Dynamic Email Marketing for Better Customer Experience

If you’ve ever received a handwritten note of thanks, you know that the written word is far from a dead communication medium. Done well, written communication can reach your audience in ways traditional advertising, billboards, social media and other avenues cannot, as well as create a connection that drives conversations.

With that being said, we all know that one of the most used forms of communication today – email – isn’t exactly beloved by consumers. Overflowing inboxes, constant pinging notifications and a whole lot of sameness are what defines most consumers’ email experiences. It’s not hard to understand why subscription rates are falling!

“While a handwritten letter may be effective, it’s also extremely static,” says Jason McCloud, Vice President of Digital & Integrated Strategy at SageAge Strategies. “The benefit of email marketing, if you do it well, is its ability to be a dynamic form of communication. If your email hits an inbox and your reader either ignores it or opens it and does nothing, you’ve wasted an opportunity. But by injecting some strategy into your email marketing, you can create a dynamic communication flow that rises above the sea of sameness and prompts potential customers to take action.”

Why Being Dynamic Matters

Customers are being inundated every day with messages from countless businesses, services and the like. Think about your own inbox. The frequency with which you receive offers, newsletters or special deals is probably overwhelming, and your potential customers are no different.

Just as you may become frustrated at the “spray and pray” approach that so many marketers take with email, your customers feel the same. It’s one thing to drop yet another email in someone’s inbox. It’s quite another to drop a completely irrelevant and useless email. The former is expected, while the latter is (especially as consumers reach message overload) simply annoying. Being unwelcome and annoying is a surefire way to generate, at best, low open rates and, at worst, high unsubscribe rates – not to mention a whole lot of ill will!

When you take a dynamic approach with your email marketing content, however, you are providing content and information that is relevant to your customer. It brings more focus and personalization to the process. So, because no two customers are alike, it’s a far smarter and more effective approach than just firing off the same message to everyone and hoping for the best.

Steps to Take to Be More Dynamic

It does take more time and effort to be more precise and dynamic with your email marketing efforts. Certainly a spray and pray approach is simpler and easier from a marketing perspective, but if it’s ineffective … what’s the point, right?

First, Know Your List

Presumably, you have an email list of existing and potential customers that you use for marketing purposes. The first step to creating a more dynamic marketing approach is to dive deeper into this list. It isn’t enough to have just an email, you should have names; demographic information; insight into where they are in the sales funnel; knowledge about their actions – or lack thereof – in response to your outreach and more.

Next, Know Your Products

Your next step is to identify the different products and services you want to share with your prospective customers. Not everything about your community will appeal to different groups of people. Certain prospects may be far more interested in your activities, events and social offerings, while others may be hyper-focused on in-room amenities, upgrades and dining services. Still, others may have an intense interest in the medical care offerings your community provides. Messaging should be crafted to highlight each specific “bucket,” always with an eye on your organization’s overarching strategy and values.

Pair Them Up

Based on what you discover when you dive deeper into your existing list(s), you should have a better idea of what specific prospective customers may be interested in. Do some pairing of the two. Identify groups who will have an interest in a specific offering, deal or feature at your community, and generate an email outreach plan that focuses on that specific group and feature.

From here, your options are virtually limitless. Things can get very detailed, with marketing email flows that are triggered based on specific customer responses. There’s a whole slew of software options available, too. We’ve truly just scratched the tip of the iceberg! Dynamic email marketing can be an immensely effective strategy for generating goodwill among your customers, establishing relationships and, ultimately, driving sales. Get in touch today to learn more about what steps you can take to bolster your email marketing efforts!