And yet, this critical channel is too often left unloved, with more focus going to the fast-changing advertising or social media landscapes. For years, marketers have gotten away with that dynamic, but we’re seeing cracks emerge which, left untreated, will cause an irreparable decline in the channel’s performance.

Dig deeper: 6 tactics to create recession-proof email marketing

One key signal is that average email open rates are declining, as inboxes filter out promotions and consumers stop bothering to check those folders. Through surveys, Gartner has found that the vast majority of both B2B and B2C customers feel overwhelmed by the number of emails they receive from brands. Worryingly, these customers say that if they perceive emails as irrelevant, they will unsubscribe – something easier than ever to do.

To maintain clicks, many marketers have fallen into the trap of sending more campaigns, but this only papers over the cracks. To avoid continued worsened performance from the channel, sending more (or fewer) emails is not the answer. Instead, marketers need to send better emails. Let’s unpack three ways to do so:

1: Build your email strategy on the ongoing value

First, if you want to send better emails, you need to focus on the value that you seek to provide over time. It might sound obvious, but oftentimes, marketers fall into a pattern where they acquire contacts by giving them something they want initially, like a one-off discount, but then don’t know how to keep them interested over time, and eventually have to start again.

Avoid this by being clear on the digital value exchange you’re offering your customers. In fact, signup incentivization needn’t be a cost center. It can be as simple as being more explicit upfront about the benefits of a newsletter or account at the point of signup, collecting topic preferences and including the privacy policy up front. Gartner’s Genius Brands, or those identified to be best-in-class according to key digital marketing elements, are more likely to have mobile sites that do this.

Are you getting the most from your stack? Take the 2023 MarTech Replacement Survey

Of course, if you’re clear on the benefits provided by saying ‘you won’t benefit much’, then people won’t sign up. So defining the value proposition for your target audience and building a long-term plan to resource that is what will make the difference between email marketing success or failure.

2: Prioritize before Personalizing

When it comes to personalization, marketers normally start in one of two places: where it’s easiest, such as subject lines, or where it’s the most obvious use case, such as abandoned cart messages. Often, it stops there – because anything more gets really hard.

Messaging timing matters (e.g., receiving an email after forgetting about items in your cart), but tailored help matters even more for driving business value. If you can do both, even better. Look for signals that a customer isn’t ready to buy yet and needs help learning how a given product might fit. This kind of “triggered nurturing” is so powerful because it positions your brand as helpful, not just reactive. 

In the past, marketers have struggled to create and manage enough content to support increased automated or triggered learning pathways via email. Today, AI projects like ChatGPT have the potential to change that, but will still require time and effort. In the meantime, marketers should prioritize the areas they automate based on the business value generated from emails to specific segments of audiences.

3: Optimize your emails using the best-fit KPIs

Gartner’s most recent Multichannel Marketing Survey revealed that marketers who use three or four KPIs are most likely to exceed their goals. Too many and you’ve got too much to focus on; too little and you don’t have enough insight to spot issues and close gaps. 

The question becomes: What are the ones you should focus on? For email marketing, it’s easier to say what you shouldn’t focus on. Open rate data is more inaccurate than ever, to the point it isn’t fit for reporting without heavy adaptation. Instead, lower-funnel metrics like conversions or clickthrough rates are more valuable, given these are fundamentally the objectives for this channel.

The best-performing marketers don’t just use channel-specific metrics though. Instead, they combine them with broader business objectives. Gartner has found that marketers using return on engagement metrics (e.g., revenue generated per email, cost per click) and relationship metrics (e.g., customer satisfaction score, or CSAT) are far more likely than peers to outperform their performance targets.

Email marketing will probably never truly die, but it will diminish in value to businesses if we continue down the path we’re on. If nothing else, as other marketers fail to change, taking these actions should mean you can outrun your competitors.

Matt Moorut is a Director Analyst in the Gartner Marketing Practice, presenting live on this subject and others at the 2023 Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, taking place May 22-24 in Denver, CO.

The post Email marketing is dying: 3 actions to help it survive (and thrive) appeared first on MarTech.

Dig deeper: Three things ChatGPT needs which only you can provide

Many marketers are using ChatGPT to write subject lines. That’s okay for a starting position. But if that’s all you’re using it for, you’re missing a huge opportunity to solve some of your biggest marketing problems and elevate your marketing team’s role as a revenue and tech leader. 

I know you have a lot on your plate right now, but with AI poised to be a game-changer, you need a voice in implementing AI and its associated technologies. As email marketers, we will work closely with AI in our companies. We can’t afford to wait and see what happens. If we don’t step up, martech could lead us down the wrong path. 

3 steps to shape AI development and use

1. Experiment with AI across platforms

Did your ESP just add an AI-driven subject line generator? Great! But don’t stop there. Boxing AI as a subject line tool can mean you won’t use it to achieve a goal that has a greater downstream impact. 

AI-generated content at scale could modify language to match unique segments or cohorts in your marketing efforts to recognize intent or activity. Subject line generation is a means to that end. It’s not the end. 

Take some time to experiment with other uses for AI and discover how different platforms can deliver different results. With AI and associated technologies in their infancy, it’s important not to get stuck on one or two uses or systems.

In this preliminary stage, you can experiment on different platforms, including ChatGPT (OpenAI), Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing. This will give you a robust idea of what you can do, what you can learn, and where you can apply results. The best way to achieve this is to develop a testing plan focusing on a task or goal that supports a marketing objective. 

Next, get to know the platforms available to you and replicate your testing plan on all of them. Use both the free and paid versions of these platforms. I’ve used all three of the ones I’ve mentioned here, and I’m amazed at how different the answers are. Although it means doing extra work at this preliminary stage, you’ll learn what each platform can offer and develop a realistic vision of the future.

Learn all you can right now, and adapt as you go. This is not about lifting out subject-line or call-to-action alternatives and pasting them into your email template. You know your brand better than these platforms do, so you must use your AI results as a starting point for further testing.

