Welcome to dotDoctor's
Email Surgery
No stuffy waiting room and no faded magazines.
Just some very practical answers to some of the questions and concerns we most commonly hear from prospective dotMailer users.
To ask the Doc your own questions, just drop us a line here.
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| "Dear dotDoc. Can you tell me how much data should I be collecting in order to build a comprehensive database?" | |
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First and foremost collect the contact's permission. Be upfront aboutwhat you are inviting them to sign up to and sell the benefits. Tellthem how frequently they will be contacted and ask them to actively optin.
Collecting further data such as where heard, gender and interest areasis important for building a customer profile that can be used forsending targeted emails. But be careful how you go about this. Thetrick is to test.
Experiment with your sign up form by testing out alternative copy,incentives and test capturing different amounts of personal data. Ifcollecting personal details impacts your sign up rate, try collectingthis in an initial welcome email to new subscribers, or in a follow-upform after registration.
Only collect data that will be useful to you in targeting yourmessages. For example, there may be little point capturing postcode orgeographic data at signup stage, if you are an online only retailer.
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| "Dear dotDoc. What are the most important bits of information to collect from customers?" | |
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This depends entirely on your business - different customer attributesare important to different business. But don’t collect data you’re notgoing to use.
If you have retail branches then geographic data may be important. Ifyou have a large number of product lines and categories then collectinggender and preferences will be important.
To improve your email marketing metrics, your aim should be to collectcustomer data that is highly relevant to your business model and yourcurrent objectives, and will allow you to understand who, how and whyyour customers purchase/engage.
Key areas to collect data on include:
- Customer profile – what do they look like (these are the ‘demographics’*)
- Attitudes and preferences – what do they like and dislike
- Behaviour – influencers (where to place your advertising)
Look for opportunities to collect data that can drive triggered (i.e. automated) email marketing campaigns following an event such as the customer’s birthday (collect date of birth). Testing is critical here; identify demographic and psychographic data you could usefully collect and test targeting email messages using different segments to see which delivers the best response rates.
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| "Dear dotDoc. How easy is it to segment data once collected?" | |
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dotMailer makes it easy for you to capture, append and query your database with the variables you have collected.
Rule 1.
Make sure you use an ESP that can automatically append the data you collect online, to your existing email contacts.
Rule 2.
Choose an ESP that makes it easy for you to query your database and create segments based on any available database fields you have populated.
Rule 3.
Use the data you have collected and your newly ‘enriched’ customer profiles to build answers to key questions that will help you achieve better metrics in your email marketing.
Look to find out:
- Where your best up sell and cross sell opportunities may lie. What do your best customers look like? Once you know this you can find and target ‘look-alikes’ in your prospects database
- What are the buttons to push for your different customer segments – know what makes them tick and you can personalise your emails and use dynamic content to send highly targeted messages and offers that drive up your response rates
- What your customers' contact preferences are – how often do they want you to email them, and with what content.
- Send them what they want, when they want it and your response rates will go up.
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| "Dear dotDoctor. How targeted should my emails be?" | |
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At the very least, you should ensure you personalise your email campaign salutations. Personalised email communications help to instantly engage recipients and boost response rates.
Simply starting your email with ‘Dear Bob’ as opposed to ‘Dear customer’ for example, can dramatically improve open and click through rates and help to build a 1-2-1 relationship between recipient and sender.
Marketers who collect more information about their email recipients, such as their location, gender or product preferences and interests, can go on to personalise the content of their email campaigns further. Using dynamic content to create highly targeted and relevant messages and offers based on personalisation will boost campaign ROI and reduce the unsubscribe rate.
The only way to find out for sure what level and degree of targeting and personalisation works the best, it through spilt testing your content.
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| "Dear dotDoc. How often should I be sending emails?" | |
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Use a ‘preference centre’ to capture your customers’ contact preferences. Some may prefer more frequent email contact than others. Collect contact preferences at signup, or in follow-up emails, to make sure you are giving your recipients what they want, when they want it.
Our email marketing experts are always on hand to answer all email marketing questions.
Call us on 0845 337 9170. | |