Top 4 tips to beef up your email strategy

Leverage/Extend Wish Lists to Email regularly (and especially around holidays)

“Sounds basic, but if you have the data use it. Most commonly a web feature, the performance of Wish List emails justifies sending more than most in the industry currently send. When looking across message types, a Wish List should be at the top of the list, as a prospective or existing customer has taken a direct action to engage your brand,” said Judd Marcello, EVP, Global Marketing, Cheetah Digital. “And while the addressable audience will likely be a small subset of your larger list, it’s a worthwhile effort as we’ve seen Wish List campaigns across our retail clients for Holiday 2016 generated high revenue per email ($2.70) and transaction rates 1.4%. These are drastically higher than the average and even much more effective than other “remarketing” and engagement campaigns such as Abandon Cart. Marketers can also extend these to include “Share my Wish List” campaigns around milestones like birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Not only do these encourage the creation of wish lists for those that don’t already have them, but it also has the potential to engage new users with a brand and its products.”

Diversify Reminder Messaging

“Remind “Wish List” holders that they have a list, what’s on it and showcase images or relevant recommended products. Perhaps just as important, diversify how you are reminding users of what they have LISTED, LIKED or LOVED. Tell users if that item is on sale, almost out of stock or back-in-stock. Inventory and any other info about the experience (in Beauty for example, “recently sampled”) is helpful to improve the experience, add value and grab attention. Also, while Amazon pioneered modern Wish Lists, always think about common use cases for why someone is interacting with your brand. For instance, brands like Williams-Sonoma or Bloomingdale’s may be centered around Weddings, Bed Bath & Beyond or Target might look at opportunities like new college dorm or back to school,” said Marcello.

Quasi-Loyalty & Personalization

“Leverage the Wish Lists to influence dynamic content in email and further personalize. For example, Sephora will ask customers in email if they like the beauty samples they have been sent in the mail,” said Marcello. “If our goal as marketers is relevancy and respectful context (which it should be!), this is a great opportunity to do just that. If they aren’t yet a loyalty member, Wish Lists present a great queue of quality prospects for Loyalty – or if you don’t have a loyalty program it’s a quality pool of people to engage with in other channels such as Social, Mobile and In-Store.”

Think Cross-Channel & Customer Experience

“The most common combination of cross-channel marketing for Wish Lists is Web and Email, and that’s because it works great. Once you’ve got that down, there’s incredible opportunity to evolve to SMS and Push. For heavy retail app users, push notifications that tell users about the latest update with a Wish List also work well. The OutNet, for example, will send a push notification right before an item is going to sell out, which is critical for an off-price, sale-oriented business. Given engagement rates on SMS are solid, it’s also a captivating personal channel to consider testing, as long as frequency is respected,” said Marcello.