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Innovative Partner Interview: Ariad

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As part of our Innovative Partner Interview series, we’re bringing you real world marketing insights from industry experts at our partner companies. Today, we talk to Greg Elliot, Head of Email Marketing & Digital CRM at Ariad about why he believes email remains the key component in any successful digital marketing strategy.

Ariad is a marketing agency focused on creating content that motivates, creative that inspires, and strategy that connects it all to clients’ customers to drive business results.

Greg, how does email marketing fit into the larger digital marketing picture?

At Ariad, we’ve increasingly seen that the lines between sales, service, and marketing are blurring. They are starting to become one and the same. Today’s customers are expecting a seamless, frictionless, and personalized experience from the companies and brands they do business with, across every step of the digital journey.

For our clients, we see that email marketing still serves as the backbone of the omni-channel customer journey and today we believe it’s as important of a service tool as it is a marketing tool. In the Canadian market, email remains the channel that customers most prefer brands communicate to them with and they remain responsive to brands that are using it for all types of customer communications.  Without question, we believe email marketing remains the key component in any successful digital marketing strategy.

How have you seen email greatly impact your business?

Email is without doubt the workhorse of digital marketing and we are continuing to see it outperform all other digital channels in terms of marketing R.O.I.  However the most impressive lift for our clients certainly has come from their transitions from a traditional batch-and-blast email approach to a strategy which is focused on email marketing’s role in the overall customer journey.

When is email data most critical to your efforts: During the planning process; while you’re executing a campaign, so you can change course or allocate more resources; or afterwards, to measure your success?

Having a deep understanding of your data during all phases of your marketing cycles is important—there’s no “best” area, as each stage needs data to make the entire campaign successful. During the planning process you’re determining your target audience, personalization strategies and deployment timing. Digging deep into your post-campaign data can uncover learnings that shape future campaigns. Learning what content is most engaging for your audience, what real-time personalization tactics are most effective, and determining your overall campaign success versus your business goals is where post-campaign data and measurement really shines.

What do you see as the single most disruptive force coming to the world of email marketing?

To us, the most disruptive force is the transformation of the customer experience through personalization and context.  Customers now demand that brands take a value-driven approach to their marketing efforts. If it’s not relevant to me, and not providing me immediate value at the time and place I received the communication, then don’t send it. Gone are the days when marketers can just communicate when they feel they have something to say. Customers expect marketers to adjust based on their needs, and respond to the signals they are providing—even if their needs are different than your plan. Customers expect brands to use the data available to them, prove that they know them, and make their experience truly individualized, personalized and contextually relevant. Today, marketers should be focused on managing interactions at a 1:1 level.

What excites you most about leveraging contextual marketing as a part of your strategy?

Contextual marketing technology like MovableInk allows us to more easily “practice what we preach” when it comes to Ariad’s strategic approach with our clients. It allows us to stay true to our promise of only creating email marketing campaigns that deliver relevant messaging to right person, at the right time and place. At Ariad, we are continuously looking for ways to help our clients’ marketing dollars work harder, and drive more ROI. MovableInk provides us the technology to do just that.

Ariad Communications is a marketing agency focused on creating content that motivates, creative that inspires, and strategy that connects it all to clients’ customers to drive business results. Some of Canada’s most successful brands in the healthcare, CPG, automotive, and financial services sectors engage with Ariad’s marketing professionals to generate brand engagement, deepen customer relationships, and instil loyalty. Those brands include ADP®, Degree®, OneTouch®, Reactine®, Colliers®, Becel®, Visa®, D+H®, Vale®, PwC® and smart Car®. For more information, visit http://www.ariad.ca/.

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