Can you give us some background about Le Col and your role? 

Le Col is a premium cycling apparel brand focused on making the best kit in the world. We use our unique insight from our legends such as Bradley Wiggins, Pro Cycling team (Bora- Hansgrohe), and founder/former professional cyclist Yanto Barker to help our customers ride faster and further.

I’ve been at Le Col for just over three years now and my role is to head up our CRM team to ensure that customers are having an optimum experience across all digital touchpoints and build long-term relationships with the brand.

Are you excited about this year’s Dotdigital Summit, have you attended before?

Very excited for this years Summit! Yes, I’ve attended before and really enjoyed it.

What do you like most about the Summit, and what are you looking forward to this year?

I like the opportunity to listen to a great group of speakers – I feel like you always get actionable insights at the Summit to bring back to what you’re doing in the office. 

Your talk will focus on Black Friday, how do you think it has changed over the years? Are customers getting fatigued by Black Friday messaging?

People have been talking about Black Friday fatigue since I started in ecommerce. Most people I speak to have really seen an increase in sending of poor quality messages from companies that you forgot you subscribed to or just feel the need to send because it’s Black Friday.

I think with the state of the economy now and the challenges brands are facing, Black Friday is still a crucial trading period for most. As long as you put a good plan together – offering timely, relevant, and valuable customer-centric messaging to campaigning – people will always be engaged.

What will people takeaway from the talk?

Hopefully, they will leave with a few new tips and tricks that I’ve learned implementing Black Fridays over the last couple of years at Le Col. I would also like people to go away remembering that Black Friday is also an opportunity to speak to customers than just a discount sale.

What tactics do you suggest brands employ to generate loyalty from casual Black Friday shoppers?

Make sure you focus on a wider range of metrics when it comes to your Black Friday shoppers.

Obviously, transactions and revenue are key drivers during Black Friday, but we also put a premium on maintaining long-term relationship building goals including brand awareness, loyalty acquisition, and net promoter score.

What are Le Col’s plans for the future?

One of our key goals is to build on our loyalty programme, the Le Col Cycling Club. We’ve seen massive spikes in customer retention and satisfaction since launching the free membership in 2021 and we want to continue to build and develop on the programme offering new cool features going forwards.

What do you think will be a big trend in marketing for 2024?

Apart from A.I? I’d say in a world where third-party advertising will become more difficult due to Apple privacy protection and general privacy laws and shorter attention spans, we’ll see a greater reliance on first-party data for targeting and reporting, and increased focus on creative to stand out from the crowd to drive real incremental gain.

If you’ve not got your tickets for this year’s Summit yet, grab them here.

What is a martech stack?

A martech stack is simply the name given to the collection of marketing technology or software used by a business to support and enhance its marketing efforts. Even if you’re not familiar with the term, you likely already have one.

Forrester found that martech stacks now account for over 20% of the total marketing budget, and 56% of businesses planned to increase their allocated budget to spend on martech. Plus, a huge 82% of marketers said they plan to change their martech stack in 2022. There is a lot of growth in this area because marketing technology is constantly evolving, and martech frees up marketers’ time, and we all know that time is money.

The importance of a martech stack

The importance of a martech stack cannot be overstated in today’s digital age. With the proliferation of marketing channels and the vast amount of customer data available, a martech stack is essential for businesses looking to gain a competitive edge in the market.

By leveraging customer data from various sources, such as CRM systems, social media platforms, and email marketing campaigns, a well-designed martech stack can help automate and streamline marketing processes, improve customer targeting and engagement, and increase marketing ROI. By integrating various marketing tools and technologies, businesses can achieve a holistic view of their marketing efforts and gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences.

A martech stack also enables businesses to stay agile and adapt quickly to changing market conditions. As customer expectations and preferences evolve, businesses must be able to respond in real-time to deliver personalized experiences and relevant content. A martech stack can help businesses achieve this by providing the necessary tools and technologies to analyze and act on customer data.