2. Ask your vendors for their visions 

Pull your vendors into conversations about their plans for this technology. Yes, ChatGPT is still in its infancy, but it’s growing up fast even as we try to define it. I am interested in knowing what my vendors are planning. 

Another option: If your vendors have customer advisory boards, ask them if you could join. This will put you right in the middle of the conversation about planning in the most relevant sense. 

If your vendors don’t plan to include AI or focus on a specific use like subject lines, it might be time to start an RFP and talk to other vendors that are farther down the innovation path.

3. Take a seat at the AI table

As an email marketer, you need to be in on the conversations happening at your company. You might even know more than others at the same table, so why not leverage that into a leadership position?

Email delivers the highest ROI of all your marketing channels. If I make the most money in my marketing work, I deserve a seat at the table. I can do content generation at scale. I have more touchable consumers. I have greater functionality and a proactive messaging path directly into the inbox. I don’t have to hope my customers find my emails — they’re right in their inboxes waiting for them.

Bring all the power and authority of email to bear in your AI conversations. The ideas you generated from Step 1 and Step 2 above will flow into this process and inform your discussions. You can use this knowledge to take control without waiting for your vendors or the industry to define the role of AI.

Wrapping up  

For 20 years, we have been talking about dynamically inserting relevant content into messages to increase engagement. AI could get us there. But it will not work if we marketers don’t actively take part in deciding how to use it for its highest goals in marketing. We can’t be passive technology users. We must be active influencers on this path. 

You can participate in this great movement by testing, leading conversations and learning how you can achieve your marketing goals with it and help your company prosper. 

The post 3 steps to make AI work for you appeared first on MarTech.

If you need help with CTA samples you can test, language models like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard can be your best new copywriting tools. But you still need to prime the pump with a well-written prompt that recognizes the values of a good CTA.

If you don’t structure your request effectively, you’ll end up with variations on “Submit” and “Click here.” You’ll still be at square one.

Case in point: I asked ChatGPT to give me 10 email calls to action, each with five words or fewer, for a Mother’s Day campaign using an appeal to emotion. I’ll spare you the results, except to say each one included “Click here.”

The journey to effective CTAs

Developing a better CTA begins with understanding what a call to action means and why the quest to create a good one often falls short.

A call to action is like a subject line. There’s an art to writing one that persuades your readers to do what you want them to do. And, just as with subject lines, they often end up being one of the last jobs on a campaign creation to-do list, with little thought or creativity left over for creating a stand-out request.

An effective call to action tells your customers what will happen when they click. That’s one reason why “click here” is a terrible CTA.

Yes, you want them to click. But we don’t have to tell them to do it anymore. They’ve already figured that out. “Click here” focuses on the process of clicking, not the outcome or the benefit.

So instead of stating the obvious, you tell them what will happen when they click and, subtly or not so subtly, how they will benefit by clicking.

Remember that your email message is just the first step to a conversion. Its goal is to persuade customers to visit your website, where the conversion happens. That’s why the call to action is so important. It’s not the only marketing copy in the message, but it’s the nerve center where the action happens.

Dig deeper: The art of natural funneling: How to lead your readers without forced CTAs

4 rules for better calls to action

1. Focus on the relevant next step

This tells customers what will happen when they click on your website and hints why they should take that next step. “Download the whitepaper” is better than “Click here,” but only marginally so. What will they learn when they get your whitepaper? “Streamline your operations” might resonate more with time-pressed customers.

Ditto for “Read more” or “Learn more,” which are popular CTAs for publishers and content marketers who send newsletters with snippets of articles that lead to the full version on the website.

They aren’t awful but they don’t deliver that “oomph” that nudges a casual reader into action. Look for ways to incite your reader’s desire to read more.

2. Experiment with different content styles

Can a CTA be too long? Too short? The point is to write a punchy, attention-getting CTA in a brand-appropriate voice that tells the customer the next step to take on the journey to conversion while subtly conveying why they should do it.

That’s why it’s okay to go off-script sometimes. Call on what you know about your customers to help you write an effective one. 

Consider these two suggestions:

Use sequential CTAs. Who says you can have only one CTA per email message? You can use one action-directed CTA and one benefit-focused one. Or have one CTA flow into the next. This takes the load off a single CTA and allows you to be even more persuasive without making readers read more.

Surround the CTA with an explanatory copy or supporting statements. This can amplify your CTA if your template or button style limits you to a set number of characters or words. Your copy could ask a question, and your CTA could answer it. 

Email on Acid had a nice take on this example in a recent newsletter. The recap to a featured blog post reads, “OK, so your email landing in the Gmail Promotions tab. But is it really that bad?” The CTA below says, “Let’s find out.”

One traditional rule of thumb with a CTA is that it should complete this sentence: “I want to … ” That still applies, although you’ll have to experiment a little to ensure it doesn’t sound forced or artificial.

Should your CTA include a verb? Yes, but this is another copywriting rule that isn’t absolute. The verb can be understood. Or you could skip it if you can replace it with a clever alternative.

3. Be careful what you ask for

Email CTAs differ from those you use on your website because email is a push channel. You can push the messages to your customers without waiting for them to find you. But that also means they might be at the top of the purchase funnel and not as ready to buy as they might be if they came to your website through search.

Email is usually the start of your journey. It plants the seeds or creates or amplifies a desire. That’s why you have to be careful not to put a big ask, like “Buy now,” in your email. Customers who need to read the fine print, search all your available options, and compare prices among different vendors before committing will likely be put off by that.

Give your customer something to anticipate, such as “Discover your best new style.” This invites action and offers a benefit and is front-loaded with a verb — those sexy action words which capture our attention.

You can switch to a variant of “Buy now” after your customers click on your landing page. They’ve self-qualified themselves as prospects, so they’re already farther down the purchase funnel. After reading your well-written product education, asking outright for a commitment makes more sense.

