marketing personalization

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Marketing Personalization: Let the Data Do the Work

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Page 1: Marketing Personalization

Marketing Personalization:

Let the DataDo the Work

Page 2: Marketing Personalization

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Marketing Personalization: Let the Data Do the Work

You can execute some really effective email and mobile marketing campaigns if you’re collecting – and using – the right customer data. But if you aren’t getting the data part right, your personalized interactions won’t be very personal; they could even hurt your business.

What sort of data should you be collecting? When should you collect it? What campaigns can best leverage that data? And what are some real world examples you can use to guide your efforts?

We’re glad you asked!

A new “deal of the day” site carefully and correctly gathered thousands of email addresses and used the list to solicit businesses for deals to post. As the marketing team sorted through the options for its first email blast, one offer stood out – an 80% off coupon for a service. It was the

best discount the site had available, and it seemed like a great way to keep people subscribing and clicking on to the site’s daily emails.

Except it wasn’t.

The offer was for hair waxing – a service used mostly by the female portion of the site’s email list. And the offer came months after the company first started collecting email addresses. Men didn’t even remember signing up for the daily deal site when the bikini wax offer landed in their inbox.

Instead of loads of clicks and lots of happy customers, the company got a slew of requests to be removed from the email list, as well as spam complaints. Instead of growing the company, the email blast temporarily crippled it.

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Taking a batch-and-blast approach to sending email can result in a poor user experience, rising unsubscribe rates, lower sales and potentially more abuse complaints and blocks by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). If you can segment your list and customize emails effectively, you can drive revenue instead of driving it away.

The key is to leverage the data that a subscriber provides along with data from their interactions with your brand to create relevant messages that are sent in a timely manner. Just creating separate messages by gender can have startling results, as online shoe retailer Hudson Shoes learned. Their campaigns that were segmented by gender had 5 times the conversion rates of messages sent to the entire list.

Build a Better Email List and Manage It

Before you can segment customers for successful campaigns, you need to look at how you are building your email lists and managing the data coming from those lists. Complicated opt-in forms, cluttered data fields and out-of-date web forms can all defeat your efforts.

You already know there are multiple ways to gather email addresses – at the point of sale, on your website and via social media sites. To create effective, personalized email campaigns, you will need more than just an address. But if you ask for too much information too soon, you risk having potential subscribers abandon the opt-in form. Ask for too little, and you will have few options for personalizing email marketing messages.

You need to customize your forms to match the way the customer is connecting with you and then gather additional information as they become more engaged with your products and services.

5xConversion

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Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Keep it simple. Place a single field opt-in form on your homepage and within your universal navigations. Ask for no more than an email address, zip code and maybe the subscriber’s birth year. Consider adding a pop-up to gather emails from people who are visiting but not subscribing.

Ask for more information at the right time. After someone registers, look for activity such as a purchase, that would trigger a welcome message use that activity to gather a bit more information by including a short questionnaire on product or communication preferences.

Build through cross channels. Collect email addresses as part of the in-store receipt process, and educate sales and call center staff on ways to communicate the value of joining your email program.

Let subscribers manage their preferences. Consider an opt-down feature that allows subscribers to choose a lower messaging frequency as an alternative to unsubscribing. This can improve deliverability metrics.

If you already have a large subscriber base, take the time to review your collection processes before embarking on any segmentation activities. If you don’t trust the data, it is difficult to feel comfortable with more advanced email marketing approaches.

To gain that trust, consider these five steps:

1. Review Web Forms. Are they up to date? Active? Eliminate forms you’re no longer using and review the ones you are to make sure they require only the most important data for targeting. Unnecessary questions can result in subscribers abandoning the form. A women’s clothing site doesn’t need to ask about gender, but a sporting goods store might benefit from knowing which sports subscribers play.

2. Evaluate Data Fields. Spot-check your database for any duplicate, old or unused fields. You don’t need first name, last name and full name. Remove unnecessary fields.

3. Retire Old Lists and Segments. Do you have a segment you no longer use? Are there old lists for campaigns that have been retired? Clean up old list options and remove any outdated segments.

