Content Marketing 101: What’s in it for Me?

Content Marketing 101: What’s in it for Me?

by Colleen Preisner Comment Closed
It has probably happened to you. You meet a guy at a conference or party who starts talking about himself, and within 15 seconds, you’re looking for an escape. Guess what! The same thing happens when we send an email about our brilliant products or services. However, we don’t even get 15 seconds–we get approximately 4–and the escape route is ‘delete’, ‘unsubscribe’, or ‘mark as spam.’ The solution? Don’t be that guy. Why did they sign up? Digital marketing should be a conversation, but if you’re talking about yourself, it’s a lecture. Frame your conversation by asking yourself why your subscribers signed up. Did they subscribe so you can tell them you’re “a leading service provider” or so they’ll know when you form a new partnership? Not likely. Most subscribers are with you because they thought there was something in it for them. Make sure there is. Every email or blog post, and ideally every paragraph and sentence, should include a clear benefit to...
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10 Dos and Don’ts to Get Personalization Right

10 Dos and Don’ts to Get Personalization Right

by Chris Arrendale Comment Closed
Personalization rules the email world these days, or so it seems. Personalization is the magic key that gets more email delivered, viewed, and acted on, and all that activity means more sales, higher revenue, and better deliverability, right? We even have personalization platforms that make creating 1:1 emails as easy as clicking a few buttons. But not everybody agrees. In December 2019, research firm Gartner rained on the personalization parade when it predicted that 80% of marketers would abandon their personalization efforts by 2025. However, two days later, the Association of National Advertisers crowned “personalization” as its word of the year for 2020. What’s going on here? The truth is that email personalization isn’t as easy as dropping your customer’s first name in the subject line or message body. You need a reason to use it. You need plenty of data, and that data must be well-organized and easily accessible. You need creative content that uses personalization in the right context so your subscribers don’t freak out when...
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Increase Customer Engagement With These 4 Tips

Increase Customer Engagement With These 4 Tips

by Colleen Preisner Comment Closed
Customers are now more powerful than ever. Their always-connected status and ability to find information anytime from anywhere–in a matter of seconds–puts them in control of their own experience, and this trend has forced marketers to rethink how they engage and connect with their customers. Here are 4 tips to drive engagement for your digital programs. Make it Personal Personalization has been deemed as one of the most important tools for data-driven marketing, according to more than 70% of 220 marketing experts surveyed by Ascend2. The ability to personalize your messaging, rather than simply sending out a blast campaign, is key to increasing the user experience and therefore increases the success of marketing campaigns. Begin by creating groups of similar customers, and target promotions to each client’s specific needs. The most common ways to segment are by demographics, geographic location, purchasing behavior and/or psychographic segmentation (interests, hobbies, lifestyles, values, and attitudes). By segmenting your lists, you will begin to see an increase...
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Personalization Is Not A Strategy

Personalization Is Not A Strategy

by Alex WilliamsNo Comments
Why True Personalization Takes People, Process & Platform A Partner Post from Cordial We all know the drill: Every year, an analyst proclaims that email is dead. But even after almost four decades, email remains an essential revenue driver for businesses. In fact, email continues to maintain a median ROI of 122% — over four times higher than other marketing formats including social media, direct mail, and paid search according to the DMA and Demand Metric. While email definitely isn’t dead, the conventional way of sending email is. For years, marketers have assembled their audiences, built, and sent messages using a “batch and blast” strategy. Batch and blast email is the workhorse of the modern marketing stack. To this day, it represents the vast majority of email campaigns sent each year. Batch emails are relatively inexpensive to produce and allow marketers to communicate with large groups of people very quickly. The caveat is that consumers are now exposed to so much media that they...
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What it Takes to do Meaningful Personalization

What it Takes to do Meaningful Personalization

by Chester BullockNo Comments
I’ve been in email marketing for 9 years now, the latest iteration of a digital marketing career that I have had going for over 20 years. During this time, I have seen interesting new technologies emerge—from Send Time Optimization to Machine Learning, to AI being leveraged for content and subject line suggestions. And yet, I look in my own inbox and am forced to ask, “What the hell is going on?” Why do I ask this? Take a look at your own inbox. As VP Solutions Consulting at Trendline Interactive, I travel a fair bit and regularly receive emails from hotel chains, car rental companies, and airlines. All of these company subscriptions include regular monthly newsletters, along with periodic special offers or upsell opportunities. For the most part, I have satisfactory experiences when looking at them. But there are a few that leave me astounded, given the capabilities I know their platforms have. More specifically, as a frequent traveler, I want to...
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Inbox Examiner: AI and Your Email Marketing Program

Inbox Examiner: AI and Your Email Marketing Program

by Lucy DarbyNo Comments
*The Inbox Examiner is a series of discussions that address the many challenges faced by email marketers, with proven solutions from leading industry experts. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.   Artificial intelligence, or “AI,” is on every digital marketer's lips these days. It’s the new cool kid on the block that seems to promise easy-to-access levels of innovation. But what does AI even mean, especially for email marketers? How do you effectively apply it to your programs to make an actual impact? Don’t worry, you are not alone in asking these questions. That’s why we brought in two industry experts for this episode of Inbox Examiner to walk us through how email marketers are really using AI. In this video, you’ll learn: The definition of AI How AI is being applied in email marketing today What the future holds for AI Watch this episode today to learn what AI is, what resources are currently available to help you apply AI to your email program, and what...
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Artificial Intelligence & Email Marketing – Part 2

Artificial Intelligence & Email Marketing – Part 2

by Andrew KordekNo Comments
In a recent blog post on practical applications of artificial intelligence for email marketers, we tried to define what AI means for email marketing. Although some AI claims are more hype than reality, we believe it offers some great practical applications for the future. We work on some of the most complex and advanced email programs in the world. We’re always looking for ways to innovate and improve our customers’ programs. After working with OneSpot for years, we believe the personalization technology company is changing the game with machine learning and its practical application for email programs.   I recently sat down with several members of the OneSpot team to get their perspective on the AI landscape and what their technology offers the modern marketer. 1. It seems as if the email industry has talked about delivering a 1:1 experience for over 10 years. What is OneSpot’s unique differentiator? “Personalization” is used to describe different things in the email space, from adding someone’s name...
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