These Email Marketing Capabilities Will Boost Customer Focus, Decision-Makers Say

July 10, 2018

This article is included in these additional categories:

Analytics, Automated & MarTech | Customer-Centric | Digital | Email

Email marketing should be the “launch point” to customer obsession, argues a report [download page] from Adobe and Forrester Consulting. Yet most aren’t on the path to using email for this purpose, instead relying on promotions and measuring performance through engagement metrics rather than customer satisfaction and innovation.

In comparing those companies assessed to be “customer obsessed” with those that are “customer naïve,” the report notes that the former are much more likely than the latter to:

  • Use their email marketing program as a strategic asset for innovation;
  • Say that customer satisfaction is their top email marketing goal;
  • Regularly update their email content and templates;
  • Use data collected via email to enhance their customer profiles; and
  • Rely on marketing technology to try more advanced email programs.

So which marketing technology tools can enable more advanced email applications? A majority of decision-makers surveyed identified the following:

  • Customer-profile building: 67% see it as important for meeting email marketing goals; and 85% say it would have a somewhat or significant impact on customer focus;
  • Segmentation: 65% see it as important for meeting email marketing goals; and 88% say it would have an impact on customer focus;
  • User-based contextual targeting: 57% see it as important for meeting email marketing goals; and 81% say it would have an impact on customer focus;
  • Email design and editing tools: 55% see it as important for meeting email marketing goals; and 78% say it would have an impact on customer focus; and
  • Microsegment targeting: 54% see it as important for meeting email marketing goals; and 85% say it would have an impact on customer focus.

The focus on segmentation makes sense given research showing that such tools provide significant lifts to email clicks (with the understanding that this new report cautions against only measuring on an engagement basis).

The study’s analysts recommend that marketers work on “tracking how well email continues a customer’s cross-platform brand experience instead of opens, clicks, and conversions.”

That harks back to a study last year, in which B2C decision-makers agreed that the email address is the most valuable piece of customer information. Why? “Email registrations tie customer activity together across a customer’s entire digital footprint.”

About the Data: The report is based on a survey of 260 US decision-makers responsible for marketing technology or strategy at organizations with at least 500 employees across a range of industries.

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