4. Remove Old Test Sends. Purge these regularly.

5. Download Your Database. Scrubbing your data will require some work, but you will greatly decrease the chance of using incorrect or obsolete field information for personalization, dynamic content and segment building.

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Create Highly Personalized Campaigns

Now that you’ve done the basics, it’s time to start looking at more advanced techniques to ensure your offers are relevant, you aren’t spending too much creating them and you are keeping valuable subscribers engaged.

RelevanceHas the customer expressed a preference for athletic gear? Purchased only during the holidays? Browsed the sales site repeatedly? Using order, browsing and expressed preference data is critical to creating personalized emails. If product-level data is not available, sorting by something as simple as gender can be used to produce an email that more specifically targets a subscriber’s interest.

A great example of relevance is to segment gift givers – individuals who buy once or twice a year, and not for themselves. You can find these subscribers in a number of ways:

• Add a checkbox at checkout asking if the item is a gift.

• Manually identify customers who place orders with billing and shipping addresses that differ.

• Look for customers who buy in categories that differ from their gender.

Segment these subscribers and exclude them from your general marketing or branding mailings and instead use the list during holidays to drive them back to your site. Gourmet food company Farmison & Co. created a segment for gift buyers as one of their four holiday segments for personalized messaging. It contributed to a 160% increase in revenue year-over-year.

160%YOY INCREASE

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AutomationSetting up emails that are automatically triggered by certain subscriber data is a great way to generate revenue with minimal ongoing work beyond the initial set-up. Do you have a customer’s birthday? Send a birthday email with an offer. Set up a re-engagement program that automatically emails customers who haven’t purchased or browsed on your site.

Other automated, database-triggered programs to consider:

Welcome Series. Deepen engagement from the first contact with a series of emails that encourage new subscribers to go from one-time purchasers (or new subscribers) to regular shoppers. NotOnTheHighStreet.com, a jewelry and gift company, experienced a 48% revenue uplift with this type of series.

Abandoned Shopping Cart Notifications. You were so close to the conversion, but then they left your site. Take advantage of that and create automated campaigns that send reminders to those with items in their carts. World Kitchen got shoppers to reclaim 2,000 abandoned carts in a three-month span with a three-part automated series.

Refill or Replenishment Emails. If you sell a product that people need at regular intervals (vitamins, dog biscuits, copier ink, etc.), consider creating automated email campaigns tied to the estimated point at which the person will run out of the product. SHAR Music, a music instrument supply firm, created an automated reminder to musicians to replace their strings six to eight months after their last purchase. The program averaged a 40% open rate and 12% click rate.

EngagementYou need a clear view of your engaged and disengaged subscribers to better target communications that speak to their level of interest and behavior. Create segments based on engagement levels, and develop programs to keep your best customers shopping while reactivating those who are non-responsive.

Focus on the following areas:

Once Active, Now Dormant Customers. If a customer was previously active and then went dormant, do a little investigation. Were their carts filled with items you’ve since discontinued? If those items are back in stock, you’ve got an opportunity. When Brooks Running Company relaunched a discontinued shoe, it sorted its customer database to find people who had bought the product online and crafted an email targeted to them. The result: An open rate of 43.39%. Compared to their average marketing message metrics, click-throughs were 530% higher, the conversion rate was 503% higher and the average order value was almost 8% higher.

8%Higher average

order value

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• One-Time Purchasers. Think about what message would get a one-time purchaser to do more shopping with you. Product recommendations based on purchase data can often be very effective. Multi-channel furniture company Oak Furniture Land increased both in-store and online revenue by identifying subscribers who bought one or two pieces of furniture from a specific line and sending them an email showcasing other pieces in the same line.

• Disengaging Customers. Through data analysis, you can learn when a customer is about to disengage and send them an offer to bring them back to your site. A re-engagement campaign by Hunt Office sent emails to purchasers who had not purchased in the past 60 days. Revenue from email marketing rose 22%, in part, because of this approach.

Real World Examples

Now that you understand what data to gather and why it’s important to leverage it, here are a few examples of how you can best do that. They’re divided into campaigns based on customer profile data and behavioral data.