4. Talk to a person, not an audience

The best CTAs sound like you are asking a friend for a favor. Would you hand someone a book and say, “Learn more?”

This is extra important if you are working in B2B, where the “B” in B2B often stands for “boring.” In B2C email, it’s easy to picture the customers we’re talking to. B2B emails, where the human connection can feel more tenuous, often sound more “institution to institution.”

But you’re not emailing a company. You’re speaking to people who requested your email and have needs or challenges you can help with. Speak to them with a CTA that can motivate them. Even if they aren’t the decision-makers, they likely are influencers.

CTA examples to learn from 

Who Gives A Crap: ‘Where can I buy TP?’

That’s the actual name of a consumer brand which supplies bamboo toilet paper and consistently wins the CTA game. Their emails are a joy to read — well designed, completely serious and yet enjoyable insouciant about the wonders of proper loo roll. They take carefully considered licenses with the rules about CTAs. This one is much more interesting than “Find a store.”

Chipotle: ‘Order and earn’ 

The Chipotle brand of quick-serve restaurants uses email to drive online ordering, build engagement with brand storytelling, and promote its rewards program. This CTA on an email promoting a new product accomplishes two goals — telling customers to order and reminding them they will earn a reward if they do.

McDonald’s UK: ‘Sign up and get more,’ ‘Grab it on our app,’ ‘Unlock on our app’

Many of McDonald’s UK’s emails promote their mobile app. This set of sequential emails comes from an email campaign asking non-users to download, install and order on the app. The first CTA focuses on the benefits, while the follow-up CTAs show customers their rewards when they use the app.

Pitch: ‘Start with this template’

I love this CTA because it’s a textbook example of how to ask your customer to take the next step while also explaining the benefit of that next step. This B2B brand leads into the CTA with copy extolling the benefits: the templates are free, have a minimalist design, and help the user “craft the perfect pitch faster than ever.” The CTA is the logical next step.

eMarketer: ‘Read more about Apple’s hold on the market’

eMarketer’s newsletters rely on CTA buttons labeled “Read more” and “Download now” as much as other publications, but occasionally they switch it up with a text link that gives you a reason to click, like this one. This style can give you extra engagement options if you can’t shake the “Read more / Learn more” format.

Sequential CTAs

When my team and I are working on email campaigns for our clients or publishing our twice-monthly newsletter for email marketers, we spend lots of time working on the calls to action.

Our newsletter is a bit of a laboratory for us because we are focused on building our brand along with persuading our readers to read the full versions of the news stories we’ve chosen to keep them up to date on the latest email marketing news and trends. We often use sequential CTAs to nudge readers into clicking, express our brand voice and add interest.

For one newsletter that went out shortly before Christmas, we used a series of three CTAs, each of which was relevant to the article recap that went with it but, when taken in together, added a playful holiday touch:

• “Making a list” — About a list of email experts to follow
• “Checking it twice” — About trend predictions
• “Arose such a clatter” — About an article by fellow MarTech contributor Ryan Phelan that talks about “earth-shattering kabooms.”

Yes, they break the call-to-action rules I mentioned before. But in context, they make sense. 

Testing CTAs: Use a holistic approach

Your CTA should work in concert with all of the elements of your email message to deliver the greatest impact and persuade your customers to click. That’s another reason why “Shop now” or “Read more” are less effective. They cost you an opportunity to amplify your message, even if it’s subtle.

Your email platform likely includes a simple A/B split testing platform or module that pits one element against another. That might give you some insight, but you’ll learn more if you test two campaign variations. For example, one could focus on cost savings and the other on urgency. Your CTA should change to reflect the campaign focus.

The post Beyond ‘click here:’ 4 rules for better email CTAs appeared first on MarTech.

Understood today as campaign and messaging management tech, outbound marketing represents a holdout against the broader evolutionary trend. Yet, vendors are not immune to structural changes taking place in martech — and this part of your stack may well become the least recognizable by the end of this decade.

Outbound marketing technology today

Marketers have always loved outbound marketing: It offers proactive messaging that promises immediacy, actionability, measurement and flow that wasn’t available via traditional advertising. The old means of direct mail and telemarketing gave way in the digital era to email marketing. Thus, it’s no accident that email lies at the center of most major outbound marketing platforms today. 

Almost immediately, email marketing platforms built campaign-creation palettes so that you could send sequenced emails, including branching based on customers’ reactions. Over the past decade, these campaign subsystems enabled marketers to trigger messages in other channels, like SMS, in-app or outbound telephony and even on-demand print mailers. This allowed vendors to boast of their “omnichannel” capabilities, but really they coordinate just multichannel outbound messaging.

Typical platforms today divide into two camps: 

• Mass-market B2C email services providers (ESPs).
• B2B and high-end / high-touch B2C marketing automation platforms (MAPs).

Some MAPs further evolved additional capabilities, including potentially account-based marketing, inbound personalization, CRM integration and more robust reporting. In short, they have become a mini martech stack-in-a-box, especially for mid-sized B2B or considered-purchase B2C firms where a salesperson enters the mix.

This world is changing, though, especially at the enterprise tier.

The great decoupling

Beginning in the late 2010s, a new martech architectural pattern emerged that decoupled shared, foundational enterprise services from specific customer engagement channels. It began with customer data platforms (CDPs), which unify customer data in a single enterprise repository, sparing customer-facing systems from managing complex data going forward. 

We call this new pattern “legless,” and the overall approach is broadening beyond data to include enterprise content and personalization services. What’s driving the transition to legless architecture? 

As we emerge from the pandemic, there’s a new grammar to customer experience where the person on the other side of the screen becomes the subject of the interaction and no longer the object.

The most important change for this discussion is that heavyweight, service-rich outbound marketing platforms are increasingly anachronistic in a world where enterprises want key services to operate omnichannel. Let’s examine from the perspective of a decoupled, composable, “legless” stack. 

