Smarthome selects Silverpop for e-mail
Smarthome, an e-commerce site owned by SmartLabs Inc. that sells electronic products for the home, has selected Silverpop for its e-mail marketing program.The selection comes after a six-month process in which Smarthome analyzed seven different e-mail service providers and their capabilities.
“Silverpop let us use their program while they were watching so that our team could get a feel for their product,” said Mike Scharnagl, director of marketing at Smarthome. “They are very cutting-edge in terms of the different things that you can do with your e-mails.”
Smarthome is already using Silverpop's segmenting capabilities and plans to use this even more once their data has been centralized.
“For an e-commerce company it is very important for us to send relevant e-mail to customers,” said Scharnagl. “So if somebody buys a pet product, I may not want to send them something related to a Bose Entertainment System.”
Smarthome plans to get more granular about its segmenting. For example, Scharnagl said that they can now create a pet focused e-mail and segment this e-mail by dog and cat owners. In the past, the e-commerce store had often just created two separate e-mails for this.
Smarthome is also beginning a new program in which it will send e-mails to customers 30 days after a purchase. This e-mail will check in on the customer's experience with the purchase, as well as advertise related products for sale. So a person who bought a mechanical kitty litter box might see marketing messages about other cat products.
The company also is in the process of working with Silverpop on cleaning its list. In addition, Smarthome also plans to use Silverpop's Share-to-Social feature, which helps customers recommend products and share special offers within their favorite social networks.
Ultimately the goal of the new e-mail relationship is to send less e-mail, while increasing revenue, said Scharnagl.
“We are making sure that we are only sending e-mails to people that want them, and making sure that the content is relevant which increases response rates,” added Scharnagl.
