(UGLY) BABY STEPS DON’T HAVE TO BE SMALLThe ultimate guide to progressing from the basics of good email to fully personalised multi-channel deployment NICK CRAWFORD – ACCOUNT DIRECTOR

RedEye

OK I’m going to give you 2 more

minutes of my time, but what’s the Ugly

Baby thing all about?

You’ve got 8* seconds to

engage me….

Back in January, Matthew Kelleher, CCO at RedEye, discussed how data is still perceived as the ugly baby of digital marketing, sharing his insights on how you can make sense of it. Multi-channel personalisation can unlock your data’s potential. Matthew provided his expertise on getting to grips with a multi-channel strategy and the data that fuels it, in one of our whitepapers, click here to have a read.

Many clients recognise this potential in their own business, but aren’t sure what the next steps are or feel that the next steps are too big to achieve.To support you we’ve created a structured approach to development (some call it maturing) based on key steps within each of these phases.

This allows you to understand:• Where you are today in your development stage (putting the key foundations in place)

• What manageable task you need to focus on next to progress (the baby steps)

• How you can maximise the speed of your development (get it right first time and you won’t trip)

00.08

* In 2000 the average attention span was 12 seconds but this has now fallen to just 8. The goldfish is believed to be able to maintain a solid 9 seconds! ENGAGEMENT is vital! The Independent, May 2015

2

You want your content to be more personal, engage your audience and stand out from the crowd. You know you need to understand and segment your data to achieve this, but how can you make these big tasks achievable? (And on top of the day job!).

Let me walk you through this guide which sets out a six phase development plan, from the basics of good email to fully personalised multi-channel deployment.

INTRODUCTION

Deliver on this promise and it will

really help, but enough words, give

me a picture toabsorb.

3

(UGLY) BABY STEPS DON’T HAVE TO BE SMALL

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4

PHASE 1

For the purpose of this guide I’m going to assume that you have all the basics in place. If you can’t currently:

• De-dupe multiple device email opens and browsing actions into a single data record

OR

• Create key action trigger sends based on behavioural data from your website

OR

• Influence inbox placement, speed of delivery or manage opt in status based on ISP feedback

Then contact us now on 0207 730 958 or click here to submit your details.

5

So you’re up and running with a solid foundation of data structure, key automated trigger sends and email design based on best practice. Phase two is all about making the initial email programmes sweat as much as possible.

Set success factors to create both current and future performance benchmarking.Define a testing plan and stick to it.

• What is the best call to action wording?

• Does adding a second call to action towards the end of the email, increase clicks?

• Should the clickable area in your hero image be made to look like it can be clicked?

Time spent now, optimising the basics is one of the small steps that can make a massive improvement on performance. Skip this stage and failures in your sends will be amplified when you do start using dynamic content or increasing personalisation.

PHASE 2

For most clients this is the key stage. It’s where you move beyond good but generic emails to all, to releasing your data’s potential. Now you begin targeted sends, with personalised content and deliberate timing. It’s also where most clients start to struggle. Suddenly it seems that baby steps won’t get you anywhere anymore, but there’s not enough time and resources to make the large jumps required.

Lean on the plan, that’s what it’s there for.Small step 1… RedEye provide a simple and structured way to help you understand where you’ve reached in terms of using segments to influence content. In the same way you audit your email programmes you can audit your current segmentation plan. Use this to define incremental improvements.

Small step 2… Automate your send frequency based on email engagement, and yes this does mean sending more as well as less. RedEye can make this a very small step for you, with our Tempo solution. Not ready for this yet, that’s fine, but do you allow users to select what type of email they would like to receive. Again this doesn’t have to be a major project!

OK OK I know – yes we should be doing this, no we haven’t for a while, but we’re doing most

of this (well some of it) already…show me how I

really make the big steps with the resource I

have…

6

PHASE 3

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Small step 3…What are your competitors doing and what can you learn from this?

• Is email sign up easier, more prominent or more persuasive?

• What tone of voice does the first email use and does this reflect their brand better?

• Do they use bespoke landing pages or first time offers?

These small steps can be massive!

• Content variation based on prospect/customer status

• Automated inclusion of browsed content in monthly newsletters

• Increase order value, with non-offer content to your frequent purchasers

MIDPOINT RECAP (but we’re going to race through the rest, because by now you’ve got it)

Get the key foundations in place

A planned and structured approach is the most efficient route to success

Strategic and system support makes development achievable with finite resource and budget

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PHASE 3 (CONTINUED)

By now you’ll see how each phase becomes the foundation of the next development. This avoids false starts and finding yourself down data cul-de-sac’s where time, resource and budget has been spent starting a programme only for you to be made aware that the data cannot be made actionable as you need it.

Once the segmentation audit has been completed, it then becomes a much smaller step to define priority based on immediate impact and ROI (revenue or loyalty). If you know what you are looking for and how you are going to use it, before the next stage of data insight analysis, the task becomes much more likely to succeed.

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PHASE 4

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9

PHASE 5

Now it’s time to use your manageable data structure, segment creation insight and planned email send calender to move to a multi-channel approach.

This is now a much smaller step in development because you’re removing the guess work and assumption (well most of it, let’s call the rest creative inspiration).

Even at this stage in maturity, small steps can make a major impact.

I have a client who in a week had set up a data capture microsite, integrated the link with their social channels and in the first 5 days of go live had added over three thousand mailable email addresses to their database.

Do you allow email opt in within your Facebook page?

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As an Account Director I live by a few simple rules, one of which is to work ‘in a spirit of no surprises’ or to use the old fashioned parlance, don’t lie. So here comes the truth, by the time you reach the end of the development plan some tasks do get big.

BUT… imagine how big the step is today to web personalisation? Now imagine, through progressing along the development plan:

1. You already have a clearly defined personalisation plan, based on data segmentation from a clear understanding of your customer

2. There is an automated process in place updating these segments based on transactional AND behavioural data

3. You have content variations based on these segments and know what to show and when

Suddenly it’s not so large a step to achieve this major influence on engagement and experience.

Perhaps simply turning on web personalisation in the RedEye platform is just an (ugly) baby step?

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PHASE 6

To find out more about what we can do for you at RedEye click here

To contact us click here and submit your details.