By Bryan Brown, Director of Product Strategy
If you want to connect with prospects and customers in today's crowded inbox, you have to make sure you're sending the right message at the right time. But how can you determine that exact moment when recipients are most likely to be in their inbox, most engaged and most likely to take the action you want?
Here's a primer on some key factors to consider and tactics to implement to improve your chances of getting the timing right.
Mapping content to the buying cycle
If you're delivering one type of content at a time when the buyer is looking for another, you're creating a disconnection rather than nurturing a relevant dialogue. So, it's important to make sure the content you're sending matches what buyers are looking for at a particular phase of their relationship with you.
This means moving away from static, simplistic "batch and blast" segmentation. To maximize relevancy, marketers must factor behavior into the equation, going beyond chopping up lists based solely on demographics such as industry vertical or BANT (budget, authority, need, time frame) data.
One strategy for creating a successful nurturing program is to segment campaigns by stage of the relationship. In other words, specifically tuning different email messages and offers based on both explicit and implicit indicators of your customer's readiness to purchase.
Here's a brief breakdown of how messaging might change throughout a customer or lifecycle:
- "Interested" Phase: Welcome messages, educational and best practices content, promotions for first purchase
- "Engaged" Phase: Reminders of upcoming events, targeted content based on website page visits, loyalty programs, pricing and feature comparisons, testimonials
- "Lapsed" Phase: Surveys, incentives to revisit website, promotions to encourage purchases
By segmenting your messaging by level of engagement, you'll kick up your dialogue and connect more strongly with your prospects and customers.
Hitting them while they're in the inbox
What's the best time of the day and week to send your contacts email? For years marketers have agonized over this decision and have not found the right answer. Luckily, Silverpop's Send Time Optimization (STO) has helped render the debate obsolete. The technology analyzes recipient behavior on a rolling basis to predict the ideal email delivery time-across countries and time zones- for each address on your mailing list.
The system then individually delivers messages to recipients at the precise day and time they're most likely to be in their inboxes. By decreasing the chance that an email gets buried in the inbox, open, click-through and conversion rates increase.
Scheduling delivery at the optimized time also solves international mailing challenges. With a single send, messages are delivered at the optimal time, worldwide, eliminating the need to schedule multiple sends across time zones. And many Silverpop clients who have used this feature have seen significant increases in click-throughs and total revenue.
Timing triggered messages for best results
When customers place an order or prospects download an e-book, they expect a confirmation in a timely manner. And Silverpop studies have shown that a majority of companies recognize this, with most sending transactional emails within a few minutes-if not seconds-of an online purchase.
Now, savvy marketers are discovering that thinking beyond traditional transactional emails and sending pre- and post-purchase messages can boost revenue. For example, cart and browse abandonment emails can help reclaim lost revenue-but timing is key.
To maximize the effectiveness of cart and browse abandonment initiatives, act fast. Real-time responses help ensure message relevance. In general, the faster you connect with the customer or prospect, the better your chances of success-but remember to monitor click-throughs, conversions and unsubscribes to ensure you've nailed the optimum timing.
When it comes to post-purchase messages such as review requests, event satisfaction surveys, cross-sell emails or bouncebacks, testing is key since the ideal cadence will vary depending on the type of message.
By following the tips above, you'll improve your chance of delivering your messages at the right time, communicating with customers and prospects on their terms and maximizing engagement and revenue.
For more marketing tips and tactics, visit Silverpop's Resources page.
