Smart email marketing strategies get better results

Many businesses now use email marketing to communicate with their prospects and customers. However, some are failing to take advantage of the major benefits possible by sending relevant personalised emails with dynamic content.

With most email broadcast systems it is so easy to include personalisation. By including the contact's name the open rate and click rate is likely to be higher.

Dynamic content means changing some of the email's content based on specific criteria. A retailer with  number of stores might include a line of copy in the email saying 'Your nearest store is....' with the store name depending on the customers postcode.

Segmenting the mailing

Leading companies are increasingly dividing their mailing into specific segments with content relevant to that segment. The UK Direct Marketing Organisation recently issued a press release about their Email Marketing Benchmarking Report for Q3 2007. They showed that only 15% of their Email Service Provider's clients sent out single segment campaigns compared with 50% earlier in 2007.

By segmenting the email campaigns companies are able to send more relevant messages to specific audiences. e.g. for an online bookshop some people may prefer audio books. For car dealers, some people are interested in MPVs and others in coupes. You may want to send one message to new customers and a different one to loyal customers.

Of course, developing segments and specific messages for each segment can add to the complexity but leading companies have discovered that it's worth doing because they see better business results and improved marketing return on investment.

Segmentation is not just for big corporates

Like marketing testing covered in a previous blog, segmentation is another example of the marketing techniques that I have used for over 20 years helping Britain's best brands to transform their Marketing ROI. 

The good news is that with the advances in web marketing capability, I can now apply the same techniques to help small and medium sized businesses. 

Related blogs

What do you say to your valuable customers? - Comparing Amazon's 'lifetime' emails with copy from another company that leaves a lot to be desired.
Are you doing too much web marketing? - How Sainsbury's have got the 'lifetime' email frequency wrong.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing consultant with UK web marketing agency Brand New Way which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.