customer engagement Archives - Page 3 of 3

Have you ever looked into how many of your email list ‘never’ open your emails?

From our experience it can be anything from 40% to 70% of your list that do not open any of your emails, in many cases for 6 months.
So what can you do with this massive potential goldmine? Here are the options:

Do nothing

It takes time and effort to alter your strategy so even if these people are inactive and costing you money it might cost you more money to change your strategy.

And what if they come back to you in the future? Perhaps now is just not the right time for them.

Bin them

An alternative approach is to take them out of your list. It costs money to send to these people and out of all of your subscribers these are the most likely to report your email as spam.

There is a chance that these inactive subscribers will start responding, so it might be appropriate to keep them on the list, and perhaps just send to them less frequently.

My rule of thumb is this – if your emails are for frequent purchases, take the subscriber out – they are clearly not engaged. If however your offering is a seasonal purchase (Holidays, insurance or even tied to annual events such as Christmas or Valentines) then it is a different scenario, so keep sending but introduce triggered messages around key dates associated with the purchase (anniversary of purchase, renewal, welcome home from holiday) rather than focussing on generic one size fits all newsletters every week of the year.

Change approach

Just changing your style will reactivate people.

Instead of sending a long newsletter, try a simple ‘sorry we missed you’ message, discount voucher or even just change the ‘from’ name.

No matter what you change only a small amount of inactive subscribers will open your message – it’s always difficult to get subscribers back once they have disengaged from your email.

But if disengaged subscribers make up 50% of your list then the numbers should stack up to make your efforts worthwhile.

Of course prevention is better than cure. Perhaps a more important question should be what do we do to stop subscribers disengaging in the first place, but that is a topic for a different blog post.

Email marketing is rapidly evolving with marketers always on the look out for new innovative ways to improve their email campaign’s performance.

Statistics show that 51% of British consumers are more likely to respond positively to brand communications that deliver real-time information relating to their interests . It therefore comes as no surprise that dynamic content has become increasingly popular over recent years, helping email marketers provide their subscribers with relevant and engaging content.

Dynamic content provides marketers with the ability to send one email to their subscribers which contains different content depending on the recipients preferences, history or behaviour. This can be applied at different levels, starting by simply tailoring your email to include the recipients first name and information based around their location. To put this into context, would a restaurant chain want all their subscribers in Manchester to receive all the latest restaurant offers in London?

Probably not…

But they are likely to want to receive restaurant offers near to them in Manchester. Sounds fairly simple right? So why not take it one step further?

Say, for argument sake, that you’re a holiday provider, the same rules apply – you want to ensure that your recipients receive emails that are relevant to them. Dynamic content can be used to pull through data from your product tables relating to previous bookings the customer has made or holidays they have browsed in the past. In this instance, the dynamic content may include images of previous destinations to muster up memories for the recipient, or perhaps display a selection of suggested holidays which may be relevant to the subscriber. Provide this content with a logical and personalised subject line and introduction and you have the basis for a strong email campaign with high potential to engage the customer.

These are just some examples of how you can begin to implement dynamic content within your campaign, we are always looking for new opportunities to explore the power of dynamic content.
Just in case you’re still not convinced, here are some of the perks you can expect to see after applying dynamic content to your email campaigns:

Customer engagement

Your recipients want to be, and expect to be engaged… How many emails have you received today which you have automatically discarded from your inbox or ignored? Probably quite a few, and the reason behind this is more than likely because you weren’t engaged or interested in the content that was delivered to you. Or in other words, the content wasn’t relevant enough.

Customer loyalty

Get to know your customer, and they will get to know you. The more data you hold about your recipients, the easier it will become to make your subscribers feel unique and engaged. When customers receive emails tailored to their interests and demographics they begin to feel as though you know them, making them become more attached to your brand. The use of a preference centre is useful here, allowing recipients to update you with their preferences.

Improved subscriber experience

Relevant content will provide a better experience for the subscriber and therefore offer them a better experience with your brand. People are crying out for relevant content, with 25% of consumers willing to give up chocolate for a month just to receive relevant content!

Increased conversions

Sending highly relevant and targeted email campaigns can dramatically increase campaign performance. Dynamic content provides targeted marketing which is likely to yield significantly better results with, relevant emails driving 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails (Jupiter Research).

Avoid disappointment for you and your Customers

With dynamic content becoming increasingly popular, email recipients are now expecting content to be relevant to them. If your email isn’t, you’re putting your campaign at risk and increasing the chances of your recipient discarding your email from their inbox straight away.
So whats stopping you? With 80% of marketers defining dynamic personalisation in email as highly important (Adobe and DMA), it’s becoming more and more essential to implement dynamic content into your email campaigns. Your email content should always offer value to your subscribers, and knowing their needs and preferences will enable you to provide them with the content they desire. For more information about maximising your email campaign performance through dynamic content, get in touch with one of our experts today.