Decoupling data, content and decisioning

Decoupling data management from campaign management is a big win for enterprises. They no longer have to use their ESPs as quasi-CDPs (a role for which they are very poorly suited) and can instead focus on campaign optimization. This means operational change as more segments and individual message triggers get set at an enterprise level. On the other hand, this is the only way to scale. 

The advent of CDP adoption in large B2B enterprises puts great pressure on legacy MAPs, which traditionally relied (albeit reluctantly) on Salesforce or other CRM platforms for the single source of truth about customer data. It’s harder for them to integrate with CDPs. More generally, as stacks decompose, the need for an omnibus martech platform also erodes. I predict the demise of legacy, higher-end MAPs by the late-middle 2020s, if not sooner.

More and more enterprises are also decoupling content management from outbound marketing platforms. Here again, most ESPs and MAPs truly stink at content management. But more importantly, they tend to fare poorly at component block management — a critical precondition for more personalized messaging that all of you want to do. 

To be sure, not every DAM or CMS will integrate neatly with an outbound marketing platform. But we have seen proper omnichannel content platforms (OCPs) excel at this.

Finally, some enterprises are beginning to decouple decisioning (e.g., enterprise campaigns) from messaging platforms. This has the potential to totally disrupt the market because simple message-sending is now a commodity.

This trend started in the past decade as many enterprises decoupled transactional messaging from their outbound campaign platforms — simplifying their architectures and saving a ton of money along the way. 

Today, we see enterprise efforts towards more omnichannel orchestration logic (for example, things like “next best action” decisioning) as the hub that drives more customer interaction, including campaigns. Finally, the sometimes intense need to better integrate media ad spend with campaigns on owned channels is compelling a new look at what systems generate which messages.

A new model

This last trend is potentially the most profound. Some of our far-thinking clients already manage journeys and campaigns at a lower level in their stack. As for messaging, they deploy very cheap, highly-performant programmatic (API-based) senders for delivery and metrics gathering. The firms doing this now tend to be more born-digital enterprises, but it will become mainstream in a few years. 

There are many challenges to this legless approach. But automation and scalability require it. Enterprises will generate fewer ad-hoc campaigns, with more always-on listening and better response.

Most firms will want to govern and execute AI-fueled messages at an enterprise level rather than at the edge. You’re likely to see ever-more centralized marketing ops yielding improved customer experiences. With lower volumes of more targeted messaging, you’ll achieve better outbound and inbound engagement. 

It will take some time, but you can start heading there. And along the way, you may want to reconsider your choice of outbound marketing platform. 

The post The future of outbound marketing in an omnichannel stack appeared first on MarTech.

Our client portfolio is heavy in ecommerce, hospitality and food and beverage, which are particularly ripe verticals for email automation. 

This article breaks down six email automations that should (but often don’t) drive substantial incremental growth, including:

• Post-purchase or post-shipment 
• Welcome or account creation
• Birthday or anniversary 
• Abandon cart 
• Browse abandonment 
• Re-engagement / “We miss you”

You’ll learn the potential business impact and benefits of each automation type. We’ll also look at misconceptions that keep marketers from putting these into play — and tech options to enable them.

Must-have email automations in focus

1. Post-purchase and post-shipment emails

A purchase from an ecommerce site is an opportunity to engage with that user on their new product. This could be shipment details/status, upsells, customer service information or content on the brand and community the customer just joined. 

Especially for first-time purchasers, this journey can give the user a good experience and build a foundation for repeat purchases. The business impact of this automation is straightforward: increased revenue through customer LTV.

2. Welcome or account creation emails

Sending welcome emails is an opportunity to set the tone with new subscribers. We love to put this in place for CPG brands.

Tailor the experience and communication to fit the channel and content that draws new subscribers. Approach this series as an opportunity to set the tone on the frequency and type of communication users should expect.

We’ve mixed and matched promotion-heavy messaging with messaging that builds brand connection and equity. Both are content themes to test with your users. The business impact of this automation is more upper-funnel and nurture-focused. Metrics affected include:

• Time to purchase.
• Purchase frequency.
• Brand affinity.

3. Birthday or anniversary emails

Collecting birthday details at sign-up opens fun options to show appreciation for your users. Birthday emails offering small freebies, exclusive discounts or offers and ideas for using a brand’s products to help with a celebration are all effective ways for brands to build connections with their users. 

The same is true for celebrating anniversaries of when users joined brand communities. Using automations to increase personal connections may sound unintuitive, but it’s a win for brands. Business benefits here are brand equity, brand awareness and incremental direct-response revenue.

Dig deeper: What is marketing automation and how can it help B2B marketers?

4. Abandon cart emails

This journey is an absolute must-do for ecommerce brands. If users make it far enough in their web experience to put a product in their cart, they likely just need a small nudge or reminder to complete their purchase. 

Abandon cart emails are a huge revenue driver. One of our most successful abandoned cart journeys is with an ecommerce client who started with 1-2 emails in the series. Many iterations and testing tactics later, the difference is absurd: 88% increase in total conversions and 150% increase in average total revenue compared with the basic abandoned-cart series.

Here’s what a built-out abandon-cart series might look like:

That might look like a lot of set-up work, but with an effective approach, you’ll get a huge return for your effort.

5. Browse abandonment 

This is generally one step in the purchase journey before cart abandonment. Suppose a user is browsing your website and has been interested in a specific product or product category, but the product hasn’t made it to their cart yet. In that case, this is the time to sell them on that product and double down on that product’s use cases and benefits to get them over the finish line.

Though we don’t see the direct response levels of abandon-cart emails here, this step is a definite source of increased revenue.

6. Re-engagement / ‘We miss you’

Use cases for this audience segment sometimes come down to philosophical differences. Many enterprise-level businesses have a hard time letting go of unengaged subscribers because they believe that the more people they send to, regardless of engagement, the more traction they will get. 

