refused its general newsletter Jane's Defense . Usually for any company, a newsletter is the most important element of content marketing. But HIS has narrowed its focus on content marketing to the main target audience (military, civil service representatives, intelligence agents, as well as companies from the aviation and defense industries).
Let Byron O'Dell, senior director of demand management in the corporate marketing department, allow me to…
“IHS used email marketing, marketing automation solutions, and a thoughtful content strategy to change communication with this complex segment. We moved from a monthly general mailing to a lead generation system that allowed subscribers to choose which messages they want to receive, based on their interests, and also set up [send advertising] based on their actions, ”says O'Dell.
This is how the algorithm of such a program looks like [working with leads] ...
As a result of the transition to such a program, IHS increased the degree of interaction with subscribers 10 times.
"It is very difficult to carry out such complex content marketing and marketing automation campaigns," O'Dell writes in his application for participation in the award. “For us, the very first, most important step was to identify the resources (the team), then look at the situation from a new angle and re-evaluate the current processes.”
Lesson 3. Even in the field of B2B clients are people too.
The first two examples were related to marketing automation solutions. In order not to exaggerate their meaning, I will give the opposite example.
If you are using a marketing automation solution and are trying to create a relevant email marketing campaign for a B2B audience, the choice of software may affect how you create the message. As a result, you will focus on what will allow you to create convenient chains of trigger messages. For example:
- values ​​in the fields “position”, “industry”, “main business problems”,
- data about the site visit (which documents downloaded, which webinars visited, etc.).
However, no marketing automation platform will help you [automatically] create messages that will be interesting.
When I asked Pamela Markey, senior marketing director at MECLABS, who was also on the jury and evaluated the nominees, which she liked about the winners, she replied: “They appealed to the interests of their subscribers. Marketers were able to literally "get into the skin" of their potential customers. They did not send the information that they could communicate, but what was really important for their clients. ”
An excellent example of this approach is the distribution of the company SunGard Availability Services , the winner in the category of "Connect and Integrate" (subcategory of "Lead Gen").
Data recovery after disasters, cloud solutions, managed services, IT consulting, business continuity services ... then I fell asleep. So what am I talking about?
And, yes, although all these complex IT-solutions for business are very important, they are not so interesting for the audience, such as ... oh God, the Zombie Apocalypse!
Forgetting to turn to “positions” and “business interests”, SunGard managed to create messages that are interesting for any person, which recipients willingly shared on social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. The company received about 2,000 of these censuses.
“This is a good example of how marketers can show creativity and highlight their brand in general [advertising]“ noise. ” It shows how the use of unusual topics, unusual creatives and non-standard messages can cause great interest among the audience even when you address top managers, ”writes Julie Brewer, responsible for marketing communications at SunGard Availability Services, in her application to participate in the award.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/200920/
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