The Marketer’s Quest to Make Emails Work Harder

Gone are the days of batch-and-blast email campaigns. Today’s consumers continue to seek more refined, relevant and targeted content to address their needs and desires. I’m often surprised that some of the big brands aren’t doing a better job in this area, as automation tools are at our fingertips. Here are a few personal examples worth considering:

I shop frequently online with a particular clothing brand. My browsing history consistently follows a similar path: I go to the same section, I select the same size and I generally select the same color palette even. My purchase behavior models this search and I generally purchase within a certain price range. So why am I getting emails that have nothing to do with my interests? If this particular clothing brand paid more attention to personalization and automation, they could probably score several more paychecks out of me.

For destination marketers, this concept holds true as well. If you are sending family-friendly content to someone who does not have kids…well…you get the idea. Let’s say a consumer enters your site because they read a native advertising article on “10 Reasons Pets Love the East Coast More Than the West Coast.” Then they visited your pet-friendly city landing page to read about dog parks. Finally, they clicked through to pet-friendly hotels before signing up to receive your monthly e-newsletter. What kind of content should you be including in that email?

At my organization, we recently revamped our email marketing strategy and developed a personalized email program (we started with three buckets: family, culinary and outdoor enthusiasts) that increased open rate from 8% to 20%. We also launched a welcome series email initiative that increased open rate from 10% to 39%. I’m looking forward to more automation and personalization as our resources allow. That’s making email work harder for you.