In the long run, without further nuance in engagement strategies, this isn’t generally true. Moreover, continuing to treat these users as if they were fully engaged can be detrimental to your sender reputation, unsubscribe rate and overall engagement rate. 

Instead, I recommend understanding the level of engagement across your whole audience (high, medium and low). If someone falls into the low category, move them into a re-engagement workflow that sends less frequently and has content tailored to win them back. The goal is to nurture these users back into the funnel of a high- or medium-level subscriber.

If your leadership sets KPIs and goals based on new subscriber and total subscriber volume without regard for best email practices, push back and argue for putting unengaged users on their own path. 

The metric to watch here is the conversion of little-engaged users into medium or high segments of engagement.

What will enable marketers to use these automations?

I’m always surprised when the above series aren’t in place, which happens too often. So what’s holding brands back? In short, data and tech capabilities and the idea that the potential payoff isn’t worth the effort.

One of the common denominators for brands under-utilizing these automations is a poor data set-up in their ESP (email service provider). Sometimes: 

• They have several fields mapped to the same data type.
• They are not collecting the right data at al.
• Their data mapping is all over the place. 

We’ve taken on a lot of data hygiene projects as a preliminary step for effective email automation. If brands can’t do this in-house, there are plenty of partners out there to help.

Another common scenario is a lack of integration between a brand’s site and ESP. This requires IT resources, but the ROI from simply setting up a cart-abandonment series will prove positive quickly. 

Of the above automations, three require minimal API work. The all-important welcome series is straightforward to set up via API. The birthday and re-engagement series can be run directly from your ESP, with no API required beyond triggering new records from your website into the ESP.

Martech stack recommendations

All the opportunities described above come down to having a good ESP. As much as I love Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Klaviyo is the option I’d recommend if you have limited internal IT resources. 

Beyond featuring a great integration with Shopify, it has many out-of-the-box options marketers can simply turn on and start testing. (That said, if you have a lot of resources and data and don’t use Shopify, Salesforce and Emarsys are each likely a better fit because of the sheer scope of functionality.)

Getting started

While fully developed sequences and growth to match are the goal for each of these automations, you’ll never get to step 10 if you don’t take step one. If this means taking a hard look at your data hygiene and making sure you’ve got the basic functionality of your ESP working to start, that’s time extremely well spent. 

Get those in line and automate an email or two at each of the six stages above, and your email game will be ahead of many big-name brands. 

The post 6 must-have, underused email marketing automations appeared first on MarTech.

You walk into Home Depot to buy a rake because you need to do some yard work and then decide to browse the aisles to get ideas for your dream kitchen (that you just started dreaming about and don’t have the time or budget for yet). You glance through the pre-built setups to get a sense of your style and learn what options are available.

As you’re walking away, rake in hand, a sales associate stops you and asks you to sign up today for a free home consultation to start your dream kitchen immediately and the option to sign up for a payment plan. 

You’re immediately struck with anxiety and fear because you didn’t intend to do this today. You were simply browsing and finding out the information available to you so you can decide down the road.

You leave the store feeling rushed and like you’re just a number. You do get your dream kitchen two years later but from Lowe’s.

That sounds like a rough experience, right? Your customers feel this way when you put a demo CTA (call to action) at the end of every content you distribute.

They may have landed on your site to learn more about marketing automation software and are nowhere near the final stretch to the demo request. And when they are ready, they’ll remember that experience and search for other options (aka your competition).

This article explores the importance of a smooth customer journey for readers and explains how a more personalized marketing approach can help you achieve it. 

Key takeaways: 

• Understanding the three marketing funnel stages is crucial for creating a smooth user journey.
• Incorporating both hard and soft CTAs into your content is essential.
• Email marketing is a powerful tool for nurturing leads. 
• Leading readers down the marketing funnel naturally is crucial for creating a seamless user journey and boosting conversions.

Understanding the marketing funnel

Let’s talk about the marketing funnel. It’s the journey that potential customers take from first hearing about your brand to purchasing. There are three stages to this funnel: 

• Awareness.
• Consideration.
• Decision.

Awareness

At the awareness stage, you want to create content, like blogs that educate your audience on the benefits of your product or service without being too salesy. An active blog is one of the most favored ways to share content, with 79% of companies using it reporting a positive ROI ROI. Within your blog, you can add CTAs to things like newsletters, social media channels and other engagement-focused CTAs.

Lavender.AI does this throughout their blog, guiding readers to more relevant content after reading the article, naturally moving them through the funnel. No demo. No hard pitch.

Consideration

In the consideration stage, potential customers are weighing up their options, so you must provide detailed information to help them make an informed decision. This is the perfect time to offer additional resources like white papers and case studies to help build trust and showcase your expertise.

In the example below, Demandbase ends their article with social proof — inspiring readers to read a case study about the topic from the article, giving context and value to the information. 

Decision

Finally, in the decision stage, you want to make it easy for potential customers to convert without being too pushy or aggressive. A clear and compelling CTA is crucial, but creating a seamless user experience that doesn’t feel forced is important.

ClickUp uses a free demo CTA in an article on the best ClickUp templates. The placement feels relative and fitting because the reader would likely want to use the templates they just read about.

More than 40% of the evaluated B2B SaaS websites had a “Get a demo” CTA, according to the State of the Interactive Product Demo 2023 report. So while these CTAs are often used, their placement can make or break a conversion.

Your CTAs should speak to where customers are and what they are looking for and should never feel pushy or forced. The key to conversions is creating a nurturing flow that gives buyers the valuable information they need to make a purchasing decision. 

Dig deeper: How to optimize your content for each step of the buyer’s journey

Incorporating CTAs into content

Just like tacos, there are two types of CTAs: hard and soft.

