By Adam Proehl
I’m sitting here at the airport in Indianapolis getting ready to board a plane home after a fantastic 3 day conference put on by Exact Target that included a keynote from Sir Richard Branson and a private concert by Train. As awesome as those two events were (and believe, me, they were awesome), one of the things that stood out to me was that in most other conferences I attend email hasn’t retained the respect that it still deserves.
Poor email – it just isn’t sexy enough anymore. I’m a part of an industry where shiny new objects come and go on a daily basis so how can something so antiquated as email compete? I attend and speak at several conferences a year where social media experts poo-poo email as an outdated tool for communication and I just have to shake my head at that notion.
Let me ask you:
Have you checked your email today? Did you check it on your smartphone within 30 minutes of crawling out of bed this morning? How many times have you checked your email today? How many times to you use your email address to login to a personal account (including all your social networks)?
I’ll wholeheartedly grant you that email “blasts” ala 1998 are very outdated. In fact, if anyone uses the words “email” and “blast” in the same sentence, I immediately correct them (FYI “email targeting” is a much better term). Anyone still sending email the same way they did 10 years ago should pause immediately and seek professional help.
I’ll have more a couple more posts with observations and comments in the coming week regarding this conference (OK, full disclosure I’m not including it all now because my notebook is in with the checked luggage and as you approach 40 like me you can’t remember everything unless you refer back to your notes. Be warned: it will happen to you, too.)
In the meantime, just a few high level takeaways and observations:
1) True “integration” of networks and profiles on your customer lists will be key moving forward. Is there a brand that you a) subscribe to emails for, b) “like” on facebook, and c) follow on Twitter? In an ideal world, how do you want this brand to communicate with you and with what frequency?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t necessarily want to get bombarded with an email, a post on my newsfeed, and endless tweets on the same afternoon from the same brand. You can make an argument for the effectiveness of “in your face” tactics, but I can also give you the same argument that you will quickly alienate your fans/followers/subscribers who already feel the pain of information overload. We’re probably 2-3 years out from having the appropriate technical solutions avaible to solve this issue, but it will happen.
2) Segment, Trigger, Recommend, Personalize; or “STRP”: Four best practices of email marketing.
a. Segment – Actually I need to repeat this multiple times: “Segment, segment, segment, segment”. This might sound mean to say to a non-marketer, but not all customers are equal and thus they should not all be treated equally. It’s a free country, but the word “blast” should almost be outlawed when used in the same sentence as “email”.
b. Trigger – Go through the heavy lifting of setting up rules based automated emails that will be set to trigger based on a defined event (purchase, cart abandonment, etc). After programs like this are set up, they typically have an incredible shelf life.
c. Recommend – If you’re segmenting your customers (and you are, right?) then that means you at least know something about them. Even if the segmentation rules are simple (i.e. buyers vs. non-buyers), you know enough to make some type of relevant recommendation to that subscriber. The key word here is – relevant.
d. Personalize – I don’t mean just putting “Dear Joe” at the top of the email (although you should do that). I mean integrating and tying it in with a recommendation engine or some other type of system/process that shows me that you do indeed know me and are not wasting my time. If I just bought a new 60 inch 3D capable flat-screen TV, then show me products that compliment it. 90% of all email that Best Buy sends out contains personalization (again, beyond just “Dear Joe”)
3) Much like social media, you are not in control of your email program. Your subscriber is and you need to treat them well. More on that next week. Thanks for reading. Any questions, comments, ugly remarks? I’d love to hear them
Email: adam@nordicclick.com
Twitter: @adamproehl
Posted by Adam Proehl 
