multichannel.pdf

8/11/2019 multichannel.pdf

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a publication from

white paper:

The Multichannel Email Marketer


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The Multichannel Email MarketerIn 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.

a monetate white paper | 2


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Building Relationships Through DataEmail 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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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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How to Retain Existing Customers

Every email you send is a fight 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-visitedsections, abandoned carts, and search-for items

Geo-targetingto personalize content based on factors such

as nearest store locations, weather-specific offerings, and

language differences (like American vs. British English)

Additionally, focus your efforts 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 payoff: 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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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 offered 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 snippetsof 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 offer.



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A Spotlight on Gmails Grid View

Google shook up the email world again when it announced a field 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 message sand with only

subject lines to go on, it can be a challenge to quickly pick out the deals

and offers that interest you most. To help you find what youre looking

for faster, you can now sign up for a new field 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 pageon 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.

https://developers.google.com/gmail/actions/reference/offerhttps://developers.google.com/gmail/actions/reference/offerhttps://developers.google.com/gmail/actions/reference/offer


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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 trafficand 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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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 customerof 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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With the average new visitor conversion rate between 2-3%, most visitors

to your site wont convert the first 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

effective 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

offerings like discounts and sweepstakes. Consider promising email

subscribers knowledge. Its one of the most valuable assets you can provide.

Whether its brand-specific 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 first-time

visitor rejects your lead generation form at first glance, make sure you keep

that CTA clear and visible throughout their firstand recurringvisits.

Join our

mailing list

for exclusive

offers!

enter email

JOIN NOW



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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 first-time visitor to your website.

Where else can you reach your distracted customer? Anywhere they are.

Retargeting your customers with ads can be incredibly effective when done

right. Retargeted ads help increase brand awareness, drive conversions, and

send traffic back to your website, microsites, and landing pages.



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Ever buy something online only to find 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 theways 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

PREMIUMCONTENTPICKEDJUST FORYOU



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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 off, 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)

Off-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 influence 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- & Off-Site

Activity

Social

Networks



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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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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 significantly 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 different than email.

In order, social followers are interested in:

Coupons and free offers. 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 offerings, 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 infinitely richer with

customer data for relevant email marketing.

SAVINGS



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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 offers, 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 different 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 NOWSUBSCRIBE NOW



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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 effort.

The multichannel email marketer can lead that effort 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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About MonetateMonetate 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, andmeasure 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 influences 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.



19/19

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multichannel.pdf