A hard CTA is a more aggressive call-to-action, like asking potential customers to schedule a demo or sign up for a free trial. These types of CTAs are often used in the decision stage of the funnel when the customer is ready to take action.

On the other hand, a soft CTA is a more subtle approach, like asking readers to download a free resource or learn more about your product. Soft CTAs are often used earlier in the funnel, during the awareness or consideration stages, to build trust and credibility with potential customers.

But here’s the thing: not every article needs a hard CTA. Sometimes a soft CTA can be just as effective, if not more so. By offering valuable resources or information, you can build relationships with potential customers and guide them naturally down the funnel without being too pushy.

For example, if you’re writing an article about the benefits of project management software, a soft CTA could be to offer a free guide on how to improve team productivity. This type of CTA provides value to the reader and helps establish your brand as a thought leader in the space.

Another effective soft CTA is to invite readers to engage with your brand on social media. By asking them to follow your company page or join a relevant group, you can build a community around your brand and keep potential customers engaged with your content.

Ultimately, the key to incorporating CTAs into your content is to provide value to the reader and guide them naturally down the funnel. So, don’t be afraid to mix it up and experiment with different types of CTAs to see what works best for your audience.

Nurturing leads with email marketing

Now that we’ve discussed CTAs, let’s dive into email marketing and how it can help nurture leads.

Email marketing is a powerful tool for guiding potential customers down the funnel and building strong relationships. By sending personalized and relevant content to your audience, you can keep them engaged with your brand and encourage them to take action. Some marketers refer to this as one-to-one content marketing.

So, how can you create effective email campaigns that naturally lead readers down the funnel? Here are a few tips:

Segment your audience

Instead of sending the same email to everyone on your list, segment your audience based on their interests, behaviors and where they are in the funnel. This allows you to send more personalized and relevant content that resonates with your audience and encourages them to take action.

Provide value

Just like with CTAs, it’s important to provide value to your readers in your email campaigns. This could be through offering exclusive content, discounts, or helpful tips and advice. By providing value, you establish yourself as a trusted source and keep potential customers engaged with your brand.

Use engaging subject lines

Your subject line is the first thing your reader sees, so it’s important to make it engaging and relevant. A good subject line should be clear, concise and encourage the reader to open the email.

Include clear CTAs

Just like with your content, your emails should include clear and relevant CTAs that guide the reader down the funnel. Whether it’s inviting them to download a resource or sign up for a free trial, make sure your CTAs are easy to find and align with your overall marketing strategy.

Measure success

To know if your email campaigns are effective at driving sales, you need to measure their success. Track metrics like open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates to see what’s working and what’s not. Use this information to refine your campaigns and improve their effectiveness over time.

Dig deeper: 6 tactics to create recession-proof email marketing

Meet your buyers where they are

Leading readers down the marketing funnel naturally is crucial for creating a smooth and enjoyable user journey while boosting conversions. With a solid understanding of the marketing funnel, effective use of CTAs and well-crafted email campaigns, you can guide readers through each stage without being too aggressive. 

Remember, hard CTAs aren’t always necessary — soft CTAs can be just as powerful in nurturing leads. By tracking and analyzing the success of your efforts, you can continuously improve your strategy and achieve even better results. So, put these tips into action and watch your marketing efforts thrive.

The post The art of natural funneling: How to lead your readers without forced CTAs appeared first on MarTech.

We work with dozens of CPG, ecommerce and D2C brands, and our onboarding process repeatedly shows that almost none have come close to maxing out their email potential.

So what’s holding email marketers back from maxing sends and growing their subscriber list in the process? In this article, we’ll look at:

• What misconceptions are holding email marketers back.
• A better approach to email campaigns.
• How to build your subscriber base.
• The benefits (including some under-appreciated ones) of getting email right.

Email marketing misconceptions

We hear two frequent misguided sentiments from our brand-side contacts:

• They don’t have enough content to deploy for effectively expanded email campaigns.
• They’re afraid of turning off users with too many sends.

As far as content goes, marketers generally have much more available than they realize. Without creating anything completely new, they can usually access things like case studies, testimonials and existing blog posts to repurpose effectively. The key that often gets overlooked is thinking through the user experience so you can understand what content will add value for the user.

Let’s say someone viewed a product page on your site for sliced cheese. You may have a handful of popular sandwich recipes that would make for an engaging follow-up email.

On the B2B side, if someone visits a blog post addressing a specific business challenge, an email with a case study about overcoming that challenge would add immediate value. Unless you’re starting from scratch, without a blog or social media or case studies or customer reviews, you have more to work with than you think. 

The last under-used content opportunity tends to be a lack of follow-through on big initiatives. Our clients often put together big ideas for monthly campaigns, but they don’t think of a quick follow-up for those who open the email. Sending a valuable follow-up four days later is a quick and easy way to compound value with minimal additional effort.

Dig deeper: 8 major email marketing mistakes and how to avoid them

Marketers might understand all of that and still be wary of excessive frequency. For instance, a client asked me point-blank once (not at the height of COVID) why I thought we could email weekly about toilet paper and be effective. And if you’re using a blanket and/or static approach, that fear is valid. 

A better approach to building email campaigns

Ideal email campaigns are rooted in understanding the customer journey, which shows potential triggers you can address by repurposing content or producing new content with particular deployment intent.

The second critical piece of this approach is automation. Once you have your customer journey steps mapped out, automatic email journeys should follow. For each step, determine the next steps and the attendant messaging to drive value.

Why did the user engage, what would likely entice them to engage further and what kind of messages would serve the purpose? Building that content in an automated sequence has proven to drive results for our clients.

The natural starting point doubles as the most consequential initiative for engaging subscribers: your welcome series. We have found, over and over, that people who engage with emails within the first seven to 30 days are likelier to be long-term engagers. You have one chance to get that right, so consider how to personalize your welcome series based on engagement. 

