How marketers are using digital media to create a 24/7 conversation with their customers.

At a recent PSAMA Executive Luncheon, I was able to get an inside look at how some marketers are leveraging customer insight and marketing technology to grow their business.

The presentation by Joel Book, Principal of the Marketing Research and Education Group at Exact Target, was titled “Fueling the Conversation: How Smart Marketers Use Digital Media to Attract, Convert and Retain Customers”. In addition to facts and figures on the growing power of email, social media and mobile marketing to attract customers and drive sales, it featured real world case studies to demonstrate how email is being integrated with social media and mobile marketing to dramatically improve response rates.

His discussion was based on what Mr. Book calls “The Triangle Offense of Direct Marketing” – email, social and mobile. Citing a 2010 study by Fair Isaac Corporation which concluded that consumer offers that are personalized, timely and relevant significantly outperform generic offers, he shared real world examples to show us how national and local marketers are using digital technology to deliver personalized offers to customers with dramatic results.

Email is the backbone of customer engagement.
Email is being used as an effective tool to reach customers at every stage of the life cycle. Whether your marketing goal is to attract, engage, convert, serve, renew or reward your customers, email has proven to offer tremendous value. A recent study found that 50% of consumers have made a purchase due to email.

Mr. Book shared eleven case study examples from national and local marketers demonstrating how email is being used to deliver timely relevant messages and offers. Some highlights of these studies included:

• How Scott’s Lawn Care is using email and mobile apps to teach consumers how to use their products by delivering personalized targeted soil and grass treatment recommendations based on the geographic region of the customer.
• How Best Buy uses a pre-planned series of three emails to build customer loyalty and purchase. Email #1 at the time of purchase provides education and help on how to set-up and use the item(s) you just purchased; Email #2 at 7-14 days provides special offers on accessories and services to complement or enhance the enjoyment of the item(s) you purchased; Email #3 at 21-28 days invites you to share your opinions to help other shoppers through reviews and ratings.
• How Volvo Construction Equipment uses a monthly email newsletter to nurture leads, aid decision-making and support their dealer network.
  

Marketers are discovering new ways to integrate email + social media to fuel the conversation with their customers.
With 500 million active users on Facebook, 190 million active users on Twitter and 70 million active users on LinkedIn, social media offers a great potential to build relationships with current and potential customers. Case studies in this section of the presentation included a look at how Papa John’s Pizza uses email in combination with Facebook fans and special event sponsorships like NCAA March Madness to drive brand loyalty and sales. Other case studies showed how user-generated content is being used by an outdoor recreation service to build excitement for their river rafting trips, and how Whole Foods is using email and Twitter to deliver daily special offers by store managers for their local store and customer base.

Email + mobile can drive instant awareness and instant sales.
One of the more interesting case studies presented by Mr. Book was a test promotion at three Major League Baseball parks for Scott’s Lawn Care. Scott’s used direct response text messaging to drive subscriptions to their Lawn Care newsletter through an in-game announcement offering a free Groundskeepers Guide to anyone who wanted their home lawn to look as good as the outfield grass in the park. Fans were asked to text a special number to have the Groundskeepers Guide and newsletter waiting in their inbox when they got home that evening. Not only was that promotion successful in attracting new subscribers, Scott’s was contacted by a national home improvement chain to develop customized versions of their grass seed – Fenway Blend in Boston, Riverfront Blend in Cincinnati, etc.

Behavioral modeling allows email to deliver personalized messaging to drive retail sales.
In this section of his presentation, Mr. Book shared case studies from Best Buy, The Home Depot, Johnston and Murphy and others to demonstrate how analytics are being used to personalize offers relevant to consumer profiles and past purchases. He also made a strong case for using analytics to re-market to online customers who had abandoned their shopping cart without completing a purchase. He cited a January, 2010 study which concluded that 69% of e-commerce purchase transactions are abandoned before checkout completion and then showed findings from an MIT study which found that “real time re-marketing to website abandoners yields up to 50% conversion of those who had abandoned”.

