A short review of Steve Lomax's 'Driving Business Online' presentation.

Steve Lomax provided a fantastic insight into current email marketing and how organisations are improving the email marketing process by focusing upon consumer personalisation and segmentation. Steve drew upon current online marketing strategies used by Boden and HMV and how their use of customisation and sophisticated email marketing has improved their sales and revenue. This blog entry will focus on the role of personalised email and discuss relevant examples mentioned by Steve.

Personalised and customised emails have the ability to target different consumers in different markets. Companies are increasingly adopting sophisticated email marketing strategies to create stronger brand awareness and too increase sales and revenue. In many cases including Boden's, a strong return on email marketing investment has been made. 

Boden adopted a number of techniques to ensure the right products and advertisements were being directed to the right consumers: 

• Boden moved away from the 'one size fits all' strategy, and targeted different segments of the market with different offers and products
• To segment the market, consumer website behaviour, click rates and previous purchases were taken into consideration
• Email content and images used are customised to certain consumers

Boden understood the importance of product reviews and ratings. Steve Lomax suggested that a strangers feedback on a product is more trustworthy compared to a company marketing message. To secure sales, Boden applied various techniques:

• Product review forms were emailed to customers who had recently purchased a Boden product and publicised the feedback online
• 43,000 reviews were collected to improve consumer buying decisions  

HMV successfully adapted sophisticated email by implementing marketing tools into their order confirmation emails to increase brand awareness.

• Emails included cross sale messages and product advertisements to attract consumers 
• Basket updates and out of stock messages also contained cross sale messages
• Over 100% of these emails are opened by consumers

These are fantastic examples of companies using personalised and sophisticated email to target the right consumers.

The online lecture can be seen at http://www.seminarstreams.com/seminars/seminar-player.aspx?sid=IKFm9Ag7PLI%3d