Ask the Expert: Most Effective Email Tactic, Strategy, or Experiment [Case Studies]

Ask the Expert: Can you share a recent email marketing tactic, strategy, or experiment that you implemented to boost performance? Could you also share the results and provide any suggestions to those who might want to try it out?

Yanna-Torry Aspraki
Deliverability Specialist & CRO
EmailConsul

In the ever-evolving world of email marketing, staying ahead of the curve is crucial to drive better engagement and results. Recently, our team embarked on an intriguing experiment that involved incorporating personalized video messages into our email campaigns. The outcomes were nothing short of remarkable.

Using a user-friendly tool, we recorded concise videos tailored to specific segments of our lists acknowledging their previous interactions with our brand. These personalized videos were seamlessly embedded into our emails and carefully delivered to a carefully selected group of subscribers.

The results of this endeavour surpassed our expectations. Our open rates witnessed a significant surge of 35% as the emails were targeted to only a portion of highly engaged recipients, indicating that recipients were enticed to explore the content within the email. Additionally, our click-through rates experienced a commendable growth of 30%, showcasing the increased engagement and interest generated by the personalized video messages. Ultimately, the conversion rates recorded a notable boost of 20%, translating into tangible business outcomes stemming from the email but getting finalized on our landing page.

Based on our experience, we offer a few suggestions to those eager to explore this tactic. Firstly, it is crucial to keep the videos concise and captivating. Aim for brevity while ensuring that the content holds value for the recipient beyond a mere sales pitch. By tailoring the message to the individual's needs and preferences, you can make a lasting impression and foster a sense of personal connection.

In conclusion, incorporating personalized video messages into our email marketing program proved to be a game-changer for us, bolstering our performance across key metrics. By adopting this approach, you can forge deeper connections with your audience and elevate the impact of your email campaigns. Embrace the power of personalized videos, and watch as your engagement and conversions soar to new heights. Now we need to figure out how to make this process less time-consuming in order to make it sustainable in the long term.

Sol Medvidofsky
CRM Professional –
Retention, Life-Cycle, Automation

One of the biggest challenges I've faced in several past experiences is the need to grow email capabilities and complete company initiatives without adding resources. Optimizing my team's time has always been a top priority. To achieve this, I focus on examining processes, setting priorities, and evaluating metrics to identify areas that can be improved.

>It's really surprising how quickly you can identify areas where you can free up significant amounts of time. I've found, in some cases, that eliminating low-performing campaigns, limiting template customization, and streamlining the campaign request process, can make a big difference. And there are a lot of other areas where you can streamline processes too.

In one instance, my team had a weekly newsletter that was underperforming, and it was taking us between 5-6 hours to complete. We simplified the template and submission and approval processes and cut the work down to just 1 hour. Having that extra time made a huge difference. We were able to focus on testing and improving the campaign's performance instead of just hitting send and rushing onto the next thing on our to-do list.

>One of the most important things you can do sometimes is free up more time and focus on not only maintaining but also building. Sometimes, despite the challenges of limited resources, it’s possible to achieve growth and results by working smarter with limited resources.

Betsy Grondy
Freelance Email Strategist and Independent Consultant

In SaaS and B2B companies, data accuracy and quality issues are common for email programs. You may need to find quick solutions for better audience identification and segmentation. I had an experience with a company that had a good Lifecycle Stage program, but their data sources were not working properly due to team changes and lack of documentation.

They organized platform demo webinars every other month as a part of their strategy. These webinars helped in creating content by showcasing their product in action and also provided a chance to target individuals who were not ready for a personalized 1:1 demo. The strategy for the webinar email invitations involved segmenting individuals who were not customers, were not disqualified in the database, and had engaged with an email in the past year. While this was deemed satisfactory, I believed there was more to be discovered regarding who was interested in these events. To gain further insight, I opted to categorize the invites based on Lifecycle Stages. Their system was as below:

• TOFU (mostly new to DB folks)
• MOFU (two degrees of this based on lead score)
• BOFU (two degrees of this from highly qualified to MQL)
• Recycled (folks who had MQLed previously but for whatever reason were sent back to marketing from sales)

Additionally, to clean up the database, I focused on the small group of people who were actively engaging with our emails and didn't consider how recently they had opened or clicked. Since we had successfully warmed up a dedicated IP, this was a more economical way to remove contacts with outdated email addresses.

What we learned is that the recycled group had the highest number of registrations, followed by TOFU. BOFU and MOFU had slightly lower numbers. This makes sense because the recycled group probably had already been in touch with Sales before, but were not ready to purchase yet. The lower number of new database folks also makes sense since this was just an overall platform demo with lower sales expectations.

How can one accomplish this task?

1. Identify which specific information you require from your subscribers that aligns with your overall strategy.
2. If you have not implemented Lifecycle as mentioned earlier, you can choose to slice your database based on the time elapsed since creation.
3. For easier data analysis, you can send the email to each segment separately using the same email creative.
4. Take note of your test results and continue testing until you have gathered sufficient data. This will enable you to create fields or segmentations in the future.

What are some data challenges you have experienced? Let me know what you think. Reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter @FemailMarketing and let’s discuss!

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash