NetAtlantic - Make Your Emails Matter

8/6/2019 NetAtlantic - Make Your Emails Matter

1/26

Your Email Delivery Expertswww.netatlantic.com

Make Your Emails Matter

Increase Email Relevance

Through Segmentation and Targeting

by Marianne CellucciCertied Email Marketing Specialist


2/26

www.netatlantic.com 2

1. Serve Up Relevant Content

2. Apply Prole-Based and Behavioral-Based Targeting

3. Automate Customer Liecycle Messaging4. Achieve the Right Contact Frequency

5. Test the Segmentation Strategy

pg 7

pg 11

pg 14pg 19

pg 22

Table o Contents:

Increase Email Relevance Through Segmentation and Targetingby Marianne Cellucci, Certied Email Marketing Specialist

Make Your Emails Matter


3/26

3www.netatlantic.com

Segmentation is the process o dividing a market segment

into distinct manageable groups o consumers that are

likely to behave in a similar manner or share a similar set o

needs or characteristics, and selecting one or more groupsto target with a distinct marketing message.

What is Segmentation?


4/26


Segmentation gets results!

With email marketing, batch and blast is a

thing o the past. Todays organizations must

gain a better understanding o their target

audience. The key objective o segmentation

is to increase the relevance o your email

communications to add more value and

drive response, ultimately increasing revenue

or your organization. You want to learn who

you engage so you can properly ocus your

marketing eorts and maximize eciency,

since you cannot be all things to all people.

Segmentation can greatly improve the

response o your email marketing campaigns,

raising the open rate rom an average o 20%

to 50%, and raising your clickthroughs rom

5% to 30%. This improvement in response is

because the message is more aligned with

the readers interests and needs. Improved

email campaign response translates directly

into increased productivity, return on your

marketing eorts and investment, and

higher protability.

Why is segmentation so important?

Segmenting gets your email

to the people who want it the

most, helps inbox delivery,

increases user engagement,

and enhances long term

protability.


5/26


The Email Marketing Continuum

Batch & Blastto ALL subscribers

A/B Split Testing SegmentationEmail Campaign

Automation

Merge Areas &Keyword-Based

Templates

Range o Campaign Tools & Supported Applications:

Eectiveness:

Low

Eectiveness:

High

CompanyPromotions

News & Updates

Subject Lines Layout Design Content Oer Frequency

Business Segment Retail vs.

Commercial Gender, Age, etc. Purchase

Frequency Region, Language

Auto-ResponseEmails

Event Triggers Behavioral

Triggers Scheduled

Campaigns

Templates Basedon SubscriberInterests andSurveys

Content BuiltFrom SearchableKeywords in

Subscriber Data


6/26


Once youve segmented your list, you can stay

relevant with your customers and prospects

via ongoing communications that engage

them with your brand.

As you observe patterns and begin to know

your audience more intimately, you will be

able to respond with custom marketing

messages and oers that quickly address their

varying needs and wants.

Youve heard it beore its all about quality,

not quantity. A large email list is not worthmuch i subscribers are not engaged with your

brand.

Tip:

Observe and Serve

The number one reason people

decide to unsubscribe rom an

email is because the message is

not relevant to them. Observe

your audiences online activity so

you can segment and serve them

appropriately.


7/26


Delivering highly relevant content requires

much more than capturing basic transactional

data or an email address using a subscription

orm. This is because whatyou think is

relevant and what aprospect or customernds

relevant may be dierent things. Relevancyshould be based on customer understanding

and insight gathered rom both behavioral

and prole-based data. Segmentation lets you

capture vital data about who your prospects

and customers are and what interests them.

The more inormation you can collect about

them, the more innovative you can make your

targeting strategies. The more segments you

have, the more ocused you can be aboutcharacterizing the various groups within your

email list.

The result: subscribers get useul relevant

content and subsequently purchase more.

In a Q1 2009 survey, Forrester Research

ound that while email marketers are

starting to realize that click-based behavioral

segmentation works and that 51 percent

o email marketing executives responding to

the survey said theyve used clickthrough datato segment audiences or email campaigns

within the past six months there are still

almost hal who dont.

Yet, email marketers who employ

segmentation strategies and integrate

behavioral targeting are our to six times

more eective than those marketers who

blast the same message to every subscriber.Those who spray and pray with untargeted,

mass, generic email blasts will see diminishing

returns and a negative impact on opens,

clicks, conversions and unsubscribes.

Serve Up Relevant Content

1.