Mr. Book concluded his presentation with a re-statement of his introductory premise –smart marketing today requires a 24/7 conversation with your customers. We are living in a new era of direct marketing where “serving has become the new selling”. As noted in a 2010 report from Booz Allen Hamilton, “The mix of media channels has shifted from a one-way broadcast model to a set of dynamic two-way media forums”.

Tomorrow’s most successful marketers will be those who recognize and respond to the need to market to a segment of one, with messaging and offers that are personal, relevant and timely.

Email, social media and mobile marketing offer a variety of ways to begin and carry on that conversation. Are you encouraging your clients to talk with and listen to their customers 24/7?

The Battle For Your Inbox – Is Video Email the Next Wave?

As email inboxes become more and more crowded, email marketers are being challenged to find new ways to increase open rates, engagement time and response rates. According to a 2010 study by GetResponse, email marketers are actively looking for new ways to integrate social media tools more effectively into their email programs as a way to break through the clutter.

Over 90% of respondents said that they planned to integrate social media into their email campaigns by adding sign-up forms on Facebook and other social media sites and through adding share options through their email messages. That same study predicted a dramatic increase in the use of video in their email marketing program, with over 80% of respondents indicating they would begin or expand their use of video emails this year.

The GetResponse conclusions on the growth of video were recently corroborated by a report released last month by the Web Video Marketing Council. The WVMC study identified these key findings on emerging trends and perceptions that will influence the increased adoption of video email marketing:

Online video is already being used by 73% of survey participants for marketing, and half are using video in conjunction with their email. In addition, 24% of respondents are considering the use of video in their email marketing programs.

There is a strong belief among marketers in the study that video increases email click thru rates. A large majority of marketers (73%) believe that integrating video with email marketing will increase click thru rates. Only 6% of respondents did not think that video would have a positive impact on click thru rates. The overwhelming positive perception indicates that more marketers are likely to include video with email marketing in the future.

Those same marketers believe that video also increases conversion rates and leads to increased customer purchases. Almost three-fourths of the marketers surveyed (73%) feel that video based email marketing is more likely to generate higher conversion and purchase rates than static content. Only 5% of marketers thought that video with email would make no difference or have a negative impact on conversion and purchase rates.

Most marketers in the survey believe that video email marketing is a wave of the future. Nearly all of the marketers surveyed indicated that video based email marketing was the wave of the future (52%) or were intrigued by the opportunity (44%). Only 4% of marketers did not think that video email marketing works.

Wayne Wall, CEO of Flimp Media (a co-sponsor of the study) agrees that video is a wave of the future. He offers this opinion of the future of incorporating video into online marketing programs, "The adoption of rich media web technologies will radically change the way corporations market, sell and communicate. In the next three years we will witness a broad shift from static text and graphic print and web content to engaging audiovisual and multimedia content, more viewer interactivity, and instant activity reporting and results measurement. As broadband makes web video available to a global audience, as well as a conduit for richer interactive marketing experiences, consumption of rich media content will reshape the direct marketing and communications industries as we know them today."

Despite this overwhelming belief in the potential power of video email, these same study respondents recognize that there are barriers and challenges to widespread implementation. Almost 80% said their email service provider does not offer a video marketing solution or they weren’t aware if they did.

They felt that ease of implementation and high cost of producing video assets were the primary challenges associated with using video for email marketing. Cost and availability of video content are likely related since video production can be expensive. The study concludes that as the cost of online video development decreases, more marketers will likely participate in video based marketing.

An interesting side note to the question of barriers and challenges is that 13% of marketers surveyed were concerned about the receptivity of consumers to video email marketing. This is something that should be studied in more detail as it will certainly impact how marketers approach video as a part of an integrated web marketing program.

A final finding from the study is that current practice is primarily limited to linking to a video landing page. However, most felt that embedding a video player in an email message would be a more effective way to use video with email when the technology becomes available.

My conclusion is that online video is a fast-growing digital marketing channel that should be looked at carefully by almost every marketer who wants to implement a truly integrated web marketing effort. These two studies indicate that many marketers are confident that video will grow and prove beneficial to their email efforts.

What about your clients? Are they using video in their web marketing programs? Is this an area that you can lead your client to build value as a partner?

What about your agency? Are you using video as part of your business development emails?

Are you catching the wave?