Essentially, adjust your strategy to look less like this:

And more like this:

The benefits are real. We’ve seen that early engagers tend to yield open and click rates that are more than 200% higher than new subscribers who stay dormant through the first 30 days.

Many of our brands use this data to create efficient churn processes to segment non-engagers quickly into journeys that will receive far fewer sends and only graduate them back to the main segment when they engage. This process helps avoid over-sending to subscribers who will not become part of their most loyal segment.

The welcome series is a great starting point that adds the benefit of signal data. Double down on early engagement to develop progressive profiling and personalized content to match to move early engagers further into the journey.

For example, one of our clients ended up building a parenting-focused path for early users who engaged with kid-related content and the engagement numbers were double-digits higher than we’d seen before we created the segment.

How to build your subscriber base

The compounding growth factor of better subscriber engagement is bringing in more subscribers from the beginning. There are plenty of paid techniques and channels I could recommend here. Still, the lowest-hanging, most cost-effective fruit tends to be taking advantage of all opportunities to ask for user information on your owned properties, primarily your website. Whenever a user looks to buy something or enter information, give them an opt-in box to convert them to subscribers.

Your site has ready-made checkpoints, such as getting to the end of a blog post, downloading a recipe or user manual and downloading a price-comparison PDF. Tools as simple as lightboxes and prominent opt-in boxes on thank-you pages are steps marketers often overlook, which is a lot like forgetting to tag home after rounding the bases.

The benefits of a better email strategy

Yes, you’ll see more direct revenue coming from your base of subscribers, but the benefits go beyond that. More first-party data in your system enables you to add nuance and variety to user experiences and recommendations — not just via email. First-party data opens up a ton of profile targeting on advertising channels (particularly paid social). 

Expand that into offline attribution, where a known subscriber takes action in brick-and-mortar stores, and you’ll have a ton of three-dimensional data that informs strategic, personalized campaigns.

As major advertising platform engagement costs continue to rise, email is getting more attention as a cost-efficient growth channel. Make sure you’re zooming out and building a strategy that optimizes your time and tech investments, entices more users to join your community and builds valuable connections for the long term.

The post How to send more emails and grow your subscriber list appeared first on MarTech.

Take Williamsburg Farmers Market in Virginia, for example. It’s open on Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon, almost but not quite year round. On the management side, it has one full-time employee, three part-time, plus some help for student volunteers.

The full-time employee is market manager Tracy Frey. Let’s see how busy she is.

Operations, vendor support, community outreach and sponsorships

“We’re a not-for-profit farmers market, so that makes us a little different,” Frey told us. “I’m responsible for the majority of the operations of the farmers market, so recruiting vendors and assisting them with their business — if they haven’t been inspected and need to be, I assist them in connecting them. They have to have liability insurance and those kinds of things, so I do a lot of hand-holding with very small businesses.”

Frey considers herself an incubator for the vendor’s businesses. “We actually visit every single farm and food processing operation prior to them joining our market. We ask them what their hopes, dreams and goals are and we try to get them to wherever that is.” That might mean, for example, supporting a small baker who hopes to graduate from selling products at the market to opening a bakery or coffee shop.

In addition to working with vendors, Frey is responsible for outreach to stakeholders and the community. “A lot of time is spent doing networking, whether it’s Chamber of Commerce or leadership classes.” She also does all the programming coordination: a children’s program, a music program and a chefs tent where people can learn how to turn the produce into meals.

In addition to working with the vendors and the community, Frey is responsible for creating partnerships with sponsors. “We don’t actively fundraise, but we do have sponsors and partners like the City of Williamsburg, Merchants Square, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Historic Virginia Land Conservancy.” We have to know who … stakeholders, justify to them. Insights touches, we collect that data just in case they do.

And then there’s marketing

Frey finds it amusing that she’s not only the market manager, but also the marketing manager for the market. “That’s my job too. I also do our web design. It’s critical for us to keep really good data. I analyze and study data. I can tell you the weather from our very first market up to last Saturday.”

The main marketing channel for the farmers market has been a weekly newsletter. “We know our demographics in Williamsburg — there’s still a generation that reads newspapers and magazines and likes newsletters.”

The email lists are grown organically rather than purchased and currently run to thousands of subscribers. This led to the market outgrowing its former email platform around 2006 or 2007. Because of the limit on the number of emails that could be sent simultaneously, Frey found she had to execute multiple, separate sends. She turned instead to the digital and email marketing platform Constant Contact.

“In the non-profit farmers market world, a lot of people were going for free options, but they didn’t quite meet our needs or have the support that we needed — and since we are quite a structured non-profit, with a strategic plan and a budget, we did have money for marketing. It seemed a really good use of that money to invest in newsletter software.“

Constant Contact offered more than just email distribution. “I love bells and whistles, especially if they make my life easier or I can reach more people,” said Frey. One feature Frey treasured was help in building out templates. “That’s not something that’s part of my skill-set or that I want to spend a whole lot of time on, though I realize it’s super-important. If I can streamline it and feel like I’m still doing a good job, that’s a perfect world.”

The weekly newsletter averages a very impressive 50% open rate. “It’s worth my time for the thousands of people who get it and the thousands who open it.” She also uses Constant Contact to schedule the publication of the newsletter on social media. Also: “We’re newly dipping our toes into Reels, which has been a lot of fun.” Student volunteers create multiple videos to post throughout the week.

Dig deeper: Two afforable AI writing assistants in action

Where the AI comes in

Constant Contact recently unveiled an AI Content Generator for emails and other marketing content. Frey was not slow to adopt it.

“At the beginning of my newsletter every week, I write a little paragraph or two about why you should come to the market this Saturday,” she explained. “I do that 52 weeks a year and it’s really hard to come up with a new thing every time. What I like about the AI is I can say something like ‘There are strawberries and onions this week, come visit us at the market,’ and it can make that into something very intelligent and fun-sounding.”

