Every irrelevant email is a missed opportunity that costs you engagement and conversion

Whether you’re cross-selling, up-selling, fighting cart abandonment, or a content site working to keep your visitors returning and engaging, the key to effective email marketing is that your messages are personally relevant and well-timed. That means your emails must be personalized and intimately connected to your visitor's behaviour.

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Here are three examples of personalized email strategies, for different sites, that exceed the norm, and keep visitors coming back for more.

For a content site

Increase engagement and retention by sending personalized…

Around 87% of online shoppers abandon their carts during the checkout if the process is too long or complicated

Without going through the checkout process, your customers will not be able to complete their transaction on your e-commerce website. The checkout process starts when a customer hits the "Buy Now" button or is on the "Shopping Cart" page and clicks the "Proceed to Payment" option. Around 87% of online shoppers abandon their carts during the checkout if the process is too long or complicated, suggests data from Splitit.com. This means that an e-commerce site could really lose out if the UI/UX on the checkout page is poor. Attracting visitors to your e-commerce website, offering them a superior user experience and making them buy from you are all challenging aspects in themselves. But keeping your customers interested in buying while they provide their personal and payment details on your checkout page is an…

Think of deal management as a tool that helps you get the right information to reach the desired outcome

What is deal management?

Deal management is a strategy that is used by companies to define deal parameters. These include customer history, product status, discount supplied and other operational constraints in the sales review process. It is used as a tool to maximize company margins, profits and revenues. Deal management software uses visual indicators to help increase the chance of up-selling and cross-selling. As Alexander Graham Bell said, "Preparation is the key to success." Think of deal management as a tool that helps you get the right information to reach the desired outcome. It prepares sales reps to improve their sales pitch and performance, which ultimately leads to increased revenue. [si_guide_block id="87369" title="Download our Premium Resource – AI and Machine Learning for marketing" description="The purpose of this guide is to cut through…

Email marketing can be an incredibly powerful tool, often offering a return of 30 times your initial investment. But, like any tool, it can only work well when handled expertly

Whatever your choice of marketing tool may be, the main aim is bound to involve maximizing the return on your business earnings. Email marketing is no different. After all, you are in business to make a profit, and who doesn’t want their venture to be as successful as possible? If you’re new to email marketing or, indeed, marketing in general, you may still be getting used to the various acronyms and buzzwords that tend to fly around. So, let’s start with explaining precisely what a ‘return on investment’ (ROI) means.

It's all about ROI

The world of business, no matter which industry you are in, is very fond of acronyms, buzzwords, management-speak, and all manner of jargon. This is great when you are embedded…

Suggestions and best practices from finance, travel, real estate and retail

Creating a compelling user experience (UX) is essential for any website. Whether you’re working in retail, finance, travel or real estate, UX is important to fulfil the user's needs and provide a positive experience that keeps people loyal to the brand. The increasingly mobile nature of web experiences today means that UX has become more important than ever. After looking at several hundred sites, Google has developed a series of UX playbooks, tailored for different sectors. Google realized that there were certain universal UX elements that helped create a frictionless shopping experience for users and have identified key best practices and principles. [si_guide_block id="38757" title="Download our Business Resource – E-commerce design pattern guide" description="We created this guide to give our members a definitive reference of best practice for the design of key website page templates essential in retail e-commerce websites."/] All…

What do you need to include in your Wordpress SEO checklist?

Why do so many people still use Wordpress? Wordpress is the most popular CMS platform in the world with a 50-60% share in the market. It provides ease of use and saves time and money, especially when compared to developing a custom website. Wordpress has also the biggest number of integrations, plugins and security options. It is a perfect place to start blogging and test some of your ideas online. [si_guide_block id="5750" title="Download our Premium Resource – Successful SEO guide" description="Our comprehensive guide to Search Engine Optimisation best practices isn't just for SEOs, the clear explanations mean that it can be used by marketers to ask the right questions to boost their SEO."/]

Why you should care about SEO?

A lot of publications nowadays refer to SEO, as an "old-school way" of doing things. Many brands prefer to invest in Facebook,…

Take a look at some of the best personalization examples to help shape your web personalization strategy

In our last few posts we discussed that despite personalization being demanded by consumers, brands are facing some significant blockers when it comes to implementing full-scale personalization campaigns. We also discussed how the solution to the problem was to start with ‘essential personalizations’, which work around the blockers rather than try to solve them outright, but still deliver significant value.

In order to achieve the above, essential personalizations:

Require only the simplest integration with current systems, often just requiring the addition of one line of code. Are tried and tested by businesses in many sectors and have already proven their value. Enable the quickest return on investment, helping validate personalization for business and secure further investment. Require a minimal skill set to implement and present a simple and structured way for a team to gain…

By not actively trying to establishing a stronger online presence, as a business owner, you lose out on potential sales and loyal customers

How a business portrays itself is a vital factor in its success and, with the advent of social media, establishing a positive image and creating a personal brand is as important as ever. For entrepreneurs trying to make a name for themselves, this is even more important. Many businesses make the mistake of thinking a Facebook page or a LinkedIn profile isn’t that necessary. However, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the face behind the business is as crucial as the business as the business itself. By not actively trying to establishing a stronger online presence, as a business owner, you lose out on potential sales and loyal customers. While the web is crammed with everyone using the same old strategies, businesses aiming to differentiate themselves need to opt for out-of-the-box solutions…

Facebook called "digital gangsters" by UK government, Google rolling out click share for Search campaigns, big brands pull out of YouTube advertising, Marketing skills gap increasing and Ikea announces new sustainable store opening with water-cleaning bath boats

A new parliamentary report has found that Facebook has broken regulations and has called on the UK government to do more to bring it and similar sights under regulatory control. Google has started rolling out click share for Search campaigns, giving you more insights into the success of your text ads. A number of big brands have reportedly pulled out of advertising deals with YouTube after concerns were raised that paedophiles are using the platform to create communities. The marketing skills gap seems to be increasing, despite investment in training. Ikea is advertising the launch of its new sustainable Greenwich store with life-size bath boats that are helping to clean up London's waterways. Find out more about these stories…

Take a moment to recall the last time you received truly exceptional customer service

It’s probably not that easy to remember, right? Most businesses strive to give good customer service, but very few stand out above the rest for providing great customer service. If you do happen to remember such an occasion, the thing that probably makes it so memorable is the very fact it stood out as being extraordinary (i.e. not the norm). That check-in staff member who remembered your name. That shop assistant who went above and beyond to help you find the best product for your needs. That hotel manager who took the time to ask for your feedback and then gave you a voucher for your trouble (this one happened to me just months ago, and I now talk about it often). …