How to build a martech stack

Curating your marketing stack isn’t as intimidating as it sounds. There are no rules and no expectations. It’s as simple as looking at what you need, both as a business and as a team, and going from there. Do you have an SEO specialist on your team, or do you need an all-in-one solution to automate your processes? Once you’ve got an idea of the areas you need support for or simply want to enhance, you need to look at your budget.

38% of marketers cited budget as a barrier to building a martech stack. However, a martech stack optimized for a marketing team’s needs is going to be worth the investment. Once you’ve figured out your priorities and your budget, you can start researching which options will work for you. There is no set number of technologies you should have in your stack.

What does a martech stack look like?

Still unsure of exactly what a martech stack is? Let’s provide some examples. For SEO, we use Semrush for social media scheduling and reporting. Then, for marketing automation, we use Dotdigital (duh), and for CRM, we use Microsoft Dynamics. 

That’s just a fraction of our complete martech stack; we simply use technology that works for us, and you should do the same. No business and marketing team will be the same, so it’s highly unlikely any martech stack should be the same.

We have previously had other technologies in our stack too, ones that we’ve since changed to a new offering or simply no longer need, and we’ll likely add new ones in the future too. A martech stack is simply a name for the collective technologies and software your marketing team uses, it’s not a strict parameter, and it can be fluid.

So, how can tech integrations improve your marketing?

Dotdigital is an example of how technology can improve your marketing. Our platform unifies data, which in turn raises insights ready to empower hyper-personalized marketing messages, automated depending on customer behavior. Pretty impressive, right?

The martech industry is vast, with 9,932 martech solutions available. This means you’re highly likely to find what you’re looking for, no matter your industry or need. Dotdigital works with lots of different technologies to strengthen your marketing throughout the customer journey.

Some examples include:

• Customer service platforms like Zendesk to keep records of all interactions in one place
• CRM platforms to support sales team integrations and remove silos
• Ecommerce integrations to improve understanding of customer behavior
• Enhanced personalization through platforms like Movable Ink

If you have any questions about what’s possible, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Put into practice

For an example of how one of Dotdigital’s integrations can help, let’s look at Reviews.io. You can set up an automation program that sends customers an email asking them to review your brand on Reviews.io once they’ve completed a purchase. 

You can also have an automation set up to send a follow-up email based on the review they leave. Three stars or under? Nurture campaign. Four or five stars? Thanks for your review. Have you checked out this similar product? You get the idea.

The journey is seamless back and forth. You’re prompting customers from your communication platform, letting them provide a review on the review platform, and then following up on your communications platform. This is a great example of two technologies that offer different services working together to bridge the gap—exactly what a good martech stack is all about.

But wait, there’s more. You can also use the social proof editor within Reviews.io to create a graphic and have that automatically appear in your Dotdigital image library. That extra hit of social proof ready and waiting in your image library to add to your welcome campaigns can make all the difference to your conversion rates. 

And the best part? No one on the team had to spend time looking for good reviews, creating an image, and manually uploading it to Dotdigital. The result is stronger marketing campaigns, as well as more time on your hands.

Working together

As soon as you’ve identified the technology you need, make sure it works together. As we’ve just explored, your martech stack is there to support you and make your day-to-day run smoother. You don’t want to be bogged down in manual tasks to share data from one platform to the next.

When your technology works together, it’s going to be more effective overall. Knowledge is power right? If system B knows what a customer has done on system A, it can better market to them based on this and let systems C, D, E, and F know too. 

Of course, it won’t be this linear in reality, as your customers’ journeys aren’t linear. Your stack will be a collection of tech platforms that work in different areas as and when they’re required, in no particular order.

The point remains that your tech platforms communicating with each other is key. Data-driven marketing is imperative for success. The technology is there to strengthen your customers’ journey, so being aware of what happens throughout that is crucial. Think of your stack more like a web, with each piece of technology or software able to connect with each other. 

