This morning, immediately after turning off my alarm, I did what I
always do first – I checked my email. Unsurprisingly, I received an email from
Party City (I hear from them about 3x/week), but, instead of deleting the email
without opening it (which is
my typical course of action), I decided to open the email check out what they
were advertising.
A little about my history with Party City – I placed one order
with them on February 23, 2014, for less than $50 – purchasing a Bachelorette
sash and piñata for a wedding in which I was the Maid of Honor. I know this
since I received a “Thank You for your Order” email (which I definitely did
intentionally open upon receipt). And, since then, I have received literally
hundreds of emails from the Company, none of which I believe I have opened.
Today’s email had a subject line of “Shop Now for your Descendants
2 Watch Party!”. Hm. I didn’t know what “Descendants 2” was (maybe something sort
of like Game of Thrones?). However, upon opening the email, I learned that it
is a new Disney Channel movie premiering in a few weeks. Bizarre. Why would Party
City send me this email? What tools are they using to take the (relatively
little) information they have about me and decide how and what to advertise to
me via email? Don’t technologies exist to make their email ads more targeted? This
email seems to be a “let’s throw everything against the wall and see what
sticks” type of approach to email advertising, which to me seems ineffective
and not a best practice if they want to retain customers/get them back without
clogging their inboxes and being reported as spam. There has to be better
technology out there!
So, I took to Google, and learned that when it comes to targeted
email advertising, there are companies doing it better – much better – than Party
City. Pinterest is blazing a trail in this regard, in that the Company “did away with batch-and-blast emails
earlier this year and replaced them with emails that are 100% tailored to the
user.” Wow. After my “Descendants 2” experience this morning,
this seems fairly revolutionary. How are they tailoring their emails to their
users? They are doing so in a few ways. First, they are sending triggered emails
based on customer behavior and engagement with the social media site (i.e.
pinning, liking, or subscribing). User behavior dictates email deployment.
Additionally, the Company is empowering its users, enabling them to customize
their email settings, outlining what type of emails they would like to receive
from Pinterest, and how often. These settings can be updated by the user at any
point in time, too. This is also key, since when a user receives an email from
Pinterest, they know, on some level, that it is related to recent activity, and
in some sense, was requested by them.
Now, Pinterest has a definite competitive advantage over Party
City, in that they have much more current, and much more volume of, data about
their users. That said, there has to be a better way for Party City to optimize
on its email advertising strategy. How can they do this?
1. With customers about whom they have limited
information, start with the big, generic holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving,
Christmas, Easter) and see what, if any, traction occurs. Perhaps send a “We’ve
missed you, here’s 10% off your next order " email in conjunction with one of these
holidays.
2. Look at where the Customer lives, and see if
any local events (i.e. NYC Marathon) are taking place. Perhaps those are
opportunities for email advertising, too.
3. If a customer hasn’t opened an email from you
in a year, stop emailing them so frequently! Remove them from the list, or at
least make a reduction in number of emails/week.
PS - No, I won’t be throwing a Descendants 2 viewing party in two
weeks. And yes, I did ultimately delete the email.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2017/01/06/the-future-of-email-marketing-is-already-here-five-tactics-you-can-implement-now/#5f4f97a432c0
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