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The Multichannel Email Marketer
The Multichannel Email Marketer
The Multichannel Email Marketer
In the age of the empowered customer, email marketers have to stop
thinking of email as a single channel focused solely on retention.
Sure, that might be part of the job description, but campaigns that focus
on using email for retention leave serious money on the table. The real
opportunities exist in deepening existing relationships and in acquiring
new customers across channels.
The tactic is the same for both customer acquisition and customer
retention: deliver the right message at the right time.
For todays email marketer, that means working closely with others in the
organization to coordinate email messages across all digital channels,
including the:
Existing email program
Organizations website
Retargeted ad programs
Social channels
Inside, well explore how email marketers can work with stakeholders for
each of these channels to increase acquisition and retention rates.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
Building Relationships Through Data
Email programs shouldnt just be about running campaigns or sending
messages. They need to be part of a larger customer-centric strategy.
To act on that strategy, work closely with colleagues who have access to
the data you need to create personalized, relevant, and valuable messages.
Those colleagues include your customer relationship management system
administrators, data analysts, social media coordinators, online marketing
managers, and demand generation managers.
The more you can collaborate with them to form a whole picture of your
customer, the more you can shape those relationship-building messages.
As you look for technology to help you through this process, look for a
solution that seamlessly delivers all your data into a single dashboard. To
do this, you may need to enhance your existing ESP with a cloud-based
solution that provides you the ability to serve up dynamic content at the
time a recipient opens an email.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
Your Existing Email Program
It should go without saying that, as an email marketer, your existing email
program is your bread and butter. But heres the problem: most email programs
arent scalable. Not to the scale youre being asked to deliver.
To increase results, marketers end up sending more emails. With some customers
balking at heightened email frequency, though, marketers need another approach.
Instead of focusing on sending more emails, focus on sending more relevant emails.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Retain Existing Customers
Every email you send is a ght to stay relevant. Fail, and your customers will
either unsubscribe from your list or, worse, emotionally unsubscribe from
your list (in other words, ignore your message but not bother to opt-out).
Of those customers who unsubscribe, 35% will say they received too
many emails; another 25% will say the emails they received werent
relevant enough. Largely, marketers recognize this issue41% admit that
the emails they send arent personalized to their customers.
So how do you elevate your email marketing program to surpass that of
your peers and keep your customers engaged?
Start by serving dynamic, open-time content based on:
Customer history, such as recent purchases,
returned items, and size and color preference
Website browsing actions, including most-visited
sections, abandoned carts, and search-for items
Geo-targeting to personalize content based on factors such
as nearest store locations, weather-specic oferings, and
language diferences (like American vs. British English)
Additionally, focus your eforts on creating personal connections in your
email marketing program by triggering emails from an account managers
email address (or a customers other point of contact at your company)
and optimizing your landing pages (more on this later).
These changes will get you closer to those relevant email experiences your
customers are demanding. Implement them, and youll see a payof: 82% of
your retail customers who subscribe to your email list say theyd be willing
to buy more from you if the emails they received were more personalized.
Customer
History
Browsing
Actions
Location
Targeting
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Acquire New Customers
Email isnt just for retaining customers. Its also for acquiring new ones.
Long a feature of B2B email service providers, the forward to a friend
function has historically ofered email marketers an opportunity to have
their existing subscriber base do some acquisition work for them.
And it makes sense.
Forward-to-a-friend capabilities not only expand the reach of your email,
they also deliver your email to a recipient with an endorsement from a
person they knowalways a powerful impact. In the past few years,
however, the forward-to-a-friend function has grown up a bit.
Now, you can ask subscribers to do more than share your email via email.
You can ask subscribers to take to social media to spread your message
and recruit new subscribers. Here are a two ideas you can roll out now:
Provide a way for email recipients to share snippets
of your content. That might be a Pin This button on
your email images or a Tweet This link next to a key
takeaway in the email version of your blog post.
Use a referral-based email campaign to drive new leads.
Your subscribers should get value, like an exclusive piece of
content or a shopping credit, for sending people your way.
Your landing page experiences, though, should be tailored to greet those
individuals who click the shared link with an email sign-up ofer.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
A Spotlight on Gmails Grid View
Google shook up the email world again when it announced a eld test of grid
view, a new Pinterest-like view for Gmails Promotions tab.
Heres the value proposition, for Gmail users, straight from Google:
Promotional mail has a lot of images, from pictures of snazzy new shoes
to photos of that rock-climbing gym youve been wanting to try. But
right now, those images are buried inside your messagesand with only
subject lines to go on, it can be a challenge to quickly pick out the deals
and ofers that interest you most. To help you nd what youre looking
for faster, you can now sign up for a new eld trial for Gmail that lets you
view the Promotions tab in a more visual way.
