Email Marketing to Mutants

Posted by Scott Cohen On June 7, 2011 in story time I 0 Comments

“A new species is being born. Help me guide it, shape it, lead it.”
Professor Charles Xavier – X-Men: First Class

If Charles Xavier were an email marketer rather than a brilliant telepath building a school for mutants, would that quote change very much? Not really, because in a sense, we’re all mutants.

Yes, I said we’re all mutants. Our ideas, preferences, wants, and needs change constantly over time. What was true about us five years ago is not necessarily true now.

As humans and companies, we are in a constant state of mutation. What our companies offer in terms of products and services mutate to the ever-changing environment in which they operate. And our tastes and needs evolve in a similar fashion, a constant push-and-pull between provider and customer.

Is your email marketing program set up to handle these mutations? Or do you resist change, believing it to be “dangerous” to your program?

To keep a firm handle on all of the mutations going on in your email marketing subscriber list, it’s important to understand the value of your data—the data you are collecting, and the data you’re not. With email being the most leverage-able medium for data, you have the ability to adapt and provide the most relevant message for your subscribers at all times.

Data you can leverage immediately:

• Geographic location (and changes thereof). People move all the time. Localization can be key for proper segmentation of your messages, whether you see that your subscriber has changed moving addresses, or simply checked into one of your bricks-and-mortar locations recently.
• Product lines. Your products mutate, too. Maybe one of your new releases will appeal to a certain new segment of your subscriber base. With proper targeting, you can deliver the right messages to folks who could be very interested in your new offering.
• Conversion rates. Yep, you can use the conversion rates of your segments to segment and target your subscribers even further. Let’s say new subscribers are most likely to convert on your offers. Would you be more or less likely to increase your message frequency with that knowledge? What would you do if your conversions went down in that same timeframe? See my point?

Everything you need to adjust for the mutations in your program is there in your data. Use the tools you have and create new ones if you must. But those who adapt will survive. Those who don’t, won’t.