Strategy | 3 MIN READ
In a new Channel Report, Yesmail asked almost 200 retailers to identify their digital marketing priorities for 2016. Brands indicated that integrating email with other digital channels is among their top 3 priorities. Other popular answers included improving mobile optimization, making better use of data to drive content, and creating behavior-based email campaigns.
The interesting thing about the other popular answers is that all of them imply cross-channel integration. For example, brands cannot use data to drive content without integrating demographic, purchase, or browse information into their marketing campaigns. Similarly, marketers cannot create behavior-based campaigns without knowing who their audience is, what they’re interested in, what they’ve purchased in the past, and so on. Even improving mobile optimization requires data about subscribers’ mobile behavior and device preference. All-in-all, in a variety of different forms, cross-channel integration isTHE 2016 marketing objective.
‘Integration’ can be an all-encompassing term so many brands may be wondering where to start. The first step is to ensure that there is a common denominator between all channels you currently employ in your marketing strategy – most often, this common denominator is email. You’re probably thinking “Duh! Of course, in order to get to cross-channel integration, we need to connect all channels we utilize.” Great! Yet:
These discouraging stats suggest that many (if not most) marketers need to make the first step to integration by starting to collect email addresses from every channel they use – this is foundational for an effective cross-channel marketing program. The fact is that when retailers fail to secure email addresses, they miss a chance to establish future relationships with buyers and potential brand advocates. Here are some ideas to do that through 4 major channels:
Even if the app doesn’t require a login, there is still the functionality of push notifications which can be utilized to encourage the app’s downloaders to sign up for the brand’s mailing program.
Later, as part of the welcome series, retailers can send an incentive to subscribers to fill out additional information on the site’s Preference Center, such as gender, birthday, product category preference, mailing frequency preference, and more.
While there is more to cross-channel marketing than email, email is a great place to start because it can be easily integrated with most (if not all) digital channels. So take the opportunities that channels like social, web, in-store, and mobile provide to streamline email collection and build on it.
DOWNLOAD THE FULL 2016 SURVEY REPORT to learn more about retailers’ 2016 goals and how to make them a reality.