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Integrated Email Marketing part 2 - Pros of personalize content and vouchers for improved customer retention

DynamicWeb

Personalized emails are capable of increasing transaction rates and revenue per email six times higher than non-personalized emails.

According to a study performed by Experian Marketing Services, personalized emails are capable of increasing transaction rates and revenue per email six times higher than non-personalized emails. Experian also claim that personalized promotional mailings has 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher unique click rates.

The numbers clearly argue in favor of personalized emails as an engaging marketing strategy capable of increasing and retaining your customers. However, the Experian survey also revealed that the majority of companies included in the study collects customer data, but 70% fails to utilize the data for personalizing their emails.

One of the reasons is complexity caused by the lack of integration between their ecommerce and email marketing system. The other reason is the lack of knowledge and inspiration on how to utilize customer data for email personalization.

Here is an example from OpenTable, a company offering online restaurant reservation, which uses personalization to provide a great mix of interesting stats that tell a nostalgic story tailored to the user’s experiences in 2012.

It features some of the restaurants the user went to, while promoting the value of using OpenTable by showing the amount of points accumulated.

The best part is the alignment between the use of personalized data and call-to-actions, which encourages the users to make more reservations in order to improve their personal stats! The full edition of the email also includes recommendations to nearby top-rated restaurants matching the users’ own favorite foods. It is a great example of how to collect and utilize customer data to retain customers and drive more sales by profiling users on behalf of their behavior and preferences.

Looking at your own ecommerce email marketing approach, how do you personalize your content? Are you using some of the same methods as in the example above, or are you still sticking to the one-size fits all? If so, try to consider your own inbox preferences for a minute. We can probably agree that personalized and targeted content has a much stronger appeal.

Use vouchers for improved customer retention

As an email marketer, you have probably heard of customer retention emails, which essentially means; we want you back!

Retention campaigns represent one of the highest ROI opportunities in digital marketing at a notably small cost. Analysis by Experian Marketing Services show that past buyers open, click and transact at much higher rates compared to non-buyers. In fact, transaction rates for buyers are almost double compared to non-buyers.

Marketers can use a variety of retention methods to ensure their brand stands out. Sending inactive customers an enticing voucher after three months, is a strategy employed by many brands that has seen a lot of success. All you have to do is to determine the triggers, and then let automation handle the rest of the sales cycle:

If you are not using vouchers – either because your ecommerce email marketing setup do not support it, or because you are depending on technical assistance to get it up and running, then you are probably missing out on a +5% revenue improvement. Here is a Dynamicweb customer case that demonstrates how:

Experience from current Dynamicweb customer cases show that a simple way to reactivate is to create a trigger three months after the customers’ last purchases with a 10 % discount voucher. The campaign should then be repeated until the customer completes a new purchase, and then started all over again. The goal is to implement and automate the sales cycle as illustrated above to make sure that customers are continuously reminded of your products and offerings. So when your customers are ready to purchase, then your shop will be top-of-mind.

It is easy to get started if you have the right ecommerce email marketing setup. You only have to decide on the triggers and values of the vouchers – the rest is handled automatically. That means you can generate additional sales and improve customer retention without having to compromise your current business processes.

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