8/26


SOURCE: Q1 2009 Global Email Marketing and On-Site Targeting Online Survey, Forrester (base o 1 03 marketing executives)

As more marketers embrace segmentation, this

raises the stakes or those that spray and pray.which o the ollowing customer data attributes has your company used tosegment audiences or email marketing compliance in the last six months?

Click-through data

Demographic data

Open rate

Geographic data

Recency and requency o purchase

Customer spending

Customer protability

Acquisition source code o the list

Website clickstream data

Customer service contact

Customer satisaction survey

Widget interactionContribution to product reviews

51%

51%

48%

47%

39%

30%

29%

28%

24%

23%

21%

6%5%

Tip:

Keep Your List Up To Date

One-third o US email users create

a new email address every year.

Use a list cleaning and appending

tool to keep in touch with them.


9/26


74% o people are infuenced by the opinions o

others, and 47% read reviews beore purchase. ManageSmarter, September 2009

In addition, the infuence o product reviews

and social commentary cannot be ignored.

Marketers who use product review data within

email have reported higher response rates

compared to those who dont.1

Even in light o higher open rates, higher order

values, higher click-through rates and higher

conversions, email marketers are still not

tapping the ull potential o segmentation and

list ltering to better respond to the interests

and needs o individual customers by serving

them relevant content.

Although another study shows that as many

as three quarters o email marketers claim to

use segmentation2 they tend to collect basic

data. 87% o marketers capture only contact

inormation rom subscribers, but only 28% go

on to capture demographic data (age, gender,

location etc).3 Thereore, based on these

statistics, it appears that most marketers ail

to capture inormation that enables targeted

messages to be sent to segmented lists.

1. SOURCE: The ROI o E-Mail Relevance,Forrester (2009)

2. SOURCE: Global Interactive Marketing MaturityOnline Survey, Forrester/MarketingPros (2009)

3. SOURCE: Email Marketing Benchmark Report,MarketingSherpa (2010)

Tip:

Segment Your List by

Social Engagement Metrics

Use data like sentiment, orwards,

votes, eedback, survey responses,

and social commentary.


10/26


Why do so many marketers ail to gather and

use more detailed data? One reason might be

because it seems like a complex and dauntingtask. It s true that behavior-based, trigger-

based and liecycle-based segmentation are

more time-consuming to set up. However, the

reward o segmenting your list using just a

ew elds o vital data is very high.

So work hard at engaging in a dialogue with

consumers about what they want and need,

and deliver dierentiated messages andexperiences.

Tip:

Keep Content Relevant

Beore sending an email to your

segment, ask yoursel Are the

recipients really going to care

about the content o this email? I

the answer isnt obvious, then you

are taking a risk that there will be

a higher number o non-responses

and opt-outs. The more relevantthe content, the more likely the

recipient is to pay attention to your

next communication.

Despite additional campaign costs, relevant

campaigns increase net prots by an average o18 times more than do broadcast mailings.

Jeannie Mullen and David Daniels,

Email Marketing: An Hour a Day (JupiterResearch)


11/26


The most powerul aspect o an email

marketing solution is its segmentation eature.

Current email marketing tools let you store

more detailed data and run very tightly

messaged campaigns. You can group your

subscribers based on criteria you choose.The key is to nd the variable(s) that divide

your audience into segments (e.g., socio

economic, special interests, geographic

regions, purchasing behavior, etc.) that can be

measured and acted upon.

With the incredible amount o customer

data available today, it is possible to

successully build your business in these

groups or segments than ever beore. This

strategy, oten reerred to as microtargeting,

enables marketers to tailor their messagingby industry, region, market, age, interest,

income, gender, and several other actors. The

technology limitations o the past no longer

prevent storing detailed inormation. Beyond

that, micro-segments can change as people

take dierent actions, ulll needs, and shit to

new income strata.

Apply Prole-Based and

Behavior-Based Targeting

2.

Prole targeting has been around orever, but

activity targeting is newer, driven by online tools

such as web tracking and purchase history.


