When your e-mail program is profitable and running smoothly, don’t get complacent. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself, “Are they bored with the same old campaigns and promotions?”
Take the time to examine key measurements of your list churn and the percent of subscribers who are engaged, and work to develop fresh and compelling campaigns.
This year is a good time to really incorporate social media into your marketing. Social media and e-mail are symbiotic, so leverage the strengths of each to enhance the other. Your marketing should be all about the connections, and socializing your data unifies and integrates your disparate data sources to provide a complete customer view. This deeper understanding enables you to target your e-mail campaigns, increasing their relevancy to drive higher engagement and conversion.
Correlate e-mail metrics with other key metrics – purchase history, social buzz, Web, call center – to compile a connected view of the customer. Broadening beyond open- and click-rate metrics will paint a richer picture of e-mail performance.
Augment your connected customer view with actionable demographic/geographic data — zip codes, household income and even weather reports — to engage customers with compelling, timely and targeted offers that inspire action.
Cross-pollinate e-mail promotions with social channels by posting and tweeting about them. Enable fans and followers to subscribe directly to your e-mail from your fan page. Create Twitter campaigns featuring landing pages with special content or discounts to encourage future sharing. Identify your brand ambassadors and provide them with unique rewards.
Texting is a popular form of messaging worldwide. Smartphones have even become many customers’ primary interface. In 2011, engage your customers wherever they are located.
Rethink and then redesign your templates for smartphone users. Analyze your open metrics to understand the how, what, where and when of your mobile campaigns and know which devices are popular with customers.
Develop text messaging campaigns and leverage the immediacy and bidirectional, conversational nature of this channel to make special commute-hour offers, confirm appointments and send reminders or renewal and replenishment alerts. Use texting contests to drive growth or reengage customers.
Don’t assume your e-mail service provider’s views and click reports paint the whole picture. Look at your entire e-mail marketing funnel, from subscriber acquisition through inbox delivery to the landing page, and finally to checkout. You may be surprised that the weakest stage in your funnel wasn’t what you thought.