The AI will add content about things to do in the area, such as visiting Colonial Williamsburg. “It just takes my very short prompt and turns it into something that always makes me smile and I hope makes other people feel the same way. It takes the brainwork out of me trying to figure out how to say what I want to say.”

The AI is also good at turning prompts into calls-to-action, something Frey felt she always struggled with.

Constant Contact’s Content Generator does incorporate ChatGPT technology, but enhances that model by applying proprietary data and algorithms that are tuned to the needs of the specific Constant Contact customer. Given that ChatGPT has been made widely available by OpenAI, why use the Constant Contact version?

The answer is simple. “It’s really nice that it’s all in the same place that I’m creating my newsletter. If I can hit send five minutes sooner, that is amazing.”

Can Frey believe that a non-profit farmers market is leveraging AI in its marketing? “I am mesmerized by that every day,” she said.

The post How a non-profit farmers market is leveraging AI appeared first on MarTech.

Use the following questions as a guideline to determine whether an enterprise email marketing platform is right for you.

1. Do we have the right human resources in place? To succeed with email marketing, you need people who can handle all the features that a platform offers. This covers everything from design and content to data and strategy. Depending on the platform, you may need different levels of skill to create email templates.
2. Does our customer data reside in disconnected silos throughout the organization? When different departments like sales, marketing, procurement or customer support don’t work together, your customer may not get the best or most relevant experience with your brand. A platform for email marketing at the enterprise level can help you link these separate systems and understand your customers better.
3. Do we have customer knowledge gaps that could be filled with trusted second- and third-party data? Your brand’s relationship with customers is based on first-party data, such as email addresses, which are becoming more valuable as Google and Apple phase out third-party data sources like cookies and mobile IDs. You can enrich your customer database with other data about who they are, where they live, what they buy and more. This can help you fill in the blanks in your customer knowledge. As you get better at collecting and matching data, and access more shared data sources, you may be able to create a complete picture of your customers.
4. Are we in compliance with CCPA, GDPR and other data privacy regulations? Data privacy is a big issue these days, as more and more cases of data breaches and misuse come to light. This means more rules and regulations to follow, like the GDPR in the EU or the CCPA in the US. Using data to market your brand can give you an edge, but it can also put your brand and your legal status at risk. Many platforms for email marketing can help you comply with the changing laws and build more trust with your customers.
5. Do we have C-level buy-in? Email may seem simple, but it can be tricky to manage at a large scale. A platform for email marketing can help businesses overcome these challenges. To convince top executives of the value of a new platform, you need to show them the results of test projects and agree on what success looks like beforehand.
6. Can we invest in staff training? To get the most out of a new platform, you need to train your technical, design, content and marketing teams regularly. Some platform providers include or charge extra for training, so check with them about this.
7. To what extent do we need to share data and reports with non-email marketing staff? Some platform providers help you connect data across your business, so other teams like customer service and product development can also see the whole customer picture. If you want to use these features, make sure the connections, interfaces and reports work for other people in your organization too.
8. Have we established KPIs and put a system in place for tracking, measuring, and reporting results? You need to have a clear idea of what you want your email marketing to do. Do you want to turn newsletter readers into buyers, or more loyal buyers? Maybe you want to make them like your brand more and guide them through a longer buying process. Having specific goals will help you figure out if you need an enterprise platform and which one suits your business best.
9. Do we have realistic expectations? Switching to a new email platform can take a while to pay off, especially if it’s very different from what you’ve been using. You may need to change your culture and your workflow. Having realistic expectations and goals will help you get support from everyone in your business.

Dig deeper: What is email marketing and how are platforms helping brands succeed?

Email marketing helps organizations acquire and retain customers, build businesses and make more money. Explore the platforms essential to email marketing in the latest edition of this MarTech Intelligence Report.

Click here to download!

The post How to decide if you need an enterprise email marketing platform appeared first on MarTech.

Make sure that all potential internal users are on the demo call, and pay attention to the following:

• How easy is the platform to use, especially when it comes to design, previewing and collaboration?
• Does the vendor seem to understand our business and our marketing needs?
• Are they showing us our “must-have” features?
• Is the reporting actionable and are we able to extract insights from the data with the human resources we have available?

Here are some other important questions to ask each vendor:

1. What is your approach to list management and hygiene?
2. How do you validate the accuracy of your data appends and matches?
3. How do you comply with privacy regulations and consumer choice?
4. How robust and flexible are your reporting options?
5. Can reports be customized and automatically delivered to different users and types of users in their preferred formats?
6. Where are the actionable reports?
7. Are there workflows built in that allow for coordination between marketing, content and design teams, as well as brand and regulatory compliance?
8. Can we work with franchisees in local markets, or internal operations in different geographies, within the platform to ensure consistency and compliance?
9. How does the platform integrate with martech platforms (i.e., CRMs, DSPs, CDPs)?
10. Does the platform feature any built-in data activation capabilities beyond email sending (i.e., display ad campaigns or social media marketing)?
11. What reporting do you provide that will document the ROI from our efforts?
12. What does the onboarding process entail and how long will it take?
13. What are the training options, i.e., is it online only…or will you send people to our location to train us on site?
14. What kind of customer support is included? Can we pick up the phone to report problems?
15. Will we have a dedicated account manager and technical support?
16. Do you offer a proof-of-concept to measure potential performance and scale?
17. What kind of professional services are available? And how much do they cost?
18. How does the company handle requests for product modifications?
19. What new features are you considering?
20. What’s the long-term roadmap and when are features expected to launch?

If the vendor answers your questions and the platform seems to meet your needs, it’s time to start checking references, speaking with existing customers, and negotiating the contract.

Email marketing helps organizations acquire and retain customers, build businesses and make more money. Explore the platforms essential to email marketing in the latest edition of this MarTech Intelligence Report.

Click here to download!

The post Finding the best email marketing platform: 20 questions to ask appeared first on MarTech.