Stop Sending Email! Start Sending Multi-channel messages that matter

Editor's Notes

• #6: But how successful has this approach actually been?Well if you think about it, we focus on where we’re successful. But the reality is we’re still causing too much noise for the majority of our prospects.
• #8: Today, those of us who are segmenting tend to be basing our segmentation on two things:By Profile – the usual demographic stuff: age, gender, locationAnd By Preference – if they’ve opted in to an email; how they like to be contactedBut what is missing is context. I may be a marketing director, married with 2 kids living in West London. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in the market to buy a car or shoes or wine right now.
• #9: Thankful to not have to search A to Z
• #10: We’ve done this to ourselves. We’ve utilized all the new channels our customers want to interact with by coming up with strategies to push more and more content down these channels without any consideration for the customer experience. And this creates a big problem for our marketing strategy…..
• #11: But your customers – your buyers don’t just hang out on your website. They are interacting and learning everywhere. Phone, ipad, laptop – in facebook, and on your website. You need technology that enables you to interact with this person wherevery they are – knowing who it is and where they are at each and every time they show up. What if you could personalize the content on your facebook offer – in real time?
• #13: As brands the missing dimension is behavioural data: what a consumer does when they interact with you.Essentially, your customers are telling you all about themselves and their needs and interests every time they interact with you.And it turns out the insight you can derive from this data is the BEST guide to personalization of your customer experience.Best here has one definition: the customer experience that gets the best response, the most clicks, the highest revenue.
• #14: Let’s look at the kind of data we’re talking about.We’ve already talked about demographics – which we’re using here to mean both profiles and preferences. Still a valuable way to segment.But now we start to add behaviours – in just a few of the big channels here:Email – what did I open? What did I click?The relational stuff that tends to live in CRM – what did I buy? What did you learn from the survey I completed? What does the Loyalty program say about me? On the Web – did I abandon a cart? What products did I search for? What videos did I view?And Offline – did I redeem a voucher? Buy something in a store? Call the call centre?
• #15: Think about this.If you know that I came to your site, searched for Brogues, looked at three pairs, left one pair in the shopping cart and went away…Would you treat me differently than if you knew NOTHING about me?Of course you would. Bob definitely would.And all this data -- all this INSIGHT – is right there, ready to be used. You own it. It’s yours.
• #16: The cart abandonment email is a simple, powerful example of the essence of Behavioural Marketing.And it really is a simple idea: You capture the things people do when they interact with you.You apply a few rules to that data.And the rules generate the best interaction for that person at the next point of interaction.Simple.
• #17: Now turbo-charge it.Capture that behaviour FROM ANY CHANNEL at all. Email, web, mobile, in-store, CRM… you name itCombine it with everything you know – again from ALL past interactions, profile data, preference data…Apply your rulesGenerate a PERSONALISED interaction and a MULTI -CHANNEL track that Then measure it all and store the learning to make your rules and your customer experience paths better and better and better
• #18: There are 5 big questions to answer.
• #19: This will vary a lot by business and channel and customer.Some behaviours will be gold dust for driving uplift [the abandoned cart for instance]. Others won’t move the dial at all [If I buy a gift for my niece today, that doesn’t make me more likely to buy another tomorrow]You won’t know in advance which bevaviours matter the most to your business.The key is to get in there and start finding out.Start with best guesses and hunches. Apply them. See what happens. repeat.
• #20: Remember all the sources of behavioural data you’ve got.Pick the most likely – the ones that feel like good predictors of intention – and start working with those.Experiment with a small chunk of your database. Do A/B tests. Start learning.
• #21: Second question: how do you capture all that data and turn it into insight?Well the obvious thing is that you need a single place to store it all…
• #22: A central experience databaseFed by all channels and touchpointsA place to associate all that behaviours across all those places, with the individual.
• #23: So you’ve captured all that behaviour data.Third question: how do you turn it into insight?Because data is just effluent. It’s just noise. Unless you can extract some reliable, relevant insight from it.
• #24: You turn data into insight using a few tools:Rules – simple logic that says, ‘If you see this behaviour or combination of behaviours, do this.” Good rules are the key to effective behavioural marketing. [There are vendors out there with all kinds of fancy algorithms that claim to not be rules based. In my experience, they all tend to have rules inside that somebody wrote. And I’d rather let the marketer write the rules instead of hiding the in a black box algorithm…]Analysis – taking the data and deciding what it means. If we see that a person responds to emails that are sent between 5 and 7pm but ignores emails sent from 9 to 5, we can draw conclusions.That’s simple analysis.Scoring – giving specific behaviours a score, so you can add up different behaviours and trip an action.Opening an email – 5 points; Visiting a web page – 5 points; Putting something in a shopping basket: 80 points…Triggers – the things that are invoked by the rules, analysis and scoring… When these things happen, do this.
• #25: Next question – how do you scale this up?It’s a lot easier for B2B scales.I spent a lot of my career in B2B marketing and I’ve used the marketing automation tools that work fine at these scales.But B2C behavioural marketing has to scale to millions of customers. And Billions of interactions. This really is big data.
