By Bryan Brown, Director of Product Strategy
No matter how brilliant your content, today's marketplace demands that you speak "directly" to prospects and customers in a one-to-one fashion, rather than sending them generic "one-size-fits-most" messaging. And one of the most effective ways you can do this is by incorporating dynamic content.
Dynamic content enables you to automatically replace entire sections of your messages based on each recipient's unique requirements, interests and needs. This technique dramatically increases relevance while at the same time achieving a high degree of automation that produces cost savings.
Whether you send to your entire list or a subset of your list, dynamic content allows you to send more relevant messages, leading to better responses. And marketing campaigns based on dynamic content help companies enhance customer relationships, loyalty and lifetime value--not to mention increasing conversions and driving revenue.
Here are three ways to think about using dynamic content within your messaging:
1) Serve Up Content Based on Recipients' Interests. If you've effectively collected prospect and customer information through preference centers, forms and surveys, you can use this information to your advantage by populating emails with content that appeals to each contact's specific interests.
Silverpop client Golfsmith, for example, collects information about the specific products on each customer's "wish list"--golf bags, drivers, custom-built clubs, etc.--and populates personalized emails with information about special promotions or new products connected to each recipient's interests.
Don't solely focus on sales- and promotion-related content, though. Providing educational content that aligns with recipient interests can also be a powerful way to boost engagement and enhance your value proposition. Examples might include:
- CPG company--recipes and baking tips that incorporate favorite products
- Financial services firm--retirement-planning calculators that consider the recipient's age
- Travel business--top landmarks and popular restaurants for recipient's upcoming destination
2) Deliver Content Based on Recipient Actions. There's a big difference between a prospect who hasn't opened your last four emails, and one who's downloaded three white papers in the last three weeks. Or a customer who visited your website homepage once versus another who viewed the same product page five times in the last week. So why would you send them the same exact content?
Building dynamic, buyer-centric campaigns that consider recent actions (and even lack of action) helps make sure you're responding to the complex signals a buyer is sending. And by designing two-way communication programs that interact and engage with prospects in a way that reflects their current level of interest, you'll help more efficiently nurture them through the buying cycle.
One way to achieve this is to use Programs to send subscribers down different messaging paths based on their behaviors. For example:
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Message 1 |
Message
2 |
Message
2 |
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Example 1 |
Thought capital of the week: White paper about industry issues showcasing your thought leadership |
Teaser text and link to invitation to a Webinar showcasing related research |
Teaser text and link to survey requesting more information about recipient's interests |
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Example 2 |
Deal of the week: Swimsuits |
Message featuring beach cover-ups, sandals |
Message highlighting |
3) Tap the Power of Recommendations and Testimonials. Today's buyers often trust their peers' opinions over advertising and promotional copy when making purchasing decisions. And with many websites utilizing product review and recommendation technologies, marketers should increasingly incorporate this content into their email messages.
By populating personalized emails with reviews, recommendations, testimonials and case studies that closely match each recipient's interests or purchase history, you'll deliver messages that are more relevant and engaging-and more likely to inspire a purchase.
To build up your database of user-generated reviews and testimonials, set up an automated trigger that requests a product, service or event review soon after the purchase or attendance. Not only will you generate unique content this way, but you'll also gain an additional touch point and, in some cases, an opportunity to add revenue from follow-on purchases.
Interested in learning more about dynamic content? Log in to the Silverpop Support Portal and register for our 201 Dynamic Content training class.
