The Rivervale team improved their email marketing results by 40% with Pure360
GUIDE
Post-GDPR First Aid Kit
How to ensure marketing success post GDPR
You should use this first aid kit if you:
Our first aid kit provides:
We’d love you to keep reading, but to help you get started we’ve compiled everything in this guide into a handy checklist.
Recovering your email list after a re-consent campaign
The reality is that many businesses are faced with depleted email lists.
If email marketing is a consistent source of revenue this is undoubtedly going to hit you hard.
But all is not lost. If you ran a re-consent campaign there may still be a way to recover the customers who did not opt-in to continue receiving marketing communication.
It’s all based on legitimate interest.
Many businesses can still rely on legitimate interest for existing customers even if they didn’t opt-in to a re-consent campaign.
As stated in the ICO’s guidelines, you can still rely on legitimate interest if:
It’s a complex issue and we’re here to help.
If you want to find out if you can use legitimate interest to recover your marketing database, get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.
Pure360’s three step guide to post-GDPR success
Email marketing consistently ranks as the marketing channel that drives the highest ROI.
GDPR doesn’t change this.
But it does mean that your email marketing needs to work smarter to continue to deliver.
We’ve compiled a best practice checklist that is guaranteed to drive more value from email marketing post-GDPR.
Step 1
Growing your marketing database
List growth will always play an important part of every email marketing strategy. Post GDPR, acquisition must jump to the top of your strategy, especially if you’re faced with a reduced list size.
Here are three tactics to take your list growth to new levels.
Optimise sign-up forms
You may have already amended your email sign-up forms to be compliant, but did you also look to optimise them for conversions?
With GDPR making it trickier to obtain consent, now is definitely time to look at where and how you’re growing your list.
71% of marketers believe the GDPR will inspire greater creativity in customer acquisition campaigns
The message is clear. It’s time to optimise and get creative.
Further reading: How to Make Sign-Up Forms GDPR Compliant
Need some extra help? Optimise your sign-up forms and drive list growth with our Acquisition Optimisation Pack.
Implement pop-up forms
Pop-up forms are a vital tool for list growth.
Well executed pop-ups increase sign-ups, drive prospects towards a first purchase, and reduce website abandonment.
Pop-ups increase subscription rates by up to 300%
Pop-ups can be triggered when people first enter your website, as they’re about to leave, or in reaction to certain behaviours.
Each pop-up should show a different message based on each individual’s behaviour and customer lifecycle stage.
Further reading: How to use pop-ups to grow your email list
Drive list growth from social
A successful post-GDPR customer acquisition strategy needs to be multi-channel. Social media is a great channel for growing your marketing list and reaching new audiences.
PurePromotions allows you to run social campaigns to grow your list size.
PurePromotions customers average 20% list growth over 6 months
Choose from ready-made campaign templates such as contests, sweepstakes and deals. Use your campaigns to engage your existing audience and drive sign-ups from new audiences on social media.
Further reading: How Marketing Cheshire use PurePromotions to drive 1,300 new subscribers from each campaign
Drive list growth with PurePromotions Reach new audiences on social and grow your list with viral campaigns.
Step 2
Increasing email marketing ROI
While list growth should be an ongoing part of your strategy, you also need better results today.
A smaller marketing database post GDPR isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it could even be an opportunity to drive more from less.
Those who have given consent are going to be your most engaged subscribers. They want to continue hearing from you, so don’t neglect this opportunity to engage them with increased frequency.
Now is the time to work smart, get creative and dare to be different!
Here are 5 tactics that will help you deliver better ROI today
Segment your database
Every customer is unique. Does your email marketing reflect this? Blast-and-batch email marketing isn’t going to cut it post GDPR. Relevancy is key to an engaged database.
Marketers who segment see a 760% increase in email revenue
Depending on what data you hold, there is really no limit to how you segment your database.
How you segment should be unique to your business. Ultimately you know your customers best. You know what your customer lifecycle looks like.
Think about what common actions your customers take and how your email marketing could reflect this.
Further reading: Advanced Guide to Email Segmentation
Need some extra help? Let’s talk about how we can help you deliver better results with segmentation.
Personalise send times
Marketers often obsess over the best time to send emails. In reality, every recipient is different.
