Are you making your email personal enough?

Use content and data to connect with customers

With companies like Silverpop, Genius and Office Autopilot, it's become much easier to develop a serious semi-automated approach to email marketing - and one that can dove-tail with a much wider content marketing or social strategy without draining all of your time. We noticed that Silverpop pulled together this presentation, embedded below, this is also worth look.

Here's the Silverpop take-aways…

• It's easier than ever to leverage data, and there's more than you might first think:
  • Inferred Customer Data - learn by listening
  • Implicit - monitoring blogs, social networks and customer communities
  • Explicit - or Behavioural Data - learn by measuring
• You know the old adage: Sell the sizzle, not the steak. There's a new rule: Educate with grilling tips, recipes and wine pairing
• Appreciate the link between social and email, the sharing and re-purposing of content. Arguably those that interact and open your email are the most likely to share socially?
• Dialogue with customers (especially) matters and email can be a major tool to help you add value and create dialogue. Use a mix of content to do that, including customer's own content
• Silverpop's 3-Step approach to building dialogue with data you already have available:
  • Leverage explicit data from opt-in forms and preference centres to know where to begin
  • Use the intelligence gathered from inferred data and your monitoring to understand tone and relevant messaging
  • Drive your programmes by implicit data. Let behaviours and recipient actions tell you when to send, what to send next