Is email in your top-three referral channels for this year? If not, you may want to consider your current E-Commerce Strategy. Email is not dead, but the way we’ve been doing it in the past decade has evolved. Blasting contacts with impersonal messaging has led to low engagement for some Email Marketers. Low engagement means most recipients don’t see offers because they aren’t even opening emails.
What can be done to ensure your Email Marketing is a top performer in your Digital Suite?
1. PERSONALIZATION THROUGH SEGMENTATION
This is two-fold. First, make sure your campaign Subject and Snippet are warm and welcoming. This may mean the use of Emojis or alternate characters in the Subject if appropriate, and above all, make sure your message resonates with the target Segment.
Second, you must hone in on customer interests to ensure your message is on-point. The easiest way to segment Outdoor and Bike is to start with Activities (Interests). For many brands, this exercise itself can be parsed much further down to very detailed segments from a single parent category. Running for example is a broad activity descriptor that can be narrowed down to multiple segments: marathoners, cause runners, track, trail, ultra, etc.
Many Enterprise Brands selling online run 80-100 segments of Email subscribers in a year. A recent Case Study by Klaviyo featuring Taylor Stitch’s Email Segmentation Strategy recounts their team effort to stand up 40-60 Segments a month.
2. EMAIL COMPLIANCE
When GDPR was introduced, it scared many marketers who thought that Email would die if they had to “Have Permission” to Email prospects. At CrankTank, we saw opportunity in having improved compliance and better user data by ‘scrubbing’ lists and obtaining more opt-in information. We started segmenting by Activity right at the opt-in form where we asked for consent to marketing and custom advertising. This meant our new contacts would be INTERESTED in getting interest based messages from us. We started using this data in a more meaningful way and offering Strategy to use these Enhanced Customer Insights.
As of January 1, 2020 the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) has brought GDPR level organization of personal data obligations for Brands stateside. California is one of the strongest Consumer Markets in the US, so compliance for companies here is of the utmost importance.
3. DESIGN AND CONTENT
Mobile-First design has to be the priority. Now that we have the majority of checkouts happening on mobile devices, we have to think about the organization of Content, Messaging and Response to our Emails on Mobile. Pro Tip: Stop leaving the ‘view email in browser’ text at the top of your design and leaving the Snippet empty! Think about making click worthy content in the design. The goal of Email Marketing is to get people onto the website, opening and reading isn’t enough. The value of ‘Click Rate’ or ‘Site Visitors’ is a crucial metric because it doesn’t matter how many people opened the Email if they didn’t take any action.
4. GET A BETTER ESP
CrankTank uses Klaviyo because we value highly the Customer Insights that we can use for Segmentation. We also value their GDPR / CCPA compliant forms for Customer Acquisition and the ease with which we can manage customer data. When a CCPA inquiry comes to CrankTank, we’re able to provide customers with the data we have stored in their Profile, and subsequently DELETE all data and update preferences upon request.
Since points 1. and 2. above are top priorities, having the technology in your Stack to accommodate these needs is paramount to success.