Introduction

To continue our topic, while SEO & social media are important for lead generation to eCommerce stores and landing pages, Email marketing and its growing flexiblity of triggered personalized offers, automation and predictive analytics is set to grow and is still the most immediately personal channel. As much time as we spend on social media, Email is often still the first & most enduring point of contact with brands we like & follow.

6. Personalize and improve the BI of your Segments

A study by the email service provider MailChimp found that sending segmented, promotional emails to specific list segments increased open rates by 14 percent and improved click-through-rates by approximately 15 percent, However, the next generation of segmentation is a one-to-one relationship that is enabled by predictive analytics.

Segmentation = Good                                            Predictive Analytics Marketing Automation Integration = Better 

The trick is finding the real-time predictive analytics machine-learning SaaS that can integrate with your ESP or any ESP that can be “upgraded” to have these features included. The idea is to match 

How-To: 

Find a way to intelligently segement your customers and prospects by demographic, behavorial, sales or product-based data and linking your products or services offered to each group. This idea is to not only get prospects further down the funnel, but increase the retention and loyalty of existing customers.

7. Personalize the Content to the Person 

In 2015, we as consumers expect personalization. Aberdeen Group reports that personalization improves click-through-rates by 14 percent and conversion rates by 10 percent. Typically the subject lines and calls-to-action CTAs will be customized to the segement at the very least. With predictive analytics you want your automated marketing platform to be able to do this in real-time.

Using the analytics of your segemented Campaigns, you will also be able to see which content and content stratgies worked the best, so you can further personalize this.

How-To:

Evaluate what platform the recipient viewed the Email on, and make sure to adjust your content accordingly. For mobile devices visual content and video is more important. This will require a lot of A/B Testing, meticulous attention to your baselines per segment and continual tweaking of the content strategy of your Campaigns, promotions, special offers, etc….

8. Hybrid Omni-Channel Automation 

Introduce an AI component to your lead nurturing via Email marketing. Your Marketing director can manage important promotions directly, while your automated marketing platform, such as eFlyerMaker, can:

• Send offers linking products to the right people via their behavioral data & history
• Shopping cart reminder
• Reminders based on search history
• Cross-sell emails
• On their gamification participation

How-To: 

Choose a Marketing Automation Platform whose features matches the needs type of business and existing marketing  activities.

9. Go Visual 

First impressions are everything and video and visual content is more engaging to mobile users and is sharply on the rise. With responsive design comes the need to test your visuals on ever device and with every Email browser and Web Browser. Creating an effective customer journey as part of your brand and image campaigns is increasingly involving intelligent story-telling that is best encapsulated in videos, images, specials, info-graphics, etc…

How-To: 

If your marketing team doesn’t have the required expertise, don’t hesitate to hire a graphic designer, video editor, effects editors etc to help boost your visual content strategy. Considering having product videos, instead of just product images. The same for video testimonials and encourage user generated youtube or pinterest reviews if you are in retail.

10. Triggered Templates 

For eCommerce it’s important to have really good copywriting on your triggered messages such as the following. Note that for these you’ll want some funnel messages as well as some loyalty/retention type automated promotional E-messages.

• Abandon Cart Reminder (within 30 minutes)
• Coupon (with expiration the next day)
• Confirmation of Purchase (a thank you note with resources to new products, blog posts, social media, etc…)
• Retention Dormancy Promotions (depends on product type, at least 90 days of dormancy)
• Gamification Rewards (e.g. reaches $ amount spent, reaches a certain number of purchases or other criteria e.g., a certain rank in customer rankings for their area, amount of time spent on their virtual store or custom mobile app).
• For their Birthday, anniverary or other special events known in the customer’s lifecycle (e.g. been a customer for 1 year, etc…)

The ability to craft tailored messages for triggered automation is important to give triggered Emails more humanity & authenticity and enough credibility to increase conversions.

I hope you enjoyed this installment of the hints. In the meantime, let’s keep shopping online and witness together the evolution of Ecommerce and Email Marketing.