eBook - Silverpop

How My GPS Pointed Me
Toward Email’s Future
What’s email’s future
Q: beyond mobile and social
integration?
Let me start by telling you about how
A: my GPS crystallized my views about
what’s happening in email marketing and where
it has to evolve.
I was heading out to a conference about an hour
from my house. I had entered the address into
the GPS, but it wanted to use a different route.
Within a block of my house, it started telling me
I needed to go a different way than I preferred.
I ignored the GPS’ repeated attempts to sell me
on “Take the next exit.”
Finally, but also with no other alternatives left,
the GPS recognized I was ignoring its instructions
and began to give me directions for the
route that I preferred.
Does this sound familiar? Most broadcast email
operates like this, too.
Preferences vs. Intent vs. Context
The marketing perspective is shifting, too,
away from the marketer dictating the terms
and toward a system that pulls in streams
of data to create messages based on what
the customer does rather than what the
marketer wants to sell.
Smart email marketers have been
changing much of their programs the
last few years, from ones that rely on
broadcast email to more of a one-toone
communications channel.
The first transition was from the pray and spray of
broadcast email to educated guesses via targeted
messages based on profiles and preferences. Now,
though, focus is shifting to triggered messages
based on intent and context.
Intent is mainly what customers are telling you
through their behavior, such as browsing, purchasing
or clicking/not clicking on email messages.
Context marries location, device, buying stage and
social activity to intent and preference behavior.
It’s the next frontier because it also pulls in realtime
recommendations based not just on what the
customer himself bought but also what similar, or
“like-minded,” individuals bought.
The goal, of course, is delivering the right message
at the right time to consumers. Rather than
crossing your fingers and hoping a message is
relevant, a marketer’s behavioral GPS system listens
to individual actions and responds in real time
with content and offers that solve a consumer’s
problem.
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