That’s why it’s important for you to personalise your send time for each person. Our feature, Intelligent Timed Sending does just that. It predicts when each recipient is most likely to open an email based on previous behaviour and then sends at that exact time.
Take advantage of this wizardry selecting ‘Intelligent Timed Sending’ on each campaign. Better open rates at the click of button!
Further reading: Guide to Intelligent Timed Sending
Resend to non-opens
Resending email campaigns to people who didn’t open is simple tactic that can dramatically improve your email marketing results.
Think of it as a second chance to engage customers who might have missed your first email. It’s also a good opportunity to test a new subject line.
Resending to non-openers improves campaign open rates by up to 50%
Not only is it effective, it’s also quick and easy to implement in PureCampaign. Select ‘resend to non-opens’ when scheduling your campaign or after an campaign has gone out.
When it’s that easy, there’s no excuse not to start today.
Further reading: The Power of Resending Email Campaigns to Non-opens
Implement a welcome series
Want to know the worst thing you can do after someone subscribes? Nothing.
It seems silly to ignore new subscribers, especially after all the hard work it takes to convert them in the first place, but many businesses do just that.
A simple welcome email is one of the most effective emails you’ll ever send. It builds trust, creates brand affinity, and guides potential customers towards that important first purchase.
Welcome emails generate 8 times more revenue than the average bulk email
But why stop with one email. Packing too much into a single welcome email could be overwhelming. A series of emails is a much more effective way to nurture leads into customers.
Further reading: Best Practice Guide to Welcome Campaigns
Need some extra help? Convert more leads into customers with our Automation Starter pack.
Improve deliverability
Of all the email metrics, deliverability is one that you can’t afford to get wrong. It doesn’t matter how great your subject line is if you’re not landing in your recipients inbox.
There are many factors that impact deliverability but the most common are the quality of your email list, your reputation as a sender, and what you’re sending. GDPR might have helped improve deliverability if you’ve only been left with your most engaged subscribers.
However deliverability isn’t something you can think about once and then forget about. It needs to be measured and optimised on an ongoing basis.
Further reading: How to improve email deliverability
Need some extra help? Get a health check and strategic advice to improve deliverability with our Deliverability Consultancy Pack.
Step 3
Maximising customer retention
Marketers have been told for years that acquiring new customers costs considerably more than retaining customers. One study showed it could be as much as 25 times more expensive. After GDPR this gap is only likely to increase.
If you’re working off a smaller email list you’re going to want to work extra hard to keep your audience engaged, and hopefully spending more with you.
Here are two ways that you can keep your marketing database brimming with highly-engaged subscribers.
Re-engage lapsed customers
Re-engagement campaigns are a must regardless of your business type. Even the most highly-tuned email marketing strategy suffers from list fatigue.
Reacting early is key to reducing list fatigue.
45% of recipients who receive a re-engagement email read subsequent emails
Rather than sending a single last chance re-engagement email, you should have a campaign made up of multiple emails which react at the earliest signs of lost engagement.
Not only does it bring customers back into the fold earlier, it also give you additional chances to re-engage before they completely lapse.
Further reading: Best Practice Guide to Re-Engagement Campaigns
Need some extra help? Stop customers from lapsing with our Retention Optimisation Pack.
Optimise your preference centre
A preference centre may not seem like the most thrilling part of an email strategy, but post GDPR it is going to be more important than ever.
Giving people control over how and what they want to hear from you will allow you to deliver much more relevant marketing. It also has the added benefit of reducing unsubscription rates.
8% of customers unsubscribe because they found another company that provides better, more relevant information
A well-designed preference center can remind subscribers of the value of what you send. There might be only one type of email that isn’t relevant to them. Giving people choice means you’re less likely to lose them completely.
Conclusion
We believe GDPR poses an opportunity for those who embrace the challenge.
Now is the time to engage your audience. Now is the time to invest in driving better ROI from email.
We hope our First Aid Kit has provided you with tactics you can start using today and has inspired you to look at email marketing with renewed confidence.
We’ve created a downloadable checklist covering all the tactics to ensure post-GDPR marketing success. Grab your copy.
Still concerned about GDPR?
We’re here to help.
Tell us your biggest concerns around GDPR and we’ll arrange a consultation to help you overcome your challenges.
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