For any automated communication journey to work, you need contact data — and to start, all you need is an email address. This is the first level of automation. The more useful data you collect on your contacts (like name, gender, location, interests), the more personalised and targeted your messages can be. Here are some of the features you can use at this level.
Personalisation
This is about talking to an individual using their own unique data and it goes beyond just greeting them by name. With the right information, you can personalise content like points balances, appointment dates, and any other specifics that are relevant to the individual.
List Segmentation
This separates people into groups, recognising that many contacts in your list will overlap in terms of needs, interests, and their stage of the buying cycle. When you filter your contacts by data fields like location, gender, marital status and more, you can ensure that they only receive messages relevant to them.
Dynamic Content
This enables you to build one email with multiple sections for different audiences and programme the system to send each section only to the segment of your list that it applies to. It basically applies an ‘if statement’ to a section of content in your email. Only if the contact meets the criteria will they see it.
Dynamic content simplifies the content creation process by allowing you to create one email for all your contacts while ensuring that the content in it is customised when received.
Flight Centre Boosts Website Traffic from Email by 388.72% with Dynamic Content
Flight Centre created a personalised experience for users by sending them emails customised to their travel destinations, buyer personas, travel interests, and purchase history. This dynamic content increased open and click-through rates, which had a powerful impact on website traffic.
Date-Related Mailers
If there’s a specific date on which something special happens for you or your contacts, you can automate messages to go out before, on, or after this date. This can be helpful for birthdays, anniversaries, appointment reminders, or events.
Kauai Sends Rewards-Level Customised Birthday Mailers
Kauai sends automated birthday emails with a voucher that’s customised to which loyalty tier the person is on in their rewards programme. This enables them to send bigger rewards to their most loyal clients, nurturing brand advocacy.
A/B Testing
Knowing what your email readers respond to best is a constant trial and error. But, with automation, you don’t have to do it one email at a time. A/B testing allows you to test two versions of an email in one send — cutting your testing time in half.
Here’s how it works:
A/B testing sends each version of your email to a small percentage of your database for a period before the final mail is scheduled. During this time, the platform tracks engagement on each version of the mail to see which one performs best. When the time is up, the system automatically sends the strongest email to the balance of your contacts.
Want to learn more about the various levels of automated communication? Get our free Advanced Communication Automation Guide. In it, you’ll learn about the three levels of advanced automation, see examples of how other businesses are doing it, and find out what to consider when compiling your own automation workflows.
Originally published at https://www.everlytic.co.za on July 6, 2020.
