Data is key to any good email marketing campaign.
It ensures that emails are sent to the right person, with the right message, at the right time.
And it can make or break your email sender reputation.
But it’s easy for marketers to become complacent with their data. Letting it build up in the background with little manual input or review.
Unfortunately, this can lead to data becoming messy, disengaged, and lacking in quality.
To help them avoid this common pitfall, here are 7 questions that successful email marketers should ask about their data, every day.
1.
Where is this data from?
Asking where your data is from is one of the most important questions an email marketer can ask.
Knowing where the data comes from offers key identifiers to how reliable, useful, and quality the data is.
For instance, are you using legacy data that could be outdated or even non-GDPR compliant?
Are you using opted-in data from events, promotions, or trade shows? Which could include contacts who aren’t familiar with your brand.
Or is this data taken from your own customer base, who are more familiar with your offering.
Establishing all of the above ensures brands are sending the right message to the right recipients. And will set the foundations for all the other questions we will cover in this blog post.
2.
Is the data GDPR compliant?
GDPR, the letters that for a while struck fear into many brands and marketers.
We’d like to think that many of our readers are not only familiar with GDPR. But are also comfortable with the regulations, and practicing GDPR compliance.
Even so, it’s important to ensure that every piece of data used in email marketing is GDPR compliant.
Understanding where the data comes from is a great starting point for establishing compliance. But brands should also ask themselves if the data they are using has been processed with clear consent, and if they have opted in permission to market to these individuals.
If you want to double or triple-check that your data is GDPR compliant, then you can download our helpful guide.
3.
Who is this data on?
Gaining a full understanding of who is actually in your email database is key to offering relevant communications.
Identifying where the data came from will give you a head start in this stage. But you will also want to dig down into the demographics, such as age, gender, location, and profession. Knowledge is power when it comes to email marketing, so try to identify as many factors as possible.
Of course, part of understanding who is in your database is collecting the right data in the first place.
So if you are noticing significant gaps in your data identifiers, address your data capture techniques. For instance on the forms that you are using on your website. When a consumer makes a purchase, enters a competition, or makes an enquiry, what sort of questions are you asking?
You could even include progressive disclosure forms to build up the data on individuals as they increasingly engage with your brand.
4.
What else does the data tell us?
As well as demographics, there is a wealth of information that can be gained from email data. Particularly when it comes to browsing and buying behaviour.
This information, alongside demographic data, enables marketers to send out highly relevant and personalised communications to individuals.
And what’s better, all of this information can be taken from website activity with the use of a good AI marketing platform.
Marketers can begin using this information to segment their audiences based on similarities. Whether that be age or type of products frequently purchased. Or to create RFM segments (recency, frequency, monetary) to identify the highest spenders and those who may be at risk.
But to be even more sophisticated, they can use this data alongside dynamic content blocks to automatically populate and personalise emails based on a user’s own specific activity. Such as the last product purchased, or an item they regularly browse.
5.
Is the data still relevant?
When it comes to data, even 6 months is a long time.
Email addresses change, needs change, and challenges change rapidly. So it’s important to ask whether the email data you are using is up to date.
One of the most straightforward ways of answering this question is to simply ask your recipients.
This can be done with an email campaign enquiring as to whether the data you have is up to date.
This could include sending the recipient to a preference centre or account page for them to update their information. So that they can receive the communications that are most relevant to them.
6.
Is this data high quality?
Similar to identifying if data is still relevant, is identifying if it’s also of high quality.
Quality email data should be compliant, correct, and complete. Much of which we have already covered in this blog.
But email data should also be clean and engaged.
Brands can begin ensuring their data is of high quality by cleaning their database. This involves separating out the contacts that are rarely engaging with the brand’s emails anymore. Brands can add them to a separate list to engage with less, and eventually delete them from their database if they’re completely inactive.
Furthermore, brands can increase their data quality by sending out re-engagement emails to check-in and ask if the recipient still wants to be emailed. Offering them a preference centre where they can manage email frequency and type.
This ensures that the data is up to date, and that those remaining on your list are quality, engaged contacts who want to be communicated with.
7.
Do I need to gather more data?
Quality data is key to successful email campaigns. And to increase the relevancy of these campaigns, the more quality data the better.
So it’s important for marketers to review any gaps that are in their data, especially when it comes to target audiences. For instance, how frequently are recipients purchasing? What products do they view the most? Do they regularly abandon their baskets?
Brands should determine the information necessary to send the emails that bring the most benefit to their business, and ensure they have the data to fit it.
And if they don’t, then we can help…
At Pure360 we offer an all-in-one AI email and web marketing platform alongside a Customer Success Team whose sole mission is to get you better results. So whatever challenge you are facing with your data. We have the skills and knowledge to support you.
Get in touch with your team of experts to find out more.