Profile DataWelcome Series. Don’t stop with a welcome email when a new subscriber comes on board. Expand your single message into a multi-message welcome series. Send automated emails focused on educating, engaging and incentivizing new subscribers.

Tips for a successful welcome series:

• Stop sending messages to subscribers if they convert during the series. At that point, their address should funnel into the post-purchase automated series (see next page).

• Send every two days.

• Do not send promotional messages to subscribers who are in the welcome series.

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Here is an example of a comprehensive welcome series flow.

1. Confirm – Welcome confirmation.

2. Incent – 20% off coupon.

3. Educate – A fit guide or product how-to video, or an introduction to your company’s principles.

4. Promote – A getting started kit, an introductory price on a new product or access to a non-public sales site.

NotOnTheHighStreet.com’s “unique journey” welcome series generated a 48% revenue lift.

Anniversary Emails. Offer loyal subscribers a way to celebrate their sign-up anniversary! Send an automated anniversary email with a special offer to kick off another exciting year.

Birthday Emails. Everyone loves gifts on their birthday. Send a special message to your subscribers on their special day. Use a limited time offer and send a reminder to help drive the purchase.

Some marketing platforms have an automation feature that allows you to easily set up and customize a birthday email.

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Behavioral DataEngagement Spectrum. Leverage open, click and conversion data to create segments based on various levels of engagement. Identify opportunities to speak to customers based on how frequently and recently they interact with your brand.

The chart below lists different engagement categories and the criteria within each category. It then offers campaign ideas to reach customers that meet those criteria.

CATEGORY CRITERIA CAMPAIGN IDEAS

Acquisition SourcesIn-Store First Online Purchase Offer Web Welcome Series, Complete Profile

Purchase Activity4+ Loyalty Programs1-3 Buyer Related Product Promotions, Offer Testing

InteractionNon-Purchasing Clickers Reminder Emails, Remails, CTA TestingNon-Clicking Openers Creative Testing, Offer Testing

Disengaged 30-90 Days Subject Line Testing, Frequency Testing, Enhanced Promotions, Cross-Channel Offers

Inactive 90+ Days Re-engagement Programs, “Make Up or Break Up” Emails

Post-Purchase Series. A multiple message post-purchase series can encourage repeat purchases, provide customer service communications, and provide upsell and cross-sell offers. Make sure recipients on this list are suppressed from receiving promotional messages for a period of time – perhaps two weeks – after their purchase. It’s too soon to start aiming for another sale.

Here is a sample timeline for a post-purchase series. It includes the various types of messages you can send and how long you should wait after the purchase to send them.

EMAIL DAY OF SENDOrder Confirmation 1Welcome (No Coupon) 1Shipping Confirmation 3Manage Preferences 4Thank You/Customer Service Options 7Satisfactory Survey 10

Tips & Tricks 14Review Request 25Next Purchase Coupon 32Remail Next Purchase Coupon 62

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Lapsed Purchasers. Target purchasers who may still open and click your emails but have not purchased in a while with an offer to buy again.

Reorder Reminders. Trigger a reorder reminder for products such as cosmetics, vitamins or seasonal products that have a known usage period.

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Tying It All Together

By blending customer-provided data and behavioral data, you can deploy effective email campaigns that far surpass the batch-and-blast approach. Welcome series, birthday promotions and abandoned cart messages are all highly effective ways to generate revenue. They are also simple to execute. And automating those campaigns can boost return on investment by reducing staff involvement.

Whether you’re just building an initial email list or are an established ecommerce retailer with a large number of subscribers, customer data needs to be at the center of your marketing efforts. Data-driven personalization is something you need to be doing now.

About Bronto

Bronto Software, a NetSuite (NYSE: N) company, provides a cloud-based commerce marketing automation platform to mid-market and enterprise organizations worldwide. Bronto is the number one ranked email marketing provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1000, with a client roster of leading brands, including Armani Exchange, Timex, Samsonite, Theory and Vince Camuto. The Bronto Marketing Platform is deeply integrated with commerce platforms, such as NetSuite, Magento, Demandware and MarketLive. The company is headquartered in Durham, NC, with additional offices in London, Sydney, New York and Los Angeles. For more information, visit bronto.com.