You need to ensure that multiple systems are integrated to transform a wealth of customer data into reliable, contextual, and timely insights and make that information easily accessible to other platforms that can take action on those insights.

Choosing technology partners based on their integration capabilities with your existing technology is imperative to building a marketing stack you can rely on. This will in turn improve your customer journey, and as we all know, a positive customer experience leads to higher rates of customer loyalty.

How can Dotdigital improve your martech stack?

With 46% of marketers citing the complexity of integrating the technologies as their top barrier to creating a martech stack, we understand it can feel daunting. We know that your time is valuable, so we offer both out-of-the-box integrations so you can get started straight away and a bespoke solution if your stack requires a bit more tailoring. (Our developers always love a new challenge).

Our marketing automation software is the best in the biz thanks to data unification, cross-channel functionality, and leading marketing automation. And while our platform does a lot, it can’t do everything.

Dotdigital is designed to work with the best of the best in other areas too, such as ecommerce, social media, review platforms, and so on, so that you can create a truly joined-up stack. Our integration hub is a great place to start exploring, as it explains how you can integrate Dotdigital with other marketing software.

Embrace technology

Marketing is a broad discipline, and there’s a lot to keep track of. As consumers have largely moved online, the tactics and tools used to engage with customers have become more and more technology-based. 

Back in the day, print advertising and direct mail were huge channels, these days, social media ads and email marketing are more common. Even billboards, which used to be printed out and pasted on by someone climbing up a ladder with a bucket and brush, are now digital screens that can be updated at the touch of a button.

The point is, technology is undeniably a huge part of marketing, and it’s only going to continue to grow. It can be hard to know where to start, what’s going to be worth your investment, and how to make it all work together. 

However, if you start by looking at what you need, researching what’s available, and curating a stack tailored to your business, it’s going to benefit both your marketing output itself and your team’s productivity.

It’s harder to know people’s interest in your brand and their intent to convert. For ecommerce, you can’t see them browsing the products on the shelf and see their reactions to the goods. If you’re in the not-for-profit space, or B2B, which relies on building relationships, online doesn’t allow you to have a face-to-face discussion and see the emotions at play.

A visit to a website takes a lot less commitment and intent than visiting a physical location such as a store or an office, so you need to work harder to get that precious conversion. To do that, you need to engage your customers and know what they might be looking for. Let’s explore how to increase your customer engagement and how to gauge customer interest. 

Contact scoring

So, what if you could know who each customer is, and how interested they are in your brand and products. Imagine if you could tell how many emails and social posts they’ve engaged with, how long they’ve spent on your site, what they’ve bought from you, how much they spent, and whether they read your blog. Then use all this information collectively to work out how you should connect with them next.

It’s called contact scoring. Contact scoring gives you a way to score and rank your contacts based on two key metrics (scored between 0-100):

• ‘Engagement’ – scored on contacts’ interaction and behaviors (such as campaign opens, link clicks, and visits to your website)
• ‘Suitability’ – scored on contacts’ profiles (such as their job title, industry sector, and location)

These metrics combine to produce a third metric – an overall contact score. As a result, you and your company can manage and prioritize your most promising prospects.

Utilizing contact scoring

The purpose of this tactic is to enable you to deliver the right messages, to the right customers, at the right time and the right scale. For example, you might want to send a loyalty offer to those with a higher score, whereas you’d probably want to enter lower-scoring customers into a re-engagement program.

Once you’ve set up contact scoring, you can create rules to work with segments and automations that are triggered when certain scores are met. This will be different for every business, so the platform is designed to be super flexible – your imagination is the limit.

eRFM

If you’re in the ecommerce space, eRFM is another great tool available to you. eRFM is our ecommerce behavioral model is designed to help you better understand the potential of your contacts. It’s a combination of our RFM model (Recency, Frequency, and Monetary) that looks at a contact’s purchasing behavior, with our engagement model that looks at the engagement of a contact – for example, their email opens and clicks, web sessions, and abandoned carts.

