I made some quick observations looking at the campaigns I receive in my inbox:
First, the subject lines from the same brand do not vary much from one campaign to the next. There is one mid-major retail+online brand that sends me campaigns with the subject line – “x% of Everything …..” – every single week. It’s a cue to the subconscious mind that if I don’t open today, nothing is lost. There is one coming in the next few days.
Second, the subject lines lack personalization and what I mean by that is it addresses the general populace and not me in any specific way. Of course, you may need to send some campaigns that is not addressed individually such as timed demand gen offer, new product introductions, etc.
Third, when I open these emails, it’s very clear that it is a generic campaign that was sent to hundreds or even thousands of customers or subscribers and often includes a graphic that’s on the sender’s home page. It’s a generic, demand gen campaign. Not that there is anything wrong with it. However, the more often a marketer sends these, the sooner it loses relevancy to the recipients.
Fourth, there seems to be very little effort exerted to mine a customer’s past purchase history when creating campaigns. I am referring to those businesses, such as an Internet retailer, which do have end user transaction data and history. Yes, there are good brands that use web analytics software & automation to track your moves and send campaigns. Still, a number of these fail to stay relevant.
Fifth, is campaign frequency. This ranges from 2 a day to no specific frequency at all. A west coast wine firm sends me 2 campaigns a day even when it’s been months since I opened any of their campaigns. Not that I don’t like their product offerings but I am disenchanted with the rapid fire frequency and have no way of managing it other than completely unsubscribing from the list.
If you are a marketer and have embraced some campaign practices that result in some of the issues mentioned above, I encourage you to contact us for a free consultation to discuss about the limitations and challenges you or your team faces and how they could be managed better.
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