You’ve Got Permission, Now Be Relevant: How to Use Segmentation, Targeting, and Personalization to Deliver Relevant Email
A Whitepaper By: Morgan Stewart, Director of Strategic Services
Introduction
Segmentation. Targeting. Personalization. All are common buzz words used among marketers today. However, they are not new concepts. Academics have been writing about market segmentation for over 50 years. Don Peppers and Martha Rogers Ph.D raised the stakes in when they published The One to One Future, and Seth Godin fueled the fire for permission-email marketers in 1999 with Permission Marketing.
Incredible potential can be unleashed by acting upon segmentation, targeting, and personalization strategies. Consider Amazon.com who, amidst considerable skepticism their business model, built arguably the online world’s most valuable asset—the Amazon. CRM database. This database enables the use of segmentation, targeting and personalization techniques that deliver value to the customer while maintaining a very high level of trust. In these methodologies enable Amazon.com to deliver targeted and personalized messages to very appreciative audience, which then translates into profit. In the early days of email marketing, generating high response rates and a good return on investment (ROI) proved relatively easy—definitely easier than other direct marketing such as direct mail. The low costs associated with email made the potential for ROI high. A generic email message sent to thousands of subscribers resulted in response rates that no medium had ever achieved. Yet these days, it takes more than batch and blast messages to sustain high response and ROI. As email marketing progresses, delivery of relevant and timely communications is becoming more crucial to a successful program. This whitepaper focuses on Segmentation, Targeting, Personalization to provide an in-depth look at the strategies and tactics that marketers must adopt in order to deliver customer-centric messages. Part One of this whitepaper will delve into the background and strategies that one must understand prior to acting. Part Two is a how-to guide for the implementation and steps to create personalized, segmented, and targeted campaigns.
Background and Strategies
Are Segmentation, Targeting, and Personalization Right for You?
If you’re wondering whether these tactics are right for your organization, you should first consider the current state of your relationship with your customers and prospects. Ask yourself: Do I already have a close and personal relationship with them? Or am I trying to build a personal relationship with them? It’s important to know because:
The need to deliver highly personalized and targeted messages increases the farther away you are from your prospective customer.
If you do not have a real and personal relationship with the customer—if you do not recognize your customers when you see them on the street—then embracing the strategies and tactics outlined in this whitepaper is especially important to the success of your long-term email initiatives. If you already have a close relationship, these strategies may not be necessary elements to your marketing plan.
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