Email marketing is such an integral part of ecommerce that many of us put it on auto pilot and forget about it.  Sure, it’s working.  Generates lots of revenue.  Maybe the program is not optimized, but it’s doing just fine.  

Speaking at the Shop.org Bootcamp on Monday, I likened this to a favorite overcoat in our closet.  We love that coat.  It is old, but it still looks good, wears well.  Never embarrassed when out on the town in it.  Yet, if you look closely, you’ll see it’s a bit shabby.  We start to apologize for wearing it. 

To that point, here at Shop.org Annual, many marketers came up to me after my presentation.  Every one of them hung their head and practically whispered to me, “You are right.  We send too much email.  We are neglecting our biggest money maker.” 

Time for a make over.  Take email off the back burner and give it some love.  The game is different now – and the stakes are higher:  

1. Inboxes are overflowing. Competition for precious consumer time and attention is tighter than ever.  During holiday season, it gets worse. Many retailers send up to 9 messages a week.  That is just too many for any but the most engaged and enthusiastic customers.
2. Due to the recession, customers are being courted.  They like it. They expect our marketing to be tailored.  They want to be wooed by the brands that they patronize.
3. Transactional messages and promotional messages are merging.  This impacts customer satisfaction, as well as depresses  inbox deliverability.  You can’t earn a response if you don’t reach the inbox.
4. The Internet is now social.  Customers expect that they can interact, control their message flow, and that their interests will be celebrated.

 Your subscribers have higher expectations. They are happy to receive email messages, but no matter how much they love your brand, they don’t’ want email for the sake of email.  Instead, they want us to help them. They want us to send them information about products they actually want to buy.  And they want us to respect their buying habits and preferences around frequency and targeting.

Many retailers have addressed the challenge of breakign through the clutter  in the past by sending MORE email messages. However,  that strategy has a ceiling – there literally are no more days in the week and with few exceptions, subscribers are not interested in getting more than one email message from us per day.

Fortunately, retailers can get away with high frequency, where marketers in other verticals like travel and CPG can not.  Subscribers have that “shopper mentality” of wanting to know when the sales are, or when the new line comes out.  It’s like a secret pleasure.   So subscribers don’t always complain (counted each time someone clicks on the “this is spam” button).  They also don’t respond.  So while the complaints are low, the engagement is also low.  That means just sending higher volumes is not the way to optimize the experience, or response.  By abusing the channel, we weaken the asset.

The better answer is to send email messages that have MORE VALUE.

That sounds reasonable, but it’s hard to do.  Relevancy is like art – it’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Retailers must start to segment and tailor more messages in the stream in order to improve response and revenue.

In the bootcamp, we talked about a number of ways to create relevancy.  Some of these will work for your brand, as well – and ask me for the session handout so you can compare to what others are doing.  Select the ones that allow you to use the data you have today, and build custom experiences for meaningful segments of your file.

1. Get clear permission
2. Send a custom welcome message (and engagement series)
3.  Improve sourcing
4. Segment the file
5. Expand/var the mix of message types
6. Trigger messages based on behavior
7. Lower frequency/offer options
8. Test/Optimize
9. Simplify the template
10. Acknowledge and celebrate best buyers/VIPs
11. Treat prospects differently than buyers
12. Test rich media / Relevant video
13. Synergize with the catalog
14. Cross pollinate social media platforms – and allow subscribers choices of how to engage with the brand.

 Don’t worry if not ALL of your messages are relevant for every subscriber. Some will be generic some of the time. However, in surveys we’ve done, there is a benefit to having at least a few of the messages (say 10%-25% of them each month) very targeted and relevant. It’s a concept I call “Prior Value.”  Subscribers say that one of the top reasons they are likely to open a message is that “I’ve received something valuable from you in the past.” (Source: Return Path holiday survey 2008).  Having only a few messages a month be targeted isn’t truly a 1:1 dialog, but it’s certainly closer than pure broadcast. 

The best way to segment is by business driver.    This might be purchase behavior but it might also be vintage (length of time the subscriber is on the file).  Or geography.  Or recency.  Or customer status.

We know what segmentation is, and we often have plenty of data to support it.  Some retailers balk at using it because they think it’s hard to do or has to be fancy.  Instead, I urge you to adopt a testing mentality and aim to fail quickly.  Just get started and you are sure to produce some level of prior value right away. Your subscribers will thank you, and reward you with higher clicks, conversion and buzz.  Start now – to build up your bank of prior value BEFORE the holiday season kicks into full swing.