Personalization with email has been a key theme throughout the Email Insider Summit. How to improve it?
Carnival Cruise Lines' Roger Foisy said when he joined the company it had three
creative agencies. Email marketing has been brought in-house. He said the company looks to "identify simple variables" to insert into emails to improve personalization such as whether a person has
cruised before or is a loyal customer.
Lion Brand Yarns marketing head Ilana Rabinowitz said photos of happy people work well and humans drive sales more than products. People "buy based on
emotional drivers," she said. Mutual of Omaha's Erin Junge offered similar thoughts.
Responsys' Wacarra Yeomans works with Harley-Davidson. Since people generally don't buy motorcycles online,
she said the email's job is to provide inspiration. "You buy a bike because you imagine yourself riding your hog down the highway," she said. Testing has helped with creative since women and men
respond differently.
One of the most critical questions with email content is what works best with subject lines?
"This is probably not a big surpise, but the word free," said
Rabinowitz. Also, she said messages about limited-time sales -- "three days left or some kind of time crunch" -- work well.
Carnival's Foisy said questions work well in the travel business
such as "Where to next?" Also, site-wide messages such as 50% off everything.
"Definitely shorter subject lines are in right now," said Responsys' Yeomans. She also suggsted that "tying
subject lines to your organic search terms" is a solid strategy.
(Yeomans also praised copywriters, calling them the "the unsung heroes of email." She said she appreciates the verbiage that
comes from Yahoo.
On a separate topic, Carnival's Foisy was asked how email strategy was impact by some of the disasters the cruise line has dealt with recently. He said the company took its
"foot off the gas pedal for a while" with email, allowing for some "breathing space." Then, it eased back in with sales messages, but with a bit more conversational tone and engagement rates were
strong.