When we combine these models, we can better understand and detect purchase intent across various customer types – from inactive contacts to champions.

You can use eRFM groups within your segment building to make highly accurate segments based on the customer’s likelihood to purchase. You can then use these in your marketing automation programs to target these customers with the right message, at the right time.

What content should you consider for your customer engagement strategy?

To be able to score your customers’ engagements effectively, as well as your website and product pages, you need content to track against. This is especially useful for new customers that haven’t made a purchase yet, or if your product or service is something people tend to think about for a while before committing. Here are five types of content to consider for your strategy and why:

1. Blog posts. Blog articles are liked by most audiences because they’re usually topical, digestible, and regular. Many publishers and brands will post blogs at least a couple of times a week, typically to distribute via social channels to drive engagement. This type of content is a great way to measure someone’s level of interest in your company – if they’re frequently reading your posts and clicking through to your site, then you’ll want to allocate a good proportion of points to these actions.
2. Emails. Marketing emails are a great way to measure your customers’ interest in your brand. You can see when they’ve clicked through and converted, or haven’t, as the case may be. Each time they do or don’t engage with your emails, the more points you’ll reward or deduct.
3. Webpages. You want customers to get to your site. But you want them to spend time there, navigating through it, and not just bouncing after viewing one page. The more pages a customer views on your site (and the longer they spend on it), the more points you should give them.
4. Landing pages with forms. Customers who’ve landed on your page and completed a form are making contact. They’ve taken the time to complete the fields, which means they’re interested in your brand. You should therefore consider giving this type of engagement a sizable weighting in your overall score, and follow up while they’re still warm.
5. Social media. Prospects and customers who follow you on social media are likely to be engaged with your brand. By recording this information, you can use it to target them on a platform that suits them, with content they’ve shown interest in.

Conclusion

Ultimately, given the distance when selling online, brands need to work harder to gauge the interest of browsers and customers. Luckily, technology allows you to track this reliably, perhaps even more accurately than in person, as someone behind a screen feels no societal pressure to be polite.

Ensure you’re tracking your customers and potential customers, and have segmentation and automation set up to react to changes and target them at the right time. When you’re acting on customer engagement and activity, you’ll be offering super reactive, relevant customer service, at scale.

We’re always recommending you get your customers’ preferences in order to deliver tailored communications, so what’s the issue?

Have opt-out campaigns become overkill?

A year ago we asked our LinkedIn audience what they think of opt-out campaigns, and the results were almost 50:50. In theory, they’re great, but in practice they’re almost more bother than the campaigns they seek to shield you from would be. It’s important to only send an opt-out campaign if you’re planning to send more than one campaign for the day itself, or you’re only adding to the noise.

As brands work with different calendars, some opt-out campaigns can start weeks before the potentially upsetting date. If you know Mother’s Day is a sensitive time for you, you can choose to avoid your promotions inbox for the week preceding it. However, with the rise of opt-out campaigns, this is no longer enough, as inboxes can be a reminder of a sensitive occasion every day for weeks.

What’s the solution?

So, you want to deliver relevant campaigns and be emotionally sensitive to your audience, but it seems a lot of people are fed up of opt-out campaigns. What can you do? Let’s look at a few things you can do to be a part of the next phase of opt-out marketing.

Utilize your preference center

Utilize your preference center year-round. Include opt-out options for sensitive occasions in your general preference center. Often the occasion won’t feel as sensitive if you do them all in one go upon signup, and this also ensures you won’t need to send out any campaigns on the topic, as you already have the data.

These examples from Bloom & Wild and Hotel Chocolat are great examples of preference centers and should be the norm moving forward. This year I’ve received lots of opt out campaigns and the majority of those didn’t include a link to a preference center too. You’d hope these brands are at least storing your response permanently, but I’m sure I’ve opted out of the same brands year after year. This makes for duplicate work, and it’s unnecessary extra emotion for your customers too.

