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Email Relevancy
I recently attended a two-day summit on Email Marketing sponsored by my email service provider: Listrak. I listened to some of the nation’s leading experts in email marketing. One message came through loud and clear:
You must be relevant to your customers.
This is true for other media, such as direct mail. Technology gives you the power to engage in a one-on-one conversation with your audiences—and they’ve come to expect it. Gone are the days of the one-size-fits-all blast emails. Study after study has shown the importance of sending personalized messages that serves up ONLY what that one specific individual wants. The challenge lies in developing a highly-segmented, rigorously-managed database.
Companies often lack the time and talent to effectively create such a database. This expertise can be easily out-sourced. The average email recipient will hit “delete” within seconds if they don’t see something that is relevant to their needs, wants and desires. A print ad or direct mail piece always has a chance to be re-read. But a deleted email is essentially gone forever. Here are some tips to help you stay relevant:
- Frequency choices: allow your recipients to choose how frequently they receive your emails. Everyone appreciates being given a choice.
- Click behavior: look at the pages each recipient clicked to, and tailor your future messages to them based on the interest they demonstrated by their behavior.
- Geography: tailor your message based on where they live. Listrak, for example, provides a geo-tracking feature if you don’t already have the recipient’s hometown location.
- Dropdown or radio button selections: on your email sign-up page, make it easy for them to provide details on their preferences. This includes frequency of emails, HTML vs. text, length of time before buying decision, current use of a competitor’s product, and more. The less they must key in, the more willing they will be to surrender information about their preferences.
- “Welcome” emails: if they take the time to subscribe, surely you can take the time to say “thanks!” This can be easily automated. Make the thank you relevant with content that aligns with their profile.
- Two-way personalization: even if you successfully personalize your email (“Dear Ms. Smith”) you should also sign the email from a real person, including the “from” address. Keep the tone conversational, and include contact information for the individual (avoid “info@”). This is especially important if the recipient deals with a specific sales rep or CSR. The email must be from THEM.
- Surveys: these can not only provide valuable market data, but allows you to ask for additional information from your audiences. Even if someone has been on your list for some time, they may have changed positions at their company, and can provide additional contact info for other decision-makers and influencers.
- Readability: many B2B recipients now use handheld devices such as Blackberrys to check email. If you are sending HTML-only emails, much of the content will be lost. Be sure to send both text and HTML versions of the same email. Keep you key offer “above the fold”, and place descriptive “ALT Text” in your images. Most email programs block images, so be certain the text that is displayed says who it’s from and what it is.
- Relevant graphics: most email service providers offer dynamic profiling tools to build a relevant email design based on the recipient’s profile data. For example, if a recipient’s zip code indicates they live in an urban area, drop in images that reflect that environment.
- Keep it simple: don’t try to overload your email with too many offers or too many links. If your message appears confusing or too time consuming, they’ll hit delete. Bite-sized pieces are easier to swallow than serving up a big buffet. Provide a clear call-to-action.
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