E-BLAST. I’m not sure DJ Waldow has hated any other word more. If you’ve been paying attention, he’s not the only one out there stating the “batch-and-blast” approach of email marketing should be abandoned if you want killer results.
Think about it: It’s next to impossible that everyone on your one big list has the same interests and motives - and inevitably people are tuning out. So, that’s why it’s time to get down to business, get to know your contact list and learn to “segment and succeed.” Below are 4 steps on how to get started now:
1. Review your sign-up process. Take a good, hard look at this process. Are you asking for information that matters, that you will use and that can help you better peak interest and get the results you want? If you’re not going to use fields, cut them. If you need fields, add them. Afraid of making your form too long? Consider a 2-part sign-up and incentivize your prospects to go the extra mile (i.e. give me your birthday and I’ll send you a present).
2. Ask and/or incentivize preference updates. The more information you have on your contacts, the better you can serve them. Tweak the data fields you’re asking for and then remind folks to update their information - this can be done on your web pages, as secondary calls to action in your emails and even in a solo campaign.
3. Send out a survey. Email folks requesting that they fill out your survey or call this out in a section on your web site. This is your chance to simultaneously get feedback on your emails, find out how your business is perceived and gather more pertinent contact-specific data.
4. Set up navigation paths in your emails. Perhaps the most fun, organic way of mining relevant data is to give readers options within your emails (in the navigation bar AND the email body) that will force them to take paths most relevant to them. Justin Premick refers to this as “window shopping.” Try price differentiation, product categories, etc. Then, segment those who clicked on specific links. Move them into different lists and target them accordingly in the future. Need some inspiration? Try out categorizing in any of Linda Bustos’s 13 suggested ways.
The good news is that you may already have some of this valuable data at your fingertips just waiting to be used. Gather it up, love it and start the New Year off by sending out the best targeted emails you possibly can.
Make improving relevance your #1 marketing resolution in 2009!
Kristen Gregory
Account Manager at Bronto
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Good post. I like option 4 most because it doesn’t rely on subscribers actively “working” for you to qualify themselves, just like Amazon.com product recommendations are based on observing actual viewing/purchasing behavior for the most part. I think “passive qualification” is more likely to work, plus observing what people actually do beats listening to what they say they do or are.
Olivier,
Thanks for your feedback! I agree that #4 is perhaps the strongest way to determine a reader’s actual interest and target them more appropriately in the future. I also like this option because it’s always available at the creation of every new email - who do you want to segment out through this campaign or in the next? What would you like to discover? You have multiple opportunities here.
The beautiful thing about this option, too, is that most marketer’s have already created at least a few navigation paths along the way that they can use to segment out different audiences and get targeted TODAY. Just do it!
Thanks for the link love but that article was actually a guest post by Anna Yeaman from Style Campaign :)
Ah Linda! Thanks for the clarification. I got so sucked into the terrific article, I totally missed that intro note! Big thanks to Anna Yeaman for one of my favorite posts!