Don’t make it such a big deal

If you do want to send out opt-out campaigns, consider making it a feature of a BAU campaign, a block or banner, rather than the entire focus of the email. Emails solely focused on opting out, in a design similar to the actual emails would be, are more upsetting than they need to be.  

This email from Harvey Nichols is all about its Beauty Month takeover, towards the end of the campaign a subtle and discreet Mother’s day opt-out block is present. Of course, you want to ensure people who want to opt-out have the option, so there’s a balance between singing and shouting about it, and still giving people the option. 

Create sensitive campaigns

Recognizing that an occasion can be sensitive for your customers is important, and an opt-out campaign isn’t the end of that required sensitivity. When you’re creating campaigns for these occasions, consider the audience that this is hard for. Seeing inclusive and broad language such as mother figures, step mothers, grandmothers, and so on help to soften the sensitivities for some people.

Opting out of emails is just some of the marketing around the day people will see. You can’t opt-out of social media, tv adverts, in-store posters and so on. You also need to be aware that not everyone who finds the day hard will have opted-out. You can stand out by making your email campaign a safe space within a sensitive topic.

Find a way to put a positive spin on it for those who don’t or can’t celebrate. Include some inclusive, uplifting copy in your campaign such as ‘and for those of you who find this day hard, treat yourself, we’re celebrating you’. For those who have opted-out, create a separate content led campaign with no mention of the day at all – so that they don’t feel forgotten, and have a happy distraction on a day where they might be hurting. Empathetic marketing is on the up, and it’s nice to be nice.

This example from kitchenware brand Our Place handles Father’s Day in a fantastic way. The brand hasn’t shied away from the day, but instead handled it with sensitivity and a sense of realness. Featuring a personal story from someone with an absent father, it gives comfort and company to anyone also facing that and finding the day difficult. I also love the line of copy: “To everyone who fills a father’s shoes, we wish you a very happy and restorative Father’s Day” – it’s the perfect example of inclusive language and empathetic marketing.

Summary

Hallmark holidays are big sales opportunities, and they’re opportunities for your brand to demonstrate empathetic marketing too. These days can be incredibly hard for some people for all sorts of reasons. As a brand, the last thing you want your email campaign to do is ruin your customer’s day. Your customer’s experience is priority, and more than ever for these occasions there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

With a bit of forward planning, and a considerate preference center you can deliver sensitive campaigns (or not), without asking your customers each year. Delivering a positive experience and making your customers feel cared for has never been more important. Luckily we do have the tools to do just that. It’s time to be a little more sophisticated for this next stage of opt-out marketing.

Women in tech and marketing

Only 28% of the tech industry workforce are women, and just like most industries, this drops further when you look at women in leadership positions. Only 26.5% of executive, senior-level and management positions in S&P 500 companies are held by women. Take Amazon as an example within the tech sector; its female workforce is 44.8% of the company, however this almost halves when you look at women in senior management which is just 23.1%.

The percentage of female graduates with core STEM degrees is steadily growing, but the percentage remains low at just 26%. If the current pace of change remains consistent, the economic gender gap will take almost 133 years to close, according to the Women in Tech network.

In the marketing industry, it’s a slightly different story. Women make up almost half of the workforce, at 48%. Sounds pretty equal right? Unfortunately just like the tech industry, when you look at the number of women in senior-level positions within marketing, this percentage drops to just 37%.

Ultimately, the bigger players in the tech industry, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple in particular, are consciously working to end the gender gap within tech. From offering egg freezing to extending maternity leave, tech companies are trying to address the gap with benefits policies that will appeal to women. It’s certainly a start.

