Remember, there is a person behind the marketing data. When you write an email message never forget the goal is to turn prospects into customers. Create messages that sound personal, relevant, valuable and timely. Provide content that improves prospects professional and personal life, while also building trust.
Personalized messages – get super charged with marketing automation.
Melinda a sales manager, for an international printing firm says, “Don’t get overwhelmed with the marketing jargon.” Her colleagues in marketing tossed around terms like metrics, click through rates, and generated reports about customer and prospect performance causing Melinda’s eyes to glaze. In less than five minutes the marketing department confused Melinda to the point where she longed for the days where she could simply pick up the phone and call the customers and check on business.
The efficiency side of personalized email.
With thousands of customers in various time zones phone calls to Melinda’s customers would cost a small fortune, not to mention the fact that in all likelihood she would reach more voicemails than actual people.
The old way of sales gets revamped.
When Melinda first entered the sales profession her boss would ask, “How is the pipeline?,” the tally of forecasted projects. Not much has changed since then; sales people still need to reach these kinds of prospects and build a rapport in the hopes that “maybes” will turn to “sales”.
How businesses pursue prospects has changed. For instance, their marketing analysis showed a thousand contacts interested in the global printing services Melinda’s firm offered. Further analysis indicated hundreds of prospects with plans to get a new brochure or catalogue printed within six months.
When marketing mentioned they would generate an automatic email to the prospects Melinda balked. “No, they’re my customers. Let me do it.”
“You don’t have that kind of time,” Marketing said. Following up on the sales “pipeline” without technology could take days or weeks. In the end Melinda acquiesced. But not before she added a personal note, which marketing generated in a matter of seconds to her prospects.
Marketing and Sales – How they join in the new world of personalized marketing.
Marketing performed a function, which in years past could be construed as sales work. Sure, they sent Melinda’s sales letter, but the very letter depended on marketing’s customer analysis and metrics.
With the ongoing help of marketing technology sales people now virtually meet one-to-one with prospects for the delivery of information about goods and services. To offer this same level of service in person would take months if not years. Through continual correspondence via email the rapport with each prospect is nurtured so that over time more and more prospects become buying customers.
Putting personalized market data to work.
A recent study by Gartner G2, iMedia Communications and Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed 212 U.S. marketing professionals from B2B and B2C companies with marketing budgets from $1 million to $50 million plus.
This study showed that personalized marketing is increasing in importance.
Benefits of personalized marketing reported include:
Improvements in customer/prospect time: 44%
Greater customer retention: 43%
Overall revenue increases: 43%
Enhanced average time spent at site by prospects/clients: 42%
Improved employee efficiency: 38%
Reduced costs: 26%
Increased margin of average sale: 25%
