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The email marketing dilemma – to trigger or not to trigger

The Email Marketing Dilemma

Trigger Email vs Campaign Email.

The marketing world is moving towards marketing automation.  But making the move from email marketing to marketing automation can give the marketer a bit of a dilemma.

When I move to marketing automation how does this affect my normal email marketing schedule?

Will I really get better results from marketing automation?

These are questions we’ve been asked a lot.  So let’s investigate these questions further…

When I move to marketing automation how does this affect my normal email marketing schedule?

Let’s start by looking at the main differences between the two.

In the case of Websand, Marketing Automation consists of the issue of email marketing messages which are sent to people when their behaviour meets one of your marketing rules.  It’s a marketing message PULLED by the behaviour of the audience.

Whereas Email Marketing – in the traditional sense, is when a message is controlled by the marketer to a selected audience.  A marketing message PUSHED to the audience.

Volume of Delivery

Marketing Automation gives the marketer a process to bring their marketing strategy to life.  As said earlier, the messages are data driven and are PULLED by the audience.   So the number of marketing messages tend to be low in volume, but high in frequency and to a focused targeted audience.

Traditional / Batch / Single Shot Email Marketing messages (whatever you want to call them), are scheduled by the marketer to go at a specific time.  These messages tend to be low in frequency but high in volume – as they are usually sent to a large audience.

Finding the PULL / PUSH email marketing mix

The dilemma when introducing Marketing Automation to a traditional email marketing schedule tend to be…

a) too many marketing messages will be issued

and/or b) marketing automation will reduce the effectiveness of your normal email marketing.

If you have either of these concerns, then consider this…

Change your strategy to embrace your new email marketing options

You have a Marketing Strategy, of which email is part of the mix.  So bringing marketing automation just changes your marketing mix.

Your marketing automation messages put your marketing strategy In-Play.  As a result, Marketing Automation messages are PULLED from the behaviour of your customers.

Email marketing messages remain part of the mix.  You still need to do this.  But these are messages that are timed by your business NOT automated by the actions of your customers.  Sales Promotions, New Products or Calendar Business Events are all things that need to be PUSHED to your email audience.

With marketing automation in place, you can reduce the number of PUSH messages you send as you’ll have an active marketing process in the background.

It’s also worth noting that with Marketing Automation you’ll have your customer data fully segmented so you can be selective in who your decide to send your scheduled messages to and when to send them.

Be that by customer value, by customer profile, by customer location, by reaction to previous marketing behaviour (or if you are using Websand all of the above).

In summary, marketing automation just changes the marketing mix…

Moving to Marketing Automation, doesn’t kill your traditional email marketing, it just changes the mix.   But it changes the mix for the better.  Overall, we’ve found that introducing Marketing Automation into the mix can take time to get things right but it does create more opportunity and does increase your results.

Will I really get better results from marketing automation?

As the founder of a Marketing Automation business, then of course I’d say YES.  But that also means we are data driven marketers, so it’s all about the performance data.

Traditional Email Marketing Performance

This time let’s start with traditional email.   Single shot email marketing messages tend to be PUSHED to an audience and are sent when the marketer (or the business) decides is the best time to send the message.

Depending upon your business and the quality of your database you’ll be recording between 15-30% open rates.

Email marketing performance

Typical Email Performance Questions

You’ll find lots of discussions all over the internet and forums about the ‘best time to send an email’, or ‘words to use in your subject line’.  Yawn.

In our experience,  subject line changes are best when fine tuning a repeat campaign and will add a few %.  It’s organising your data that really boosts your email performance.

As for finding the best time to send your marketing emails, it’s really a common sense question related to your business.  Unfortunately, no-one has a definitive answer.  It’s a different answer for every business and every campaign.  It depends on your business offering and what you want people to do.  If you want them to call you – then make sure you send the message when you are open to receive calls.

The good news is that the majority of emails are sent to your mobile, the time of sending seems to be less important than it once was.

The better news is that marketing automation is your best bet to get the right message to the right person at the right time…

Marketing Automation Performance

Websand Segment Planning and Marketing Automation Overview

With Marketing Automation – your marketing is highly targeted.  It’s not only targeted around people that meet specific behaviour or profiles, it’s also sent in context to that behaviour.  It’s the best chance you’ve got of finding the email marketing promised land of ‘the right message, to the right person at the right time’.

You will get better results from marketing automation.

And the results back this up.

We find that the open rates from marketing automation are at least 300% higher than traditional email.

Websand clients with marketing automation processes in place typically record open rates in the range of between 65% and 95% (that’s an average of our entire user base).

So what are you waiting for?

If you are looking to get started with Marketing Automation or simply want to get a better return on your email marketing,  sign up here or book a slot on our calendar and let’s get you started…

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