12/26


Data you have alreadycollected:

Transactional: date purchased,products purchased, quantities,

method o purchase (online, phone)

Lietime inormation: number o

sales, number o products purchased,

average lietime order size, average

time between orders

Contact Inormation: customer

name, address, phone number, email

Source/promo code: how the

customer was acquired

Customer type: repeat buyer,

inactive, or a new customer

Online behavior: past opens or

clickthroughs, web page visits and

conversions

Customer satisaction: past

experiences with your company;

survey responses

Data you shouldcollect:

Demographics: age, gender, income,education, race, marital status, amily

size, region, size o city, job

Geography: countries, states, Zip

Codes, telephone numbers, ISPs, and

distance rom your store

Psychographics: personality and

emotionally based behavior linked

to purchase choices, such as riskaversion or impulsiveness

Liestyles: hobbies, recreational

pursuits, entertainment, vacations,

and other nonwork-time interests

Belie and value systems: religious,

political, nationalistic, and cultural

belies and values

Lie stages: chronological

benchmarking o peoples lives

at dierent ages (e.g., preteens,

teenagers, empty nesters, etc.)


13/26


14/26


Automated liecycle messaging enables you

to deliver dierent messages to dierent

users based on the relationship liecycle

customers have with your brand (e.g., level o

engagement, purchases, and behavior).

Activity is dened as opening and clicking,

both o which are treated separately. The

crucial elements o this type o segmentation

technique are the rules that you set or each

segmentation level, which will be highly

dependent on your email activity. Below are

some example rules or a retailer sending out

approximately 4 emails a month:

Customer has engaged

A within the last month

B between 2 and 3 months ago

C over 3 months ago

D has never opened or clicked

This type o behavior-based segmentation

can be set up to run automatically within your

email database, not requiring any input rom

the user other than to utilize the data that is

being ed through. The data is captured on a

live basis, i.e. opens and clicks are recordedas soon as they happen, giving you the

advantage o knowing that the segmentation

you are using is 100% up to date. This is

something that cannot always be guaranteed

using prole-based segmentation.

However, depending on what your niche

is, it may serve you well to segment based

on the circumstances that are infuencingconsumer decisions, rather than segmenting

the market based on demographic or

psychographic characteristics. For instance,

you may be a Financial Advisor that sends out

email newsletters containing topics covering

nancial planning. I a subscriber clicks

Automate Customer Liecycle

Messaging

3.


15/26


Retirement Counseling vs. Child Education

Planning, you can saely assume you have

an older target. You can get even more

granular. I the subscriber clicks on Retirement

Counseling rather than Mid-30s Guide to

Planning or Retirement you have someone

later in the buying cycle. In this example, the

consumers who chose retirement counseling

will have dierent needs than the consumers

who clicked on mid-30s guide to planning or

retirement.

An automated email system allows you to track

activity and engagement level.

Tracking a prospects rst online engagement

with your company through the entire sales

unnel will allow you to crat more relevant

messages that will not only help you build

stronger connections with your customers,

but will increase conversions and drive

revenue.

I you start to think o your email campaigns

Relevance-empowered email drives higher

top- and bottom-line improvement.

Improved ROI

No Targeting Web Analytics Targeting Social Targeting

$159

$40

$540

$185

$664

$239

$840

$306

Monthly

Revenue

Monthly

Net Prot

Dollars Generated Per Month

(in thousands)*

Type o Campaign/Tactics Used

* Metrics are based on a Forrester executive survey. Based on 2.8 million pieces o email per month, CPM ranges grow with

program complexity, assuming $39 AOV and 40% product margin.

Source: Q1 2009 Global Email Marketing and On-Site Targeting Online Survey, Forrester (base o 103 marketing executives)


16/26


17/26


By combining geographic segmentation

with psychographic (socioeconomic status,

or personality) variables, you begin to gain a

better understanding o the customer which

will enable you to hone your message to

deliver more relevant content. For example,

a emale customer in a high income bracket

makes a purchase every three months.

You should set up an automated nurturing

campaign to market to this customer near the

end o this cycle, oering discounts to entice

her to not only make another purchase, butpossibly increase her spending.

Tip:

Let Your SubscribersSel-Segment

Ask your subscribers what you

need to know and add it to yoursubscribers proles. This gives you

a clear idea o how the segments,

and your communications with

them, will dier.

Right Time

Right Message

Right People

Engage subscribers at the point o relevance with

automated email campaigns


18/26


With this type o segmentation strategy you

deliver highly targeted, meaningul and

hyper-relevant messages that are unique to

each subscriber based on prole and lie stage

when they want to receive them. This type o

approach serves to create experiences that

enhance the relationship between customer

and company by building deeper, more

meaningul and sustainable interactions as

they pass through dierent stages in their

purchasing liecycle, while at the same time

reducing the untargeted emails that clutterthe inbox.

