There’s no way to sugar this pill; much of your email marketing data, secured over many campaigns, and the basis for your business, is probably out of date. It’s not useless, though. Far from it. The post-Covid and post-Brexit marketing world comes with changes for us.
The success of email marketing is in its data, and the worst thing for data is change, the more fundamental the change, the more concerning. We have a situation where a lot of old behavioural norms can’t be assumed. There are two sides to this though.
A majority of financial commentators are suggesting there will be, at the very least, no increase in GDP. Some have gone as far as threatening recession, although this is a minority view. They’ve been wrong before. Although no one is suggesting we are looking at the onset of days of wine and roses, a lot of the negative views seem based on the unpredictability of the situation. It’s unprecedented.
On the other hand, change gives rise to opportunity, and the greater the change, the greater the opportunity for those who are willing to work to exploit it, and you don’t even have to take risks. Change unfortunately means subscribers to our email marketing lists will no longer behave predictably. You may well have noticed this with timing of emails. More people are working from home.
For those concentrating on B2B, the fact many companies are reorganising means there will be promotions and de facto demotions, and it is up to us to discover who’s gone where and who has replaced them. The only answer is to test. You need to test specifically to see what movement there has been and how it affects the content of your marketing emails.
For B2C things are considerably different. Disposable income is likely to be reduced in the short to medium term, meaning that not only will they spend less but that they might well spend on different things. Those little luxury items which went well when offered to particular subscribers might struggle against more mundane products which do the same thing. Find out by testing of course.
This is one of the few times when split testing of marketing lists might not be the best option. In the past you have looked for behaviour of a group, but because of the changes, those in one group could have become more like another. An individual’s particular situation will dictate how they will behave in the future. You need a specific type of marketing email.
Include a number of choices. Keep Subject Lines vague to an extent. In other words, don’t put off those who might be impecunious by highlighting the luxury aspects of a product. Try attracting a wider range.
If you offer a number of items where one massages your subscriber’s conceit and self-image, and the others provide varying value for money, then which they click through to might well indicate their needs for the future. You will find some subscribers being moved to a significantly different split list. Discover how to define them.
