There are many instances where a retailer could have had more success than what they actually achieved but used outdated practices that sold their retail business short. There has to be a foundation with a complete understanding of what the customers want and the products you should provide to those customers. The savviest of retailers are staying on top of digital marketing best practices and able to assure their customers that they have their best interest at heart.

Email Best Practice #1: Email List Segmentation

Perhaps the most important step to successful digital marketing is segmenting your email list. It is universally disliked by customers to be spammed the exact same message as everyone else. This is actually the worst kind of digital marketing and is a counter-productive way of digital marketing. The email contact is a customer’s personal way of being available to you the retailer and you must remember it can be revoked at any time. The reaching out to customers is an important aspect of conducting business, but if handled poorly can result in you losing a customer forever. Some customers will go as far as to block your company’s domain so you won’t be able to reach out to them digitally again. The most effective approach is to take the time to determine the different type of customers that you have and craft segments for each of them.

Email Best Practice #2: Unique Messaging

Another great practice for you to use is coming up with the most appropriate message in each of your segments.  Each customer you have needs to be spoken to differently. No matter of your sending the same message, the customer needs to hear it differently or hear it at different frequencies or have different offers and language. Creating creative messages is an essential part of the process and cutting corners can be detrimental. Remember everything you use in your digital marketing is representation of your brand.

Email Best Practice #3: Automated Emails Based on Shoppers’ Behavior

Integrating digital marketing with all of your customer data is another important practice you should be using digital marketing strategies. Email marketing automation platforms will help optimize campaigns by measuring every activity that happens with your message. Whether a link doesn’t have a lot of click results or there was not a lot of engagement after the clicks, this will give you data that will be more beneficial than the number of clicks. It will tell you things like, how long the customer spent on the product page, if the product was purchased, if the product placed in the cart and abandoned, or maybe the customer decided coming in the store physically was better. Being able to track these customer behaviors will help better optimize how to market to each of you customers.  Watch our short video on E-mail Marketing »

Examples of customer behavior can trigger automatic responses:

• Item is returned > Send automated email asking for feedback
• Cart is abandoned > Send automated reminder with suggested products
• Product is purchased > Request an online review
• Customer hasn’t visited site in 6 months > Send “We Miss You” email
• It’s your customer’s birthday > Send birthday promotion
• Customer has a gift card balance > Remind them of their balance

* Understanding your customer’s shopping patterns will undoubtedly make it easier to create the proper email workflows.

Email Best Practice #4: Measuring Success & Making Continuous Changes

Monitoring and measuring is another practice to use in digital marketing to get the most out of your business. The main selling point of using digital marketing is the fact that it is measurable. You can easily and quickly see what is working and what is not working; but it can be a lot more difficult to figure out why. Digital marketing works best when you are looking at the perspective of sales, services, and satisfaction. You will be able to see things like a customers segment doesn’t fit them anymore, as his/her preferences might be changing. Or you have a great offer during one part of the month but the customers don’t receive paychecks until the end of the month. There are so many different possibilities and the great thing about digital marketing is the power it gives to respond to the drivers with efficiency, because you will see the tangible results immediately. Sending the right message to the right customer is the first step, but tracking the success and being able to make changes for increased success- is the most important aspect of your digital marketing.

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