International Women’s Day at Dotdigital

International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate women, to advocate for women, and to raise awareness of the issues women face. At Dotdigital we are proud to have a number of causes we care about, and gender equality is certainly one of them. This week a committee from Dotvoice, our employee voice groups, have been running various events to celebrate the women who work for Dotdigital.

We’re also proud to announce our new corporate partnership with the UK charity The Girls’ Network. The Girls’ Network aims to inspire and empower girls from the least advantaged communities by connecting them to a mentor and a network of professional role models who are women. We know that women are incredibly underrepresented in the tech industry, so we’re excited to partner with such a fantastic charity to inspire the next generation of young women.

Standout brands embracing International Women’s Day

We talk about empathetic marketing a lot, it’s important for brands to have causes they care about so that their customers can feel connected on a deeper level. International Women’s Day is a great opportunity for brands to share their support for women and use their platform to empower and educate. Here are some of our favorite International Women’s Day campaigns from brands proudly walking the walk, as well as talking the talk.

fresh

Beauty brand fresh’s campaign celebrates and acknowledges the fabulous women who created the company. fresh also offered something of value to its female subscribers by offering free, professional headshots for women. This shows that the brand understands that the workplace is often tougher for women, and offering something to combat this, especially whilst not super relevant to the brand, is fantastic. It’s a great example of a brand sharing its story and values, and demonstrating those values in a way that serves its customers.

This Works

Skincare and wellness brand This Works sent out a campaign celebrating the women in the business, and kept its products front and center too. Highlighting women within your business is a great way to show your brand truly celebrates women every day, not just when it’s trending. Utilizing real people to highlight their favorite products adds depth to the product, which is something brands need to do to encourage sales in a crowded marketplace.

Splendid

Apparel brand Splendid have utilized email to launch a fantastic initiative. Encouraging subscribers to share their own successes, or those of friends makes for a really positive campaign. The brand states that women are less likely to speak about their achievements, and that needs to change. Picking out a particular issue women face is a nice take on International Women’s Day which can easily become an empty, generic message if you’re not careful. The brand encouraging women to celebrate themselves, and incentivizing it with a generous prize draw is a really nice show of brand values. It’s not a commercially led campaign, but you can guarantee anyone opening that email will, subconsciously or not, warm to the brand and likely opt for them more in the future.

Whistles

British fashion brand Whistles put its money where its mouth is with its International Women’s Day campaign. The brand let customers know that for every sale from its stores or online on March 8th, the brand will donate £1 to The Prince’s Trust’s #ChangeAGirlsLifeCampaign. This campaign is simple, it gets the message across and shows the brand cares. The brand is doing something to drive change where it’s needed, whilst also protecting that bottom line by encouraging sales at the same time.

Stance

Apparel brand Stance used their platform to highlight female voices in a male-dominated industry. The brand shared the stories of two female skateboarders, and two of its in-house designers. This is a great showing of advocating not just for Stance’s brand, but encouraging change in the wider industry too. We also like that there’s nothing but the message in this campaign, it’s not an option for every brand, but leaving out the sales tactics can really help amplify the integrity of your message when possible.

Conclusion

International Women’s Day is a chance to celebrate women, and a reminder that we should all be doing that every day. The marketing industry is powered by great female minds, so we’re looking forward to what this year’s campaigns have to offer. As for the tech industry, innovation is at it’s core, so let’s hope to see equality in a lot less than the predicted 133 years.

First of all let’s remind ourselves of the importance of data as a whole.

Why is data important?

Data as a concept can feel daunting, overwhelming, or you may feel right at home with a spreadsheet of information – well done to you if so. Ultimately, data is the truth. It’s information. Data allows you to know who you’re talking to, what they like, and what they respond to. Data tells you if your work is effective, or if you need to change some things.

For the super nosy, or ‘naturally inquisitive’ among us, data is actually the fun part. Ever got a thrill from looking at an email campaign’s click/heat map? Peeking into the mind of your customers to see what intrigued them is exciting. Or perhaps that’s just me.