The change highlights the growing trend of a visual webone where images
capture more immediate attention than words. Google is using an algorithm to
predict which image it should promote to its grid view, but you can also use
markup to let Google know which image you want to use.
If you go that route, youll want to check out this page on the Google Developers
site. Its got some essential information, like asset sizes and code lines.
Youll still need a subject line, of course, and Google recommends you keep
that to 75 characters or less.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
The Organizations Website
Your website is your hub.
Other channels may be the trend du jour for customer retention and customer acquisition,
but your website is is the place where youre actually collecting customer data.
When you join conversations with your website team colleagues, be the voice
of customer experience. Your email program drives trafcand acquires new
subscribersfrom the site. Make sure youre coordinating to deliver a consistent
experience to those individuals who are engaging on both properties.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Retain Existing Customers
Presumably, the last thing you want in an email campaign is to have your
customer read your email and delete it. In fact, your desired result is
probably to have your customer click right on through to your website.
If thats the case, message consistency is key to retaining customers and
increasing conversions.
That may mean building dedicated landing pages to focus a customers
attention. Or it might simply mean maintaining the scent trail from your
email message to your website by using a banner image to greet your
visitor. To fully carry through the message, dont just reuse content. Focus
on these three additional factors, as well:
Colors. Use the same color on your email hero image
and landing page hero image to create an easy visual
cue. Doing so will help keep your customer focused.
Fonts. Like colors, a familiar font will remind your customer
of why theyve clicked through. If youre hero text was sans
serif, for example, stay with sans serif on the landing page.
The consistency will eliminate possible any confusion.
Themes. From email to landing page, your
message shouldnt change muchif at all. Keep
the call to action clear and similar to push your
customer further down their intended path.
By taking these steps, youll avoid giving your customers the feeling theyve
been tricked by a bait and switch tactic. Thats good for immediate
conversions and long-term loyalty.
NEW ITEMS
SALE
NEW ITEMS
SALE
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Acquire New Customers
With the average new visitor conversion rate between 2-3%, most visitors
to your site wont convert the rst time around. But if you can get that visitor
to give you his or her email address, you have something thats similarly
valuable: the ability to stay top of mind until he or she is ready to buy.
And since your website is likely your hub for lead generation, this
acquisition channel should be as important to email marketers as it is to
the website team.
When youre meeting with those colleagues on the website team, here
are two overarching considerations you need to discuss when planning an
efective email acquisition campaign:
The format of your sign-up feature
The incentives you use to inspire action
And if youre going to ask your website visitor for his or her email address,
dont be shy. Place your request in a prominent place, use a lightbox, or
a slide-up request. Also, your incentives dont need to be limited to value
oferings like discounts and sweepstakes. Consider promising email
subscribers knowledge. Its one of the most valuable assets you can provide.
Whether its brand-specic updates from retailers or notices of new,
original contentlike eBooks, white papers and webinarsfrom B2B
organizations, customers value staying in the know. Even if your rst-time
visitor rejects your lead generation form at rst glance, make sure you keep
that CTA clear and visible throughout their rstand recurringvisits.
Join our
mailing list
for exclusive
ofers!
enter email
JOIN NOW
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
Retargeted Ad Programs
Every day, your email is competing for your customers attention. And every day, your
website team has less than 8 seconds to woo a rst-time visitor to your website.
Where else can you reach your distracted customer? Anywhere they are.
Retargeting your customers with ads can be incredibly efective when done
right. Retargeted ads help increase brand awareness, drive conversions, and
send trafc back to your website, microsites, and landing pages.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Retain Existing Customers
Ever buy something online only to nd an ad for that product following
you around for a week after? Weve all encountered it, and it leaves the
lingering impression that the vendor doesnt know use as a customer.
If youre looking to build a retargeting ad program that retains customers,
you need to build a program that is focused on the customer, not the
desired action. In other words, build a program thats helpful:
Segment your ad targets similarly to the
ways you segment your email lists
Think about ways to complete the bigger picture
Be persistent, but dont be invasive
As an example, if your organization embraces content marketing, upsell
your content. A customer may be in a nurture track and click through
an email to read a blog post, but then leave your site. In doing so, that
customer ignored your additional premium content on the post topic. If
that happens, notice it and retarget that visitor with an ad for your ebook
on the same topic.
Its a subtle upsell, provides value to your customer, and deepens your
relationship with that customer.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT!
ADVERTISEMENT!
AD
AD
AD
AD
AD
AD
AD
PREMIUM
CONTENT
PICKED
JUST FOR
YOU
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Acquire New Customers
Just because your customer hasnt provided you with his or her email
address, it doesnt mean they havent interacted with you in some way.
Whether that interaction was on-site or of, you can retarget those
individuals with relevant ads and drive them to landing pages with lead
generation forms to get them into your funnel.
