Emails targeted around different site behaviours are now becoming the norm online. As we’ve been involved in behavioural based email for 10 years now, I felt it was time to do a top ten tips focusing specifically on behavioural email. So here goes.
It’s all about timing
I’ve already ranted previously about the importance of instant vs. targeted in terms of when to send behavioural emails. The main point is it works for certain messages (saved quote for example) but not for others (basket abandonment). Because of the ‘big brother’ factor and how to judge they have actually abandoned in the first place, sending an abandoned basket trigger instantly can be ineffective.
The main problem that occurs here is what to do if you’re not sending an instant email. Do you send 1 hour later? 4 hours? Next day? 3 days? When? Unfortunately the answer is the same as always; it depends on the email and product. For the basic abandoned purchase email, an email within 1 hour is normally suggested. On finance, because of the massive competition caused by aggregators it’s advised to send a confirmation instantly whilst for a retail client we often find that people are more likely to still be looking at options and haven’t even abandoned after an hour. With travel research and price checking can be extensive and it’s normally best to send some sort of abandoned follow up message within 24 hours. One thing is clear, the more expensive the purchase the longer it normally takes. And the longer it takes the more time you should allow for the follow up emails, so as to not pressure the prospect.
To offer or not
I’m often asked if you should give some kind of offer in abandon purchase emails and the short answer is it depends. Don’t be afraid to use offers but don’t give them away immediately. Be careful about serial abandoners using this tactic to get permanent offers.
The most important thing to remember is that you use offers as part of an organised email programme and even in an abandoned follow up email, the offers are targeted
It’s not a one off, but a full Programme
A stand alone behavioural email will work, but programmes will always be better. There is no better example of this in my opinion than a ‘saved insurance quote’ email campaign. This campaign starts with a basic, instant response email to a saved quote. This then evolves to include a follow up 2 days later, which then gets split into two segments dependent on whether the user returned to the site or not. The returning segment then gets split again based on the what the user did once back on the site. As you can see, you slowly evolve one simple and effective email into many, but always remember the key to any evolving programme is to ensure the extra segments are adding incremental revenue; don’t add segments just for fun, make sure they are valuable!
Serial abandonment
One problem we are starting to see more and more is the problem of serial abandonment. People are either getting wise to the offers that sometimes come with these emails or they are just the type that will abandon a lot. The key is handling both these types.
I want to expand on this subject more in a subsequent blog, but the key message to remember with the guys that are abandoning on purpose to get offers, is to take them out of the main programme and tailor a separate program just for them. This way you can either give them their own offers (effectively a one to one sale programme!) or remove them from future abandonment emails altogether. For the guys that abandon a lot and don’t use the emails, simply treat them like any other unengaged email user. Test a different message and if they still won’t engage remove them.
Make it relevant
Classic best practice tips still apply to behavioural email and one of the most important is making content relevant. Don’t fall into the trap that behavioural email by nature makes things relevant. It’s important to ensure content is targeted to your customer’s individual behaviour.
Internal buy in
Whilst we all sit here with the knowledge that behavioural email is the future of email marketing (at least I hope we do!), you have to remember that not everyone in your business will have this insight. Remember you need to sell things internally before you can realistically launch. The best way to do this is calculate you revenues before you launch, which is easier than you think. You already should know the types of emails you plan to start with, your analytics should tell you average sizes of the segments, so it’s just a case of applying the average conversions to these to understand how much money you’re going to make. This of course leads to ROI. If you want to get any idea of average conversions for the different types of behavioural email programmes available at RedEye, just drop me an email or pick up the phone.
Delivering results
I’m going to cheat slightly and make the next two tips specifically about individual sectors, starting with retail…and it’s a really simple one. If you charge for delivery, then the simplest and most effective offer for an abandon basket email is to offer free delivery. Nothing clever. Nothing awe inspiring. But it works.
Welcome home
What works in travel is less obvious but still very compelling; targeted welcome home programmes. It’s almost criminal now not to have a welcome home programme considering the ease with which you can produce these. Remember the aim of these programs is brand loyalty. Ensure the experience of your customer’s holiday continues past their return date. Use the data about what the user has previously viewed and target the creative around looking forward to your next holiday.
Think beyond the site
Whilst behavioural email has grown out of the information collected through web site tagging, remember there is a lot of useful data outside core web site data that can add massively to your email programmes. The best example is search engine data. Just imagine being able to split your ‘quote not buy’ emails between those typing in ‘cheap car insurance’ and those typing in ‘protected no claims bonus’. Segmenting in this way will make your emails much more targeted and relevant to your customer.
Integrate with offline data
This final one is as much about the future as the present, mainly because very few people have yet to start exploiting offline and online integration. As this becomes the norm for more companies, the key is finding the unique record that ties your offline data and your online data (unique customer number, email address etc…) and then adding data that is relevant. Just because you can include offline data doesn’t mean you should. Only include offline data that will enhance your online data and can be used meaningfully.
My aim over the coming weeks is to expand many of the themes above into full blogs, so keep an eye out for the next update.
In the meantime, if you want to understand more about behavioural email please drop me an email at blog@redeye.com