Email Reloaded: An Efficient Dialog Channel Reinvents Itself

Traditional email marketing uses a sending software, a responsive template, good text and images, call-to-action with link to landing pages and a recipient list. More advanced ones perform A/B tests. As a rule, the sender sends out to everyone: "Fire and forget" instead of "Customer Centric Marketing".The rule newsletter is a discontinued model. It is based on the assumption that a user wants and is allowed to be informed about products and services regularly and without mercy from the sender after a mandatory opt-in. Without relevance and topicality for the recipient, however, mailings quickly end up in the junk folder or they are unsubscribed with one click. The dusty image of e-mail marketing is not due to the possibilities of the channel, but to the outdated methods of the users.Modern email marketing is strategic, process-oriented, interdisciplinary, integrated with other channels and looks like this:=> In the beginning was the address: No meaningful new customer marketing without consistent lead generation. E-mail leads can be generated via the website (overlay with incentives), via downloads and tutorials, via events and competitions - online and offline. The goal must be to continuously expand the address base so that new business is turned into sustainable existing customer marketing.=> E-mail is part of a process: The e-mail address is an important identifier and component of communication processes. A digital purchase process does not come about without e-mail, a lead-nurturing process does not succeed without direct address via this channel, a welcome relay to customers falls back on e-mail, a "retention" action is triggered via e-mail. Any triggers in the customer lifecycle can be used to initiate a multi-stage dialog => Modern marketing picks up the customer at his touchpoints: The better the customer can be identified at the contact points, the faster and more successfully a company can enter into dialog with him and provide him with individual support. The single-shot campaign fizzles out as quickly as it was sent. Touchpoints, on the other hand, are oriented toward the customer and place him at the center. They are interdisciplinary (website, social media, mobile, eShop, POS), e-mail always offers the advantage of the direct trigger, the fast and cost-effective dialog.=> Data is supposedly the oil of the 21st century: data does not have to be "big" to become useful. As a rule, explicit contact data is available, transaction data on purchases is known from ERP or CRM. The classic segmentation into good and less good customers is already possible, and with it the first approaches to a more individualized approach. Click data from e-mails can be used to create a customer-specific scoring model of user behavior. If it is also possible to link behavior on the website and profiles from social media with an existing contact, the customer image becomes increasingly differentiated. Now you can slowly create holistic customer profiles and targeted customer selections to pick people up by their interests and their specific position in the lifecycle. The important thing is to build up a strategic and uniform set of data structure, quality, maintenance and storage over time.=> The call for integral technology is getting louder and louder: Isolated solutions and technologies from different digital disciplines dominate the picture in the nterprise. How will these tools be consolidated in the future? Which suppliers will prevail in the long term? Large US suppliers with a strong sales focus sell universal solutions. Ultimately, however, the implementation of technology and concrete projects is decisive; combined with the scalability of the technologies, their sustainability in development, with intelligent interfaces and the ability of management to use the technology strategically in a meaningful way.=> Content marketing is a central topic: Product management decides on the use and control of campaigns, for the occupation of touchpoints with products and services. Content tailored to target groups is the essence of this. Some large companies are moving towards creating newsrooms, like media companies, in order to centrally capture content with strategic planning, prepare it in a channel-specific manner and in a multi-stage dialog in a phase-appropriate manner, and to control it in a timely manner. Here, too, e-mail has the advantage of being the most important push medium in the dialog with the customer.=> Today, interdisciplinary specialists from marketing, sales, IT, CRM and analytics as well as law are needed to master the complexity of modern dialog marketing. Too often, these specialists are missing in the company. It may therefore be advisable to selectively hire agencies that ensure continuity and proximity to the market and complement internal resources. A company must be able to control, not have all resources internally.The ultimate goal is called automation of integrated and workflow-driven campaigns. Email can be the central output channel and, depending on the target group selection, is supplemented by adjacent channels such as print, social media and call centers. The advantages are obvious: data enrichment, intelligent target group selection, resource savings, scalability, cost efficiency. Successful digital-focused companies are successfully applying the customer-centric approach; traditional marketing departments will perish without this knowledge. Email has been declared dead many times, the intelligent and interactive version of it is alive and well better than ever.