Subscribers Rule!

Last week, Stratigent attended ExactTarget’s Annual User Conference in Indianapolis. On all levels, it was a fabulous show – great attendance, great sessions, and amazing evening events – the highlight was a tour of the Indianapolis Colts’ new football field, Lucas Oil Stadium, and an appearance by Colts head coach Tony Dungy. All in all, a job well done by the entire ExactTarget team!

One of the most insightful sessions of the week was called the “The Triangle Offense of One-to-One Marketing” – a fitting headline in the land of Hoosiers. In the session, ExactTarget explained how the use of CRM data and web analytics data drive successful e-mail marketing programs. The stakes are high in this economic environment when every marketing dollar spent must be justified and proven. When done right, e-mail marketing returns $45 for every dollar spent, much higher than other online marketing programs.

Integrating web analytics data into your e-mail marketing program is an important tactic for keeping your customers engaged with your business. As we mentioned in last week’s blog post Does your e-mail marketing make the grade?, website click stream data provides key insights into visitor behavior on your site. That data, in turn, can be used to create more relevant campaigns that result in better response rates and conversions. And over the long-term, more targeted e-mail campaigns help you stay connected with your customers.

So what do we mean by integration? Most often, companies use analytics data to send triggered emails initiated by a customer action or event. Examples of the most common trigger e-mails include the following:

• Cart-Abandonment E-mails. Re-connect with customers that have left products in their shopping carts.
• Customer Service E-mails. Follow up with customers if they have visited the customer service section of your website or made other inquiries related to their experience with your business.

With $45 returned for every dollar spent, it’s not hard to see why companies are embracing email marketing. But, as ExactTarget demonstrated last week, you don’t get that kind of return if your email campaigns are not tailored to the right audience or the right segment of your audience. Using web analytics data to power your email marketing programs is the key to helping you succeed.