Customized Merge Fields

In order to add demographic inormation to

your email database, create the new elds/

attributes in your email marketing solution

and then upload your list. Your subscribers

will be matched by email address and the

new attributes will be added to their record.You can then tailor a message automatically,

sending the right message to the right people

at the right time.

Triggered Automation

Filter people based on triggers and actions,

such as a particular event in time (i.e., acertain date), or behavior (clickthrough

action), or purchase, and market to them

specically based on that behavior. The result

is that an email response to the segment

will automatically be sent when the trigger

clause(s) are met; these email responses

can contain changeable content or static

content, sent to the recipient immediately

or over a period o weeks, once the event is

triggered by the recipient. Once congured

and automated, your email campaigns are

executed without eort.

Tip:

Timing Is Everything

Automated trigger emails cater tothe immediate interests and needs

o the recipient and elicit higher

responses because they are timely

and more relevant.


19/26


One o the most requently asked questions

we get is, How oten should we send email

messages to our list?

Our answer: Not too much, but not too little.

Since your goal is to increase email relevance,you should use list segmentation to determine

the content your subscribers want to receive,

in order to send each prospect or customer

the most relevant message at the right time.

You should use this technique to determine

what contact requency is appropriate (e.g.,

while responses may be higher with weekly

mailings or one group, another group may

respond better when mailing requency isbi-weekly or monthly; you can test sending

a higher requency to your most engaged

members).

Generally, subscribers will not mind receiving

emails rom you i the messages are relevant.

Frequency isnt just about how oten you want

or need to send your messages. It must take

into account how oten your subscribers wantto hear rom you. Each marketer will nd that

dierent rules apply or their prospects and

customers. As your approach becomes more

targeted, and your emails more relevant, you

will begin to automatically establish the right

requency or each customer segment.

Achieve the Right Contact

Frequency

4.

Tip:

Dont Send Too Oten, orToo Inrequently

Gain insight rom customer

eedback, preerence center data,

and email metrics or actors that

can help you set useul requency

parameters.


20/26


Dont Send Too Inrequently

Its important to nd the right balance when

it comes to sending email. Although youdont want to abuse the privilege by sending

too requently, its also possible to send too

inrequently. I you go or long periods o time

without sending any email communications,

and then you start sending regular blasts

around a holiday, specic event or season, you

may once again trigger unsubscribes or spam

reports.

Although you must decide the right

requency or your particular business, try

not to let more than a month go by without

contacting subscribers, either with regular

content relevant to your subscribers or with

administrative requests, such as an invitation

to update their preerences, product updates,

scheduled training courses, new data sheets,

and other service-related materials.

Watch or trends. Declining response, open

and clickthrough rates can be signs o list

atigue.

The key to establishing the right contact

requency is to plan, test, modiy, analyze and

rene your campaigns. The ollowing actors

can help you set useul requency parameters:

Customer Feedback

Are you paying attention to what your

subscribers are telling you when they

unsubscribe rom your email or newsletter?

(You should ask subscribers why they are

unsubscribing, either through a short survey

or comment eld). They might be letting youknow that youre sending too much email, or

the messages youre sending are not relevant.

Email Metrics

Since email provides marketers with more

data than most marketing channels, use your

own metrics to evaluate and establish your

requency mix. Determine requency based

on the responses you receive to each emailmarketing campaign. That said, i you change

the requency o your email campaigns, be

sure to test the increased requency on a small

sample o your total customer base beore

deploying to the entire group.


21/26


For example, i 20 percent o subscribers

clicked on the Order Now link in your email,

but only 10 percent o them converted by

completing the transaction, wouldnt you

consider the ones who clicked but did not buy

interested leads?

Email makes it easy to try and convert the

other 10 percent. You can tailor a campaign

to the olks who expressed interest in your

product or service, test the creative and oer,

and then send it about a week ater their

original click-through. Keep a close watch on

the responses you receive. Use your metrics as

a map to adapt a strategy or conversion.

Customer Preerence Center

Deer more and more to the communication

preerences o your subscribers and allow

them to select how requently they want to

receive messages rom you, and the type

o content they want to receive (e.g., email

triggers such as product updates and service

reminders). Basically, the more relevant

the messages you send, the more you can

increase your email requency.

Tip:

Keep Them Engaged

The number one reason people

decide to unsubscribe rom an

email is because the message is

not relevant to them. Keep youraudience engaged by ensuring

your email communications

are targeted specically to your

audience.


22/26


A robust email marketing solution allows

or greater precision and fexibility in testing

than other orms o marketing, and advanced

eatures such as segmentation, A/B testing,

and automation enhance your ability to match

your subscribers interests.

