ad:tech review – Email Content, Growth & Segmentation

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For those who don’t know, ad:tech Sydney is the event for Digital Marketing — this year there were impressive keynote speakers & exhibitors from great technology companies like Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, Google & Yahoo as well as from iconic brands like Kodak and Fuji Xerox and also media companies like Fairfax Digital.

Bonus: Download the 33 free templates from Web Marketing That Works.

It was great to attend the event & an honour to be invited to moderate the panel discussion at ad:tech on Email Content, Growth & Segmentation Strategies on Tuesday afternoon.

The panel consisted of:
• Adam Franklin (me) Managing Director of Brisbane web design company Bluewire Media.
• David Smerdon – Head of Strategy at Vision 6,
• Matthew Raumer, Senior Marketing Manager – Apartments from Stockland
• Luke Hilton, Web Manager at Dick Smith.

We discussed the 3 pillars of:
1. Acquisition (ie. getting contacts to subscribe to your database),
2. Retention (ie. keeping your subscribers interested by sending useful & relevant emails)
3. Growth (ie. getting your existing subscribers to help grow your database – eg. send to a friend)

Email Content, Segmentation & Growth Strategies (ad:tech sydney 2009)

View more presentations from Bluewire Media.

David Smerdon discussed acquisition & used the case study of Sunlover Holidays to highlight how companies should set up the e-news subscription process. He spoke about how customers already have the expectation that companies will communicate with them via email, SMS & Twitter & that it is up to companies to bridge this gap. His final point was to think laterally about getting subscribers eg. have sign-up forms on the most popular pages of your website, get your call centre to ask customers if they’d like to subscribe.

Matt Raumer discussed how he uses email marketing at Stockland to market apartments in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Matt covered the importance of having simple & clear creative layout with the KISS (keep it simple stupid :)) principle being very important. At Stockland they also segment their database so they can send relevant emails to them rather than blanket email blasts like they did a few years ago. He made the point that people are unlikely to buy a $3m apartment from a single email, so it’s important to have a communication plan that has several touch points so they can build up interest in the lead up to a release. Getting buy-in from the sales team is also needed so they know what emails have gone out & also remember that email marketing is just one part of the marketing mix.

Luke Hilton gave a compelling presentation on how Dick Smith has transformed the way the use email marketing. Just 12 months ago they did nothing & now they are getting amazing results. So how did they do it? The allowed people to opt-in on all pages of their website (& only required minimal info), they captured email addresses on all purchases, made special offers to members to maintain exclusivity, they incentivised people to sign-up by running competitions & offering prizes (like an iPhone) & they also had a send to friend” mechanic to help viral spread.

During the panel discussion we shared strategies on how to leverage other company’s databases (eg. by getting endorsements on someone else’s email.) Luke also mentioned how in his experience, the better the prize in competitions, the better the results!

Overall we hope the audience learnt a few tips & could take some strategies back to the office to implement themselves.

by Adam Franklin
Managing Director, Bluewire Media
[email protected]

Email Marketing Brisbane: for professional email marketing strategy, call Bluewire Media on 1300 258 394.

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About Adam Franklin

Adam Franklin is the bestselling author of Web Marketing That Works. He is an international social media speaker and CEO of Bluewire Media. His blog was Australia's #1 Business Blog and his podcast was #9 on the top marketing podcasts in Entrepreneur magazine. His work has featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Huffington Post and iTunes. Download the popular Web Strategy Planning Template which has been used by hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. His weekly 'Bluewire News' email goes out to over 32,000 readers.