Data at your disposal includes:
Search terms
On-site actions (and non-actions)
Of-site actions
Social networks connections
There are dozens of ways to use the data. Customers who visit a product
detail page, but dont purchase, for example, can be retargeted with
ads featuring the product. Its a common tactic, but there are creative,
attention-grabbing ways to use the strategy.
A couple years ago, for example, Sonos, the wireless speaker manufacturer,
retargeted prospective customers who visited its website, but hadnt
purchased a speaker, with an ad that read Google Sonos Reviews. Tada.
For a user who clicked, the ad redirected the prospective customer to
the product review page for the product he or she last viewed. And for a
prospective customer who did as the ad suggested? Well, the marketers at
Sonos had done their SEO research; those web pages that hit Google Page
1 were all overwhelmingly positive reviews.
The ad nicely paired the prospective customers on-site behavior with
online reviews, a factor known to inuence purchases. And it did so in a
matter-of-fact, were helping you tone.
As you think through your retargeting program from email acquisition
perspective, think about how you can turn a normal approach on its side to
gain your prospects attention and reassure them that the purchase theyre
considering making is the right one.
Search
Terms
On- & Of-Site
Activity
Social
Networks
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
Social Channels
Perhaps no other channels are as complementary to the email marketers
goals as social channels. And thats fairly ironic, given the frequent
pronouncements that social is going to be the demise of email.
Those pronouncements, though, are far from reality.
While brands can use email marketing to create a conversation with customers
over time, social can help a brand create a conversation with customers
in the moment. Given that synergy, its practically a requirement now for
email marketers be in-tune with what their social team is doing.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Retain Existing Customers
Depending on your industry, your average open rate is anywhere from 13
to 30%. That means most of your customers, on any given day, are not
reading your email, much less taking the action youre asking of them.
Social has changed outbound messaging so signicantly that, if youre not
coordinating your messaging to your email audience there, youre missing
out. This is easier now that Twitter and Facebook have rolled out their
Tailored Audiences and Custom Audiences programs, which both allow
you to upload existing email lists for targeted advertising.
While youre working with your social teams, though, remember that a
customers motivation for engaging on social media are diferent than email.
In order, social followers are interested in:
Coupons and free ofers. Unsurprisingly, customers want
to know whats in it for themwhat type of savings are you
going to pass along to your most engaged customers?
Customer service. Customers are also interested in
having their problems solved without dialing a number,
being put on hold, and working through an issue with a
customer service representative. Theyre turning to the
immediacy of social to help them skip that process.
Feedback. Customers who follow brands on social media
often want to voice their opinions of a companys product
and oferings, and know that their voice is being heard.
Having data on your customers social activities helps you build a social
CRMthe next-generation customer database thats innitely richer with
customer data for relevant email marketing.
SAVINGS
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
How to Acquire New Customers
You know whats next on that list of customer motivations for engaging
with a brand on social media? Content.
After getting free deals and letting their voices be heard, customers are
interested in being entertained and educated. As an email marketer, you
can acquire new subscribers by leveraging your social teams understanding
of what resonates on each channel and creating sharable campaigns with
email sign-up CTAs.
Certain channels also have marketer-friendly tools for email collection
(Twitter Card, for example, eliminates the traditional lead generation
form and pre-populate a users name, email address and Twitter handle).
Use these tools to trade your most sought-after content, best ofers, and
entries into promotional giveaways for email address.
But remember: For new customer acquisition, social should be regarded
as a very top of funnel tool. Your KPIs should be diferent from other
acquisition channels and youll need to use the other aspects of this white
paper to help nurture the relationship with that new contact, and then
convert him or her to a paying customer.
SUBSCRIBE NOW SUBSCRIBE NOW
SUBSCRIBE NOW SUBSCRIBE NOW
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
Wrapping Up
Today, customer retention and customer acquisition cant happen in the vacuum of the
email marketers role and responsibility. It needs to be a larger organization efort.
The multichannel email marketer can lead that efort by coordinating with
colleagues from various departments, including web, social, and advertising.
The more you can collaborate with them to form a whole picture of your
customer, the more you can shape those relationship-building messages.
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The Multichannel Email Marketer
About Monetate
Monetate is the global leader in cloud-based testing, email optimization
and in-the-moment personalization software that empowers marketers to
create, deliver and measure personalized marketing campaigns across all
touchpointsat scale.
Customers use Monetates solutions to identify important customer
segments, target them with dynamic digital marketing campaigns, and
measure the results of those campaignsin real time within a single easy-
to-use interface.
Monetate is used by the worlds leading brands to grow revenue faster
by delivering better digital experiences for their customers around the
globe. Founded in 2008, Monetate inuences billions of dollars in revenue
every year for world-class companies like Patagonia, Best Buy, National
Geographic, QVC, Celebrity Cruises, and hundreds of other market leaders.
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