• #27: It’s nice to have email driven by insight from previous emailIt’s great to have your email driven by insight from email, web, mobile app, CRM, PoS, etc.But it’s hugely powerful to have ALL interactions powered by ALL insight from ALL channelsThat’s the end game of behavioural marketing.And to do that you need a platform built to work this way.
• #29: Here’s the big picture.WhatBehavioural Marketing looks like to a geek like me.On the left: all the channels where a customer can interact with you. Email, web, mobile, whatever.In the middle, the Engage database, the rules and scoring engine, the relational tables that tie it all together.And on the right, the channels where you’ll interact next. So a behaviour that happened in an email can inform what web page you serve up to me.And a form I complete on Facebook triggers a dynamic email that seems like it was written for me – because it was.Essentially what you’re looking at is the Brain of Bob.
• #30: So as you become a behavioural marketer these are the 5 big questions you’ll need to answer for yourself:Which behaviours matter most?How do we capture and learn from them?How do we turn this insight into action?How do we do it at scale?How do we do it across all channels?
• #32: CompanyInsideOut Development is a professional services firm that provides leadership, management, and front-line employee training workshops to business leaders and Fortune 500 companies.ChallengeAs a company that trains others on how to best operate in the business world, having a well-running sales and marketing department is a necessity. This includes making sure email marketing and lead generation processes are properly aligned.InsideOut knew they were not sending the most targeted messages to their audience of executive leaders, HR managers, corporate directors, and previous clients because they did not have the capability to segment their data and easily target their message accordingly. Because of this data disconnect, executing marketing emails was a manual, time-consuming process that didn’t yield the necessary conversions. The data that came from each email was difficult to translate to their inside sales team, making the leads generated from each email less valuable.After moving to Salesforce.com as their CRM provider, InsideOut chose to search for a new email and marketing automation platform. InsideOut then chose Silverpop Engage because of its Programs and lead scoring functionality, seamless integration with Salesforce.com, and strong deliverability reputation. During the onboarding process, InsideOut completed their Salesforce.com data integration and start using Silverpop Engage for their marketing campaigns focused on promoting their educational workshops held in major cities across the United States. In 2011, InsideOut offered 52 total workshops.SolutionWorking with Silverpop Engage’s Programs functionality made it easy for InsideOut to create automated campaigns. One example of a successful initiative include sending up to four automated messages targeting previous workshop attendees, their most profitable target audience. With the freedom to quickly setup and execute Programs focused on highly-specific audiences, each individual receives a properly targeted message at the right time.By implementing a lead scoring model that integrates with Salesforce.com, InsideOut’s inside sales team now has a simple way to see which leads have a higher score, enabling each salesperson to dedicate his or her time to leads that have a higher close rate probability. The sales team also appreciates not having to search through several spreadsheets to find this information, as everything is easily located within their view in Salesforce.com.ResultsBy having their sales and marketing department operating on a single marketing platform that integrates with Salesforce.com, InsideOut has been able to save time, prioritize leads, and increase their email effective rate, leading to a 33% increase in workshop registrations. As an added bonus, they also saw a 66% increase in their email deliverability. They attribute this success to Silverpop’s strong deliverability reputation, as well as being able to correctly target their audience, and then message accordingly, via Silverpop Engage.“Through our Silverpop Engage integration with Salesforce.com, we are getting to know our customers better, and are spending more time with the right people,” says VP of Corporate Development and Marketing, Jacques Bazinet. “Prior to Silverpop Engage, we did not have that insight. We’ve seen a huge boost in new client partnerships and revenue. Thank you Silverpop!”Challenges• Needed to align email marketing and lead generation processes• No ability to send targeted emails• Lack of insight into quality of leadsBenefits• Through integration with Salesforce.com, InsideOut is now able to prioritize leads and has saved time for both its sales and marketing teams• 6X increase in effective rate• 33% increase in workshop registrations• 66% increase in deliverability rates
• #33: CompanyInsideOut Development is a professional services firm that provides leadership, management, and front-line employee training workshops to business leaders and Fortune 500 companies.ChallengeAs a company that trains others on how to best operate in the business world, having a well-running sales and marketing department is a necessity. This includes making sure email marketing and lead generation processes are properly aligned.InsideOut knew they were not sending the most targeted messages to their audience of executive leaders, HR managers, corporate directors, and previous clients because they did not have the capability to segment their data and easily target their message accordingly. Because of this data disconnect, executing marketing emails was a manual, time-consuming process that didn’t yield the necessary conversions. The data that came from each email was difficult to translate to their inside sales team, making the leads generated from each email less valuable.After moving to Salesforce.com as their CRM provider, InsideOut chose to search for a new email and marketing automation platform. InsideOut then chose Silverpop Engage because of its Programs and lead scoring functionality, seamless integration with Salesforce.com, and strong deliverability reputation. During the onboarding process, InsideOut completed their Salesforce.com data integration and start using Silverpop Engage for their marketing campaigns focused on promoting their educational workshops held in major cities across the United States. In 2011, InsideOut offered 52 total workshops.SolutionWorking with Silverpop