The Elusive Silver Bullet
There is no way I am a conference junkie. But having listened to at least thirty industry experts extolling the virtues of their brand of e-marketing from Las Vegas to London, I think the secret of the silver bullet is finally out!
Everyone agrees that data is king. Everyone knows that they need information about their customers so that they can provide a more personal end-to-end customer experience. We know that we need to ensure that the experience is about our customers and not about our companies. We no longer manage our customers. They are managing us!
Back in the day if we upset a customer or under delivered they would tell six of their friends, oh no!! Today, they will in effect tell 60,000 people. Buyer beware has become Seller Beware!
Segmentation, personalisation, relevance and timing are critical to the success of customer e-campaigns. Truly segmented campaigns achieve a 30% higher open rate and 50% higher click throughs. Conversely if you are irrelevant, boring and too frequent thousands will unsubscribe. A recent survey revealed that up to 49% of those questioned said that their main reason for hitting unsubscribe was boredom. 54% was frequency.
Apparently the average attention span of a goldfish is 8 seconds. The average attention span of an Internet or email viewer could potentially be measured in the blink of an eye! So if most of your emails are poorly segmented, impersonal, irrelevant and poorly timed…… well, you get the point!?
I happen to like playing the guitar. If the Fender Guitar Company was to send me an email with a dynamic subject line like “Hi Keith, play guitar with Clapton”. There is absolutely no doubt that I would open it. At LAW Creative we have seen open rates for one particular client who was interacting with classic car fans of 47% on a regular basis over hundreds of thousands of emails. The subject lines were dynamic and the content was well targeted and relevant.
It’s easy isn’t it? But in truth every aspect of email marketing is a subject in itself! The thing is that everyone of us knows that personalisation and real customer engagement will ensure our success…. but most of us don’t do it…
The fact is that for many companies’ data capture is still in the dark ages. Most companies just don’t know who we really are, what we like or what we want them to do for us. But they will. They will, because even though the best data analysts are still at a premium, more and more companies are employing the people and tools to drive their businesses into the new world. We all understand that the trading landscape has changed dramatically and we are determined to change with it… If we can!
Just think, Thermostats are Nests, Radios are Spotify, Cable TV is Netflix, Stores are Amazon, Books are Kindles, Pins are Fingerprints, and People are Digital Natives. All the marketeers out there know what they need to do and there are plenty of experts willing and able to work with them to achieve their goals. But the elusive silver bullet isn’t what we know. It’s knowing what to do with what we know!
And if the elusive silver bullet does exist for marketeers then it is surely forged using a compound of an innovative and intelligent fully integrated marketing strategy with data capture and analysis, leading edge technology and relevant creativity. And this cast into the very heart and soul of our companies. So that at every single touch point customers’ will not only ‘like’ you but they will want you – because, they feel that you know them, what they want and what they need. And they will love you for it.
LAW Creative is a registered partner of Copernica Marketing Software. Copernica is an international developer of powerful marketing software with over 3,500 users. If you would like to discuss how we can forge strategy, data, technology and creativity into a potent e-marketing plan on behalf of your business please contact brett.sammels@lawcreative.co.uk
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