With SEO becoming an increasingly competitive and saturated market, there is pressure on marketing agencies to stand out from the crowd. It’s often hard for agencies to differentiate themselves as everyone offers SEO services for businesses to drive visitors to their sites.
The next obvious step is to use realtime online customer data to drive marketing campaigns. Email marketing is an effective way of doing this as the individual customer’s behavioural information can be used to personalise the subject line or greeting and make the timing highly relevant. However, it’s very easy for agencies to get this wrong. With some campaigns, the content of an email can be correct, but can lose its impact by being sent to the wrong person or at the wrong time.
Broadcast mailing is a quick and cheap solution, but when emails are being sent on a “confetti” basis, there’s a good chance that they will remain unread or be deleted. These emails also lack the personal touch, meaning that first time visitors and more loyal customers get sent the same information. However, if behavioural information is monitored properly, it is possible to dramatically improve click-through rates, which will positively affect the conversion of sales from both new and more loyal customers.
If done accurately, despite the extra costs involved, more relevant and targeted email campaigns can increase a business’ net profits by an average of 18 times more than just using a broadcast mailing approach to potential customers (Jupiter research – 10 Quick Wins for Email Marketing).
The subject line is often the clincher when it comes to whether an email is opened or not. Using the latest realtime behavioural monitoring technology it is possible to understand which customers have been looking at a site, when they looked at the site, how long for and what they have shown interest in. This can all be done without a single tag being added to the site. Using this information, email campaigns can be timed and personalised to each customer’s desires and needs, with the subject line highlighting special offers on products that match their interests.
In order to turn browsers into buyers and buyers into repeat buyers, it’s vital that the right information is monitored and used correctly. Managing the cascading flow of relevant and timely information from site visitors can mean the difference between a successful and a wasted email campaign.
Juliet Hills is brand manager at Magiq
