Email marketing in the wake of GDPR
If you’ve done your due diligence by now you will have a clean marketing database of customers who you have permission to contact. Ideally, you will have a centralised database and be able to prove on request the source of every customer.
One minute they were there, the next they were gone
You may have noticed that your once abundant database has now dwindled, to as little as 10% in some cases. All is not lost however, look at this as a new opportunity. You are contacting those people that want to hear from you and are engaged. Not only are you potentially saving money on subscriptions, your stats will have seen an instant improvement and this is your opportunity to get creative.
Firstly, customers will be more receptive post opt-in, giving you a greater chance to break through the noise and develop a creative campaign to strike at the perfect time. You could reintroduce customers to your company by setting up an automated email series based on an action or run an exclusive promotion or loyalty campaign to thank customers for staying with you.
As with anything you do the more integrated you can be the better. Consider supporting your email campaign with social media ads served to the same list, private landing pages, PPC ads, a direct mail campaign etc.
In with the new
Next steps? Create a comprehensive data acquisition plan. Look at it as a fresh start – how do you ensure moving forward that you get the right customers? What are your tactics to achieve that? Analyse the profile of contacts that have opted in, are there any learnings to be gained?
Explore the ways in which you collect data beyond email marketing and conduct a channel audit. What can be improved? What are your quick wins and longer-term tasks? Do you need extra resource or a specialist?
When it comes to looking at budget and ROI, consider the potential lifetime value of a customer. Some activities will take longer than others to start seeing results. This should all form the basis for your plan. Finally, getting new customers on board is one thing but keeping them is another. To try and limit unsubscribes, if you are not already, let customers manage their preferences and only opt-in to what is relevant to them. Then ensure your comms are as tailored and relevant as they can be.
