Standard e-mail marketing ceased to be efficient long ago. Bursting inboxes, new filter methods, severe e-mailing rules. Proper e-mail marketing is a complex thing, where norms and assumptions are more and more brutal for an average marketer. Previously, e-mail marketing was main source of information about current events in the world. Nowadays, the lead has been taken by Facebook and Twitter. E-mail was also a method for sending files and docs – now we have Dropbox.
Over 100 billion messages of marketing nature is sent daily around the world. In the initial expectation e-mail was to serve as swift communication between particular users. Yet, the marketers, seeing wide implementation and potential of e-mails, began to use that channel to spread content of strictly commercial quality. Unfortunately, the truth is that 100 billion e-mails today is not particularly different from 100 billion yesterday. Neither from 100 billion last year… However, the main problem nowadays is not the e-mail as such itself. The trouble is the fact that we as consumers have changed. Therefore, a big challenge is a return to the roots and primal e-mail implementation, taking into account personalization methods, which suitable Marketing Automation system allow for.
The three issues that have changed
– About 51% of e-mails are willy-nilly opened automatically.
Mobile devices have become more and more popular and more and more users check their emails through them. Plenty of articles have already been written about how to suitably custom-made e-mail templates or fonts for appropriate mobile devices. However, what’s with the strategy of creating e-mail messages adapted for devices we use on the run, often while looking through the press on the train in the morning or during a lunch break? For instance we know that people who opened their e-mail messages on the mobile or tablets are much more action orientated than persons using their desktops computers. In response for such situations, solution based on target page content change appeared, through the recognition of the device used by particular user.
– Personalization above all else.
In fact, we face personalization everywhere, from specifically tailored film recommendations, through suggested restaurants to e-mail messages. The initial attempt of personalized e-mail message was the usage of contact base for message addressing, using the name of a given person. That was a big step forward and really vulnerable to errors at the same time. To be honest, that was more like a trick than real innovation. In order to really understand the needs of particular user, we should gather and interpret information drawn from multiple sources. Integration of all channels, those sales and marketing ones, will allow for holistic view of the situation, while tracking activities of a given user and leading him through all stages of a sales funnel. Merging this with a proper personalization strategy, you’ll reach really useful information from marketing perspective and hence you’ll be able to tailor you messages directly to each and every user.
– Flood of information and innovation smuggle.
Introducing innovations is not simple in a situation where our messages, with the whole bunch of others, land in separated subfolders nobody ever checks. Therefore, initially, let’s make sure that message title catches the eye of a receiver, intrigues or surprises him. Apart from that, it’s worth to put ourselves in the position of a recipient of our content and this what makes him inclined to filter new messages – e-mail headers sound like spam, aren’t tailored to their interests and don’t add anything new? How to take advantage of consumer’s mentality? Google assumes that people browsing content behave quite similarly to those, who look inside through the shop window display. This way, Google started experimenting with displayed content, similarly to Pinterest, in the form of boards to browse particular elements. How to take advantage of such knowledge? Firstly, begin with a research – get to know what the ideal time to send e-mail messages to particular persons is. Then, Marketing Automation comes handy!
Why Marketing Automation?
Comprehensive and modern Marketing Automation system allows to gather precise information about particular recipients. It will give us information on when the contact is most active (the day of the week and time of the day). Having such data, we are able to send him content tailor-made information, when the probability that he will be interested in is the highest. After that, basing on the data above, we’ll be able to easily measure conversion, basing on the number of clicks in the e-mail messages and number of redirections to particular WWW address. In turn, in further perspective, this data will serve to build appropriate strategy for client communication. According to Hubspot research, ‘State of Inbound Marketing Report 2014’, about 80% of marketers acknowledged that e-mail has become one of the most important source of new leads acquisition in the last six months.
Summary
Communication channels evolved as their usage methods changed continuously. One method requires using the other one. Contrary to what we could think, the e-mail we know is not in a stagnation phase. It’s more like the usage method ceased to be as effective as before. In order to wake the potential of this tool, we need to investigate its capabilities again, understanding modifications and habits in subscribers’ behavior at the same time.
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