Bronto Blog

“Email Blast” - the one phrase in email marketing that raises the hair on my arms. I equate it to the internet version of a space shuttle launch. I guess email is sent into space (kinda), but the terminology still does not fit.

I spend the majority of my day working with clients discussing email marketing best practices, innovation, and strategy. During this time I hear and see the term “email blast” more than I care to admit.

Below are snippets of actual client emails I’ve received:

• “We’ve been doing email blasts for 10 years and…”
• “…compare individual blasts to other blasts…”
• “…sending direct mail and email blasts to customers…”

And client phone conversations I’ve had:

• “I just sent out today’s email blast…”
• “Hey DJ, can we review the blast results? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve always said that relevancy is key - it’s a major factor in recipient satisfaction. You need to know who your recipients are and what they want - no small task. Understanding this on a macro scale is a necessity for your business, but understanding each individual is where you need to be for email marketing.

In order to do this you will need to have data for your customers - accurate data. Once you have data for your customers you can start to segment them into meaningful groups. With your customers broken down into groups, you can begin to market to them on their own terms, which makes perfect sense, right?

Although getting that data can be tough, it’s maintaining it that’s the trick. The data that is creating relevant emails today will be creating stale, out of touch messages in a few weeks. You don’t want to send a renewal notice to some one who renewed their contract last week. So you not only need to identify and import useful data, you need to keep updating it - but how? Read the rest of this entry »