Engage’s Programs functionality made it easy for InsideOut to create automated campaigns. One example of a successful initiative include sending up to four automated messages targeting previous workshop attendees, their most profitable target audience. With the freedom to quickly setup and execute Programs focused on highly-specific audiences, each individual receives a properly targeted message at the right time.By implementing a lead scoring model that integrates with Salesforce.com, InsideOut’s inside sales team now has a simple way to see which leads have a higher score, enabling each salesperson to dedicate his or her time to leads that have a higher close rate probability. The sales team also appreciates not having to search through several spreadsheets to find this information, as everything is easily located within their view in Salesforce.com.ResultsBy having their sales and marketing department operating on a single marketing platform that integrates with Salesforce.com, InsideOut has been able to save time, prioritize leads, and increase their email effective rate, leading to a 33% increase in workshop registrations. As an added bonus, they also saw a 66% increase in their email deliverability. They attribute this success to Silverpop’s strong deliverability reputation, as well as being able to correctly target their audience, and then message accordingly, via Silverpop Engage.“Through our Silverpop Engage integration with Salesforce.com, we are getting to know our customers better, and are spending more time with the right people,” says VP of Corporate Development and Marketing, Jacques Bazinet. “Prior to Silverpop Engage, we did not have that insight. We’ve seen a huge boost in new client partnerships and revenue. Thank you Silverpop!”Challenges• Needed to align email marketing and lead generation processes• No ability to send targeted emails• Lack of insight into quality of leadsBenefits• Through integration with Salesforce.com, InsideOut is now able to prioritize leads and has saved time for both its sales and marketing teams• 6X increase in effective rate• 33% increase in workshop registrations• 66% increase in deliverability rates
• #34: The CompanyFounded in 2007, Course Hero is a Silicon Valley-based edtech startup dedicated to helping students discover a more efficient and productive learning experience. Through its suite of innovative educational resources that includes courses, tutoring, digital flashcards and study documents, Course Hero provides learners who are exploring new subjects or mastering key topics with the tools they need to achieve their goals.  The ChallengeStudents sometimes visit Course Hero’s site and sign up for a subscription, then become inactive even though they still have access to helpful resources. Course Hero was looking to implement a lifecycle program that would enable the company to connect more strongly with new subscribers, deliver more relevant content, and re-engage inactives. “We sought to build a lifecycle program to drive brand engagement and help our subscribers get the most out of Course Hero’s services,” says Katie Augustus, director of marketing communications. “We saw the opportunity to take better advantage of our investment in Silverpop Engage to help us achieve our goal.” The SolutionTo achieve more engaged subscribers and build brand trust, Course Hero implemented a sophisticated lifecycle program aimed at keeping Course Hero top of mind with paid subscribers and encouraging them to continue taking advantage of available resources. Using Silverpop’s Programs functionality, Course Hero built a campaign that educated and reminded subscribers about all of Course Hero’s resources, such as courses, digital flashcards, tutor services and study documents, during the crucial first month of membership  As the lifecycle program progresses, the content becomes more personalized:  The program opens up with two emails that highlight the features of the Flashcards and online Tutoring products and shares tips and tricks for getting the most out of each resource.As the program progresses, emails makes use of relational tables, serving up the most relevant content based on website activity as well as information the user has provided. For example, if the subscriber has identified his or herself as an economics major at Berkley, the email will highlight the top economics resources contributed by other students at Berkley.The final emails within the lifecycle program provide studying tips and an overall reminder of how to take advantage of all of Course Hero resources and get the most out of the subscription.  In additional to its lifecycle program, Course Hero also sends targeted mailings to all its subscribers and includes relevant content during key milestones in the academic year. These emails are personalized based on the user’s activity history, such as last page viewed and most recent material they used on the website. They are sent using behavioral queries in Silverpop Engage.  Course Hero also recently implemented a contest spotlighting the free courseware it offers. This contest is more interactive than its usual emails and centers around submitting a business plan. Course Hero took advantage of Silverpop’s dynamic content and A/B subject testing functionality when creating the campaign, which includes three-week, two-week, one-week and 24-hour deadline reminder emails.  In an effort to further enhance customer relations, Course Hero also created a triggered email reminding customers that their subscription is coming to an end, thereby making the billing cycle more transparent. The email is triggered one week in advance of a subscription being renewed. The ResultsAs a result of the lifecycle campaign Course Hero implemented and its behaviorally targeted emails, Course Hero has seen an increase in engaged subscribers. In addition, it’s tallied a 7 percent increase in email open rates and a 29 percent open rate in the mailings where A/B subject line testing is performed.  “The use of Engage has helped us strengthen our business by increasing engagement with our subscribers and building brand trust,” says Augustus. “We are seeing improved deliverability, and customers are receptive to our emails. With the help of Silverpop, we created behaviorally targeted campaigns that have drastically improved our email engagement and have been a pivotal component of our growth.”  ChallengeNeeded a more sophisticated lifecycle programMore brand engagement and trustBecome transparent with customers BenefitsMore engaged subscribers7% increase in open rates for lifecycle programTargeted and personal behaviorally targeted campaigns