Segmentation

When it comes to segmenting, testing allows

you to gather evidence and metrics which

you can use to draw conclusions and drive

decisions, rather than relying on gut instincts.

Start with a single attribute to divide your

mailing list and continue to subdivide until

you reach divisions that include groups o like-minded individuals expected to respond to

your emails in similar ways.

As discussed above, methods include

demographics, geographic, psychographic,

liestyle, belie and value systems, lie stages.

Some marketers choose to implement a

simple segmentation process that treats

subscribers who requently open messages

dierently rom those who only occasionally,

rarely, or never open messages. Another

strong segmenting technique is to segment

an email list by customer activity, including

click-behavior and purchase history.

Test the Segmentation Strategy

5.


23/26


Segmentation, Plus A/B Testing

Once you have segmented your mailing list

based on actionable data, send dierentemails to each group. The campaign with the

highest percentage o opens, clickthroughs,

orwards, conversions, and least amount o

unsubscribes should be sent to the remaining

recipients. As you gather more actionable

data, you can continually test targeted,

relevant communications, such as:

Ofers and Incentives: Determine whatoers are likely to increase engagement

and conversion rom your target audience

(e.g., pricing, discounts, and ree trial vs.

hard sell, ree shipping vs. discounted

shipping).

Best day and time: Divide your list into

various groups and send on dierent days

and at dierent times, to determine the

best combinations or your mailings.

Email creative:Test design and navigation;

use a dierent image or layout to elicit

dierent behaviors rom your customers

(e.g., text email vs. HTML, columns vs. a

single layout, or test graphics and colors).

From Field: Select a name that is instantly

recognizable to the recipient to indicate

that your message is rom a credible and

trusted source.

Subject lines:Test dierent subject lines

or dierent customer segments (e.g., useo personalization vs. non personalization,

short subject lines vs. longer ones).

Landing pages: Create and direct people

to dierent versions o your landing page

(A/B test) to determine which version is

more appealing and eective.

Youre not trying to be all things to all customers.

Youre trying to be one thing to one customer.


24/26


Measure and Analyze Your Test Results

Now that youve collected all that data, its time to measure and analyze the results to gain abetter understanding o your subscribers. Even the smallest percentage dierence can mean a

signicant increase in response rates and revenue.

Opens increasedby %

Clickthroughs increased by %

Conversions increased by %

Website trac increased by %

Sales increased by %

Calls increased by %


25/26


Segmentation is the tool that enables you to

identiy dierent groups o customers and

prospects, and provide the best possible

products and services to meet individual

wants and needs.

Although segmenting your list takes

more time and eort, it doesnt need to

be a daunting task. Even the most basic

segmenting will result in signicantlyhigher conversion rates than one-o email

blasts alone. Start by dividing your list into

smaller groups o people who share certain

characteristics and send each group a ocused,

targeted and personalized communication.

Segmenting your list allows you to create

hyper-relevant content that is targeted to

each subscriber.

By targeting your message, you increase

the probability o them opening, reading

and purchasing rom you. The key is to

properly select the appropriate variables or

list segmentation, and ensuring that each

segment receives a unique and personalized

message that is relevant to their needs.

Again, email marketing oers wonderul

segmentation opportunities. I you are not

segmenting your list and sending more

relevant communications to your target

audience, start doing so today. I you are

segmenting your list already, try to nd new

ways to narrow your segments. The moresegments you have, the more ocused you can

be about characterizing the various groups

within your email list.

The churn rate o acquiring new customers

will cost you more than identiying the most

engaged subscribers on your list through

segmentation.

Eective segmenting will not only help youoptimize your list by dierentiating between

protable and less protable customers, it will

have a substantive impact on your bottom

line, and put you ahead o your competition.

Conclusion


26/26


Founded in 1995, Net Atlantic, Inc. is a global email service provider (ESP) oering email

marketing solutions, branded reseller programs and dedicated email marketing servers. Net

Atlantics goal is to help businesses maximize ROI with email tools like video emails, triggered

and sequential mailings, A/B/N split testing, conditional messaging, custom surveys, click

streaming, spam analysis tools, open database connectivity, and an open API (application

program interace or even urther customization). Net Atlantic was one o the rst emailmarketing companies.

Visit www.netatlantic.com, or contact an account executive toll-ree at 978-219-1900.

About Net Atlantic

NetAtlantic - Make Your Emails Matter

Documents

Transcript of NetAtlantic - Make Your Emails Matter