Email marketing is entering a new era
Nowadays, consumers receive innumerable promotional messages via a wide range of channels (such as email, social media and mobile marketing). To avoid customer apathy, email marketing needs to be reinvented in order to create value and engage recipients. Email campaigns used to be sent to as many recipients as possible, screaming out how great the company and the products are. To face the new reality, email marketing needs to evolve to: a personalized 1:1 communication, part of a multichannel marketing strategy, focusing on the recipients’ preferences.
Personalized 1:1 communication
To build a personal relationship with your recipient, you need to capture and use customer data, create preference centers where recipients can choose what they would like to receive, and how often they would like to hear from you. Segment your list, using all data you have (name, products bought, interests etc.).
Integrated channel
Upcoming new channels are snatching away an important share of online communication and will probably grow in the future as well. Email marketing is therefore part of a wider multi channel reality. Use the different media and use them correctly.
Focus on recipient’s preferences.
Focusing on the recipients’ preferences is not only taking into consideration the captured customer data. It also refers to the way recipients want to be approached. This is not only an imperative to engage your customers, it is also a quick win. Knowing the best way of approaching your recipients will directly influence the click-through rate. The question is: how exactly do we identify how our customers want to be approached? After all… We have no crystal ball. So we’d better start testing!
Testing
A new innovative way of testing which content and presentation generates most conversion is MVT&O (multivariate testing and optimization). This method allows to optimize in real time the content and presentation of email campaigns based on the recipient’s preferences. Find out more.
These are just some thoughts on the future of email marketing, feel free to add your ideas and opinions to it!
Maïté
