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Monday Catch-up: Adding a Human Touch to Email, Upselling and Tips for Using Social + Email Together

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Happy Monday email marketers! Here’s a roundup of some of the latest email marketing news to help get your week off to an informed start. (And to our fellow email geeks in the U.S. — the big day is finally here: don’t forget to vote tomorrow!)

Artificial intelligence won’t replace the human touch in email marketing

Does rise of artificial intelligence in email marketing mean that that its practitioners should be concerned about their job security? George Bilbrey, writing at Media Post’s Email Insider, doesn’t think so.

While he notes that “a variety of tools can write (or choose) an optimal subject line for you, or determine the correct product or article to feature in order to optimize clicks for a given subscriber,” he doesn’t see artificial intelligence prompting an involuntary career change for email marketers. Rather, he predicts the role of artificial intelligence will be “to optimize the original, perceptive, and persuasive programs created by humans.”

Bilbrey predicts that “we will see more tools that optimize cadence and timing to maximize subscriber lifetime value or revenue,” a trend that will require that email marketers “have a deep understanding of subscribers and be more adventurous in providing what subscribers need.” And because artificial intelligence will automate optimization, “human-driven analytics will be more about understanding whether our high-level program-design choices are working, and less about making optimization decisions.”

“A lot of what email marketers do require many of the skills that are less amenable to being computerized,” Bilbrey writes. “The best email marketers develop original creative and programs. They show a high degree of social perceptiveness—they understand the context and needs of their subscribers and craft email programs to meet these needs. Their emails are persuasive.” For those reasons: “Email marketers will have jobs,” he predicts.

Take advantage of email marketing upselling opportunities

“Do you want fries with that?” is a quintessential example of upselling – a valuable tool that can be as useful for email marketers as it is down at your local burger joint.

When it comes to upselling, “Email shouldn’t be overlooked as it presents an opportunity to re-engage with customers and draw them back in to drive sales,” writes Nicola Faulkner at Business 2 Community. “There are many different ways to upsell and you can do it at various points of the buying cycle.”

She cites website-behavioral emails, basket-abandonment emails, post-purchase emails, upgrade campaigns and renewal reminders as examples of upselling tactics email marketers can employ.

To be successful at upselling, Faulkner says email marketers need to “connect real-time data to your email marketing platform in order to trigger campaigns containing relevant content.” In addition, “You’ll also need relational data connecting products to each other. For example, linking insurance packages to electronic products. The other way is to categorize products by the demographic of your customers.”

Upselling is a valuable method of nurturing customer relationship, Faulkner suggests. “By upselling you’re letting the customer know that you take notice of what they’re interested in, making it easier for them to find these products and maximizing return on investment. Upselling helps you to develop relationships by pushing products that are relevant and useful to that customer, which means they’ll see value in your service and are more than likely to return.”

Understanding the email ‘ecosystem’

Scott Helmes, writing at Marketing Land, says it’s critical for marketers to make sure they are aware of all the components email marketing campaign lifecycles – which he terms the email “ecosystem.”

“Understanding the email ecosystem can be complicated, but it’s an essential element of executing a successful email program,” he writes. “It’s crucial to think of the entire program life cycle and consider all of its moving parts as equal. Email delivery is a moving target, and each aspect of the campaign deserves the same attention to ensure maximum deliverability and ROI.”

That understanding begins with awareness of “the laws and policies that surround email, specifically spam, to ensure their mail is authentic and wanted,” he writes. Specifically, he encourages U.S. marketers to familiarize themselves with the requirements mandated by CAN-SPAM and other best practices, including Sender Policy Framework (SPF) Authentication, DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC).

Before hitting “send” on their first message, marketers should understand what the elements of their campaign will be, i.e., a welcome message, a newsletter, promotional/discount offers, etc., he advises. “Once marketers have set a regular sending cadence for the program, they can determine the best headers, subject lines and message content that resonate best with their recipients. These aspects of the campaign help marketers understand their subscribers’ wants and needs, which creates greater engagement.”
And then comes analysis: “Once the campaign is up and running, continue to review metrics to understand what works and what needs to be revisited. Review the successes and areas for improvement, and note where you’ve made progress,” he concludes.

So happy together: Email and social media

“Back when Facebook and Twitter first emerged, there were many predictions that social media and email would never be destined for a long term relationship,” writes Christopher Baldwin at Fourth Source. “Many assumed that social would spell the end for email, with the two unable to live together in the evolving world of marketing. Fast-forward to 2016 and that’s far from true, with email communications as popular as ever alongside the ever-growing social media landscape.”

He advises that leveraging the full potential of both email and social media requires marketing teams to be “truly channel-agnostic, in a way that allows collaboration.”

His tips for a “happy marriage” between email marketing and social media include introducing social feeds in email, leveraging Facebook for email sign-ups, using social sign-on and social authentication and employing Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature to create matches that automatically send targeted ads.

“Despite first impressions, social media is far from a brief fling when it comes to email. Instead of replacing email, the two can co-exist very happily together when marketing teams think consumer-first, not channel first,” he writes. “You can use email and social together to build long-term customer engagement and ensure that you are connecting with your audiences at critical moments and within the right context.”

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