With all the new social media platforms and their different ways of engaging with customers many people may not realize that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $32 (DMA, 2018). That is a very good return on investment (ROI).
What is email marketing?
Most people realize that email marketing is using email to promote goods and/or services. What isn’t common knowledge is just how effective and far reaching using this kind of marketing can be. Email is an excellent tool for establishing relationships with your customers and potential customers. It allows businesses to keep their customers informed, encourage purchases with sales and promotions, and can help contribute to actionable data analytics.
How is AI involved?
AI is driving email marketing by allowing for automation and personalization driven by customer data. AI also decides format and content based on past purchases and browsing behaviours and can determine what stage the customer is on the sales journey. As you begin to implement AI, it provides information on the type of images and content for the best results in engagement and conversions.
Make it personal
People will skip your email if it seems to be created by a machine, it needs to be personal. You can take the data and analytics AI has generated to segment your customers according to whatever parameters you decide. This data isn’t collected by email interactions alone as website cookies, payment processing and social media interaction can be included to help you form different customer groups.
It’s also possible to target customers who have uncompleted purchases logged by the website; offering the chance to reach out and encourage the customer to complete the sale through a variety of options that help overcome barriers to purchase.
Fine tuning
Machine learning has automated the process of testing the right combination of subject line, email copy, images and incentives. As well as being able to break down combinations based on specific customer segments, you no longer have to guess what the best combinations are; now you know and can measure it.
Timing
Content and customer segmentation isn’t the only areas AI is helping with; it can also pin down the best times to send emails and how many. You don’t want to turn off customers by sending too many but you don’t want to fall through the cracks by sending too little. Now you can know when to send based on the subscribers history, and automate it. Different habits and preferences can be determined and catered to.
This is just the begginning of what AI can do for your email marketing strategy. Creating bespoke customer experiences is only going to get better and easier. Even now, the longer you collect data and from more sources, the more effective your efforts will be.
With Inclera, even your payment processing can provide analytics for you to incorporate into your email marketing efforts. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay on top of the latest developments in technology, payment processing, customer management and business tips.