The 40/40/20 Rule

For many years direct marketing focused on target marketing where the message was mostly about the company and its products with little thought given to the recipients and their needs. With inboxes filled with messages and the popularity of email marketing, company-centric, irrelevant information is likely to be ignored or treated as spam.

I believe that marketers should focus on three components for successful conversational marketing: database (40%), content (40%), and testing (20%). Opens and click through rates are important but developing an interaction between an organization and its customers or prospects is most critical. What can be better than stimulating a conversation when a person responds or forwards an email or shares it in a social network? The goal is usually to encourage interaction to identify a qualified prospect who then may become a customer.

Database: Your data assets are not all equal. Do not treat everyone one the same. You would never treat your best customers like your worst, yet you would be surprised to hear how many companies do not understand their own database assets. Segment based on active customers, associated revenues, prospects, and level of engagement. Separate the responders from non-responders, find out why they aren’t interested, and remove them if necessary. Many marketers have a fear about dropping names. The goal is to reduce complaint ratios and boost open/click percentages. Sender reputation is now determined by both complaint rates as well as engagement. Less is best when it comes to quality email programs.

Content: After a clean database, relevant content is a building block. The key is to develop and maintain a high level of perceived value. As best you can, make sure every email is relevant and creates a positive experience. Consistency and predictability adds to relevancy. Are the from lines, email address, and delivery times set?

When you let customers or prospects talk about your product or company, it is much more believable than a company tooting its own horn. Invite recipients to forward to colleagues and to share via social media networks. It may be a leap of faith to encourage people to talk about your products or services but they’ll do it anyway so why not be part of the conversation and learn from it?

Test-Test-Test: No matter what success levels you achieve do not suffer engagement complacency. From optimizing landing/registration pages to boosting conversion rates or testing confirmations or thank you messages, you should look to improve performance levels.

When you reduce outbound email volume with a clean database and improved engagement you invite your best customers to work for you in promoting your products and services.