It can be a predicament: The end of December is quickly approaching, and you want to let your customers, prospects, and partners know you’re thinking about them—and leaving a good impression going into the new year is always a good thing. To that end, what’s one of the quickest ways to reach a mass audience? E-mail marketing. Yet, how often do we let e-mails pile up before tackling them? Or how often do we click through our inbox, selecting several to delete, without truly taking the time to read each one carefully? Pretty often, if we’re being honest.
So the question remains: How can you create an e-mail campaign that’s equally eye-catching and practically screams “read me!” while still remaining true to your brand and not inundating your most valuable assets with yet another message to sort through? The answer is relatively simple—creative content. Today, that means more than flashy clip art or even a catchy subject line. What recipients crave now is personalization—tailored recommendations, information, and suggestions that let them know they’re not just another e-mail address in a database, but that they’re important, valued parts of your company.
Thankfully, advancements in predictive analytics are making it easier than ever to figure out how people are engaging your business, and what sort of data would be most appealing to them. Solutions such as the Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Predictive Intelligence feature lets you observe and track customer behavior (think web page visits and transaction history), so you’re better prepared to offer 1:1 communications that speak directly to their preferences and interests. As you prepare your year-end e-mail marketing campaigns, here are some more ways you can leverage Salesforce Marketing Cloud to ensure content is right on target:
Boost Sales Performance through Recommendations
Whether you’re reaching out to customers who’ve abandoned their shopping carts, are seeking reviews and ratings post-transaction, or myriad other communication starters in between, one thing is certain: following up with customers after they’ve interacted with your company is critical to boosting sales performance and specifically improves the possibility of upsells, cross-sells and add-on sales. With predictive intelligence, you can now offer customers e-mail recommendations based on what others are doing (for instance: “customers who bought this item also bought these items”), to boost the efficiency—and profitability—of every engagement.
Keep Customers Happy—and Coming Back for More
Another type of e-mail campaign is centered around loyalty. Some popular examples are birthday campaigns, promotional offers shared with valued customers, and rewards programs. The key to keeping customers interested long past initial sign-up: constantly providing them with data too customized to ignore. Once you know their interests, recommending new favorites and encouraging them to explore other parts of your offering is easier to do.
Increase Product-Specific Sales Quicker
When you’re looking to push new products or services, getting them out in front of your audience is of critical importance. When doing this through e-mail marketing, leveraging predictive analytics helps you send messages that position the solutions to match your audience’s tastes. For instance, based on recent clicks, purchases, and views, you can recommend the most popular items, most recently released inventory, or even the top selling items related to your customer’s interests.
Pressing “send” at the end of an e-mail marketing campaign should be done with excitement, not a sigh of relief or a wince of worry. By using analytical tools such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Predictive Intelligence to guide more personalized and targeted messages, you can rest assured your carefully crafted message will end up in the right hands—and that’s a great way to ease into 2016.
Source:
Hutchison, Matthew, “’Tis the Season to Include a Personal Shopper in Every Email,” Salesforce, December 22, 2015.
NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT
