April 03 2016
I just listened to an amazing webinar on e-mail marketing. It featured Nate Johnson from Realtor.com (very smart) and great tips on personalizing your email marketing (also very smart).
What were some of the key takeaways?
According to the survey behind this webinar, e-mail has a 246% return on investment for midsize companies. Those are some strong numbers. Because over half of people look at their email at least six times a day, you can get in front of targets effectively through email.
Email is a dominant channel for most marketers. Everyone in the survey is spending more time, resources, energy, and effort on email and seeing bigger returns year-over-year.
"I get really excited about email. I've seen how effective it can be as a marketer and a product executive," said Johnson.
The number of vendors and services willing to help marketers with e-mail marketing is growing.
The most exciting segment to emerge from email marketing is personalization. There are some fascinating things happening in this space, including personalization based on real time, location, device, funnel stage, even weather! If you're REI, as an example, you don't want to send a promotion on winter boots to an area that's experiencing a heat wave.
"The innovation in this area is really fascinating," said Johnson. This trend will make email an even more personal experience.
Where you can go with personalization is exciting, but if you're looking to implement it in the short term, there are easy (and extremely effective) things you can do immediately.
Level One – Personalize your greeting and subject lines
This is easy to do and will significantly boost engagement. In their survey, they saw a 40% lift in open rates just by personalizing the subject line. Clicks also improve.
Level Two – Trigger Based Actions
Personalize the email you send based on the actions your customers or visitors have taken. Let them take the lead in telling you what they'd like to see. You're more likely to get a better reaction to your communication this way.
Level Three – Create dynamic content based on location or time of open
Dynamic content that knows what type of device your audience is using to read the email, where they are, what time of day it is, etc. and then personalizes the message based on that data.
In real estate, this can be very location-specific. "We are very geography specific – area and neighborhood specific," Johnson said. "We have a lot of people looking for a lot of houses. People like to look for houses in specific neighborhoods or cities."
So if you're in real estate, understanding the neighborhood, area, or property a person is interesting in can help you personalize your messaging with great intent and success.
Okay! I'm in! I want to do personalized email. What are some rules of the road?
With our recent announcement on the intent to acquire AddressReport, Onboard Informatics is using the data at our disposal to create more compelling and personal email marketing campaigns for our clients. If you're interested in learning more, contact us today.
To view the original article, visit the Onboard Informatics blog.