Effective email marketing for millennials: How to make the most of the opportunity

Millennials are a top priority for marketing teams. Their long-term spending potential makes them a valuable target, with World Data Lab revealing that global millennial spending power is set to overtake its preceding generation X by 2020. It’s subsequently unsurprising that marketers are recognising the importance of catching millennials’ attention early.  The big question is, how does this generation need to be marketed differently?

Born between 1980 and 2000,...

14 February 2019 | Automation

Data strategies: Fix it, don’t stitch it

The quality of (big) data has for a long time been a crux for CMOs. Instead of creating a true view that positions their brand to make sound decisions, CMOs are having to "stitch together" their data from different sources. They’re creating data Frankenstein monsters from different warehouses, assembling disparate findings, and failing to optimise decisions around the customer journey. This isn’t efficient, easy or effective. It’s therefore...

14 January 2019 | Advertising

Jon Buchan: On how to secure leads and meetings by disarming – then charming – your prospects

It’s 9am on a regular working day, sometime around 2012. The computer has just been fired up, the coffee is starting to cool, and you ease yourself into proceedings with a cursory scan of your inbox. The vast majority of what you find is not to your taste; emails that are full of jargon, with a cliched call to action, and so lacking in personalisation that they all blur into one dirge of dullness.

It certainly doesn’t pique your interest, nor does it anger you. In fact,...

29 November 2018 | Best Practice

Customer comms giant Twilio to acquire SendGrid for $2bn

Twilio has entered into an agreement to acquire email API platform SendGrid in a $2bn (£1.82bn) bid to build out its leading Platform-as-a-Service, which virtualises the world’s telecoms infrastructure through APIs.

Used by more than 40K companies globally such as Airbnb and Netflix, Twilio lets software developers add capabilities such as voice, video, chat and messaging into their applications, backed by a “Super Network” connecting communications networks...

16 October 2018 | Customer Experience

Four ways in which marketing automation is evolving

Marketing automation has been somewhat of a blessing to many employed in the field; it’s freed up a lot of time and reduced the tedium associated with repetitive tasks.

Automation swooped in providing a range of tools to save time and effort needed day to day. Still, the digital marketing landscape is evolving further, driven by changing consumer behaviour and demands; on average, consumers now spend more time online than ever but they’re after a more personalised...

8 August 2018 | Automation

DMA Email Benchmark 2018: Clicks driven by relevance, opens driven by interest

Email Button

Yesterday (July 5), the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) published its annual Email Benchmarking Report.

Analysing the performance of over 23 billion emails over the course of 2017, results showed that email has yet to be unseated as digital marketers’ top-performing channel.

At 97.5%, delivery rates remained extremely high - that figure represents just a slight dip year on year - although this does equate to over 500 million emails missing the target.

On the...

5 July 2018 | Data-driven marketing

Nine in 10 marketers admit their marketing automation is not up to scratch

For all the talk of marketing automation software’s power to streamline menial tasks, it seems few marketers are actually getting it right.

In fact, a survey by GetResponse and SmartInsights on the activities of 585 marketers across B2C and B2B firms, spanning 19 industries, found that less than one in 10 (8%) considered their use of marketing automation software to be meeting a high rate of effectiveness, while 28% rated their expertise with the software...

14 June 2018 | Automation

Mornings and lunchtimes worst time to ask people to re-subscribe, says study

With GDPR coming into force in just over two months, the issue of trying to reconfirm marketing preferences and asking consumers to re-subscribe is weighing heavily on a lot of company’s minds.

The new regulations make it a requirement for companies to gain the explicit consent of individuals if they are going to store and user their data. Individuals will have to specifically opt-in for things like marketing emails, instead of having a box pre-ticked for them.

One effect...

9 March 2018 | Email marketing

How to spend a limited digital marketing budget in 2018/19

It’s an important objective imposed on marketers every single year – how best to squeeze every drop out of the annual budget.

Even industry professionals who, on paper, have more cash to splash, are still pressed to make their spend go further. And then there are those less fortunate of course, who have their budgets cut whilst the targets remain as competitive as ever.

So, whichever scenario you find yourself in, if you’re faced with a ‘limited...

22 February 2018 | CRM

Five martech lessons from 2017 you need to take into 2018

It’s the time of year when marketers commonly reflect on the past year and gear themselves up for what’s to come in the 12 months.

As we emerge blinking and bleary-eyed from the holiday season into 2018, it’s not just a case of focusing on ‘what’s new’. Part of growing and developing as a business requires an honest analysis of your successes and failures in 2017.

You take forward with you what worked and discard what...

5 January 2018 | Best Practice