Regardless, data is so important because humans are unpredictable. Everyone has different tastes, preferences, and behaviors. Data lets you see what’s happening, and adapt based on that to get real results. Convinced you yet? Let’s dig into what exactly constitutes zero-party and first-party data.

So, what actually is first-party data?

First-party data, also known as behavioral data, is information that a company directly collects via its own channels and sources. These channels include mobile apps, websites, social media, SMS, email, and more. An example of this is order history, browsing data, email click data, and so on. It’s information a brand collects naturally as a customer interacts with it, rather than explicitly asks for.

What can I use first-party data for?

First-party data is likely to be highly relevant to your brand due to the nature of collection. It’s data related to your product and web experience. Knowing that ‘Customer A’ has a tendency to browse a certain category, and purchase only when a discount code is offered, allows you to create a targeted campaign that will appeal to them and likely generate a conversion. Dotdigital’s eRFM technology helps you identify and segment your customers in this way and work to spot new opportunities.

First-party data is great as it lets you see what’s working and what’s not. This can be on a more detailed, individual level such as the example above, as well as general things like subject line learnings. For example, if 60% of your database respond better to subject lines with emojis in, using emojis is the better option moving forward. Of course you can also then create two segments and send each group their preferred subject line style.

First-party data should inform your decisions around general strategy, in particular it will inform segmentation and personalization to create highly relevant and effective campaigns.

What do I need to be aware of with first-party data?

We’ve established that data is great, it lets you know so much about your customer. But before you go off creating super relevant campaigns chock-full of personalization, remember your customers’ point of view. Utilizing this data to target people perfectly sounds great, but there is an art of subtlety needed too.

People are, understandably, wary of companies having lots of data on them. This is due to companies suffering data breaches or even selling their customers’ data on to third-parties (third-party data). You need to demonstrate to your customers that you value their data, and that you’re treating it carefully. This is a big part of responsible marketing, something which is no longer a trend, but a necessity if you want happy customers. Customers’ desire for tighter data practices is what drove Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, and Google’s promise to end cookies by the end of 2024.

You also don’t want to be seen as creepy. Ever had an advert appear for something that you were just talking about? It can be unnerving. The odds are you have actually searched the product at some point, or you fit a ‘highly likely to be interested’ profile based on something else you’ve bought previously. (Or that our tech really is listening to us, but that’s a conversation for a different day). As always, you need to be mindful of the customer’s experience. You want to make your customers feel valued and understood, not feel like they’re being cyber stalked.

Got it. So what is zero-party data?

Zero-party data is any data shared willingly by contacts, such as via a survey, a sign-up form, or an account profile. Collecting zero-party data eliminates the “creepy factor” customers can often experience with a brand.

Trust is key for collecting this data, as discussed consumers are increasingly protective of their data. Another principle of responsible marketing is to ensure you have a clear data policy that customers can access any time you’re asking them for information. It’s also a good idea not to ask for data you don’t actually need, it shows you’re respecting their data autonomy and aren’t reckless or frivolous with their information.

Although consumers are wary of handing out their data, they are willing to do so. For a customer, it must be an exchange; where they get a reward. Our customer loyalty report found that the top motivators across all age groups were to claim the signup discount/offer (35%), to hear about future promos (33%), and to become a part of the loyalty program (30%). Notably, 41% Of Gen Z (16–24) also chose curated content as a top motivator for signing up to a brand’s newsletter. If a customer shares their data with you, reward them by using it to make their experience even better. This means don’t ask a customer what they’re interested in, their preferred communication channels, their first name even, and then fail to use it. It’s only going to make you seem insincere, and possibly raise questions regarding what you are actually doing with that data.

What can I use zero-party data for?

Similar to first-party data, zero-party data should be used to better the customer experience. If someone tells you they prefer SMS, and don’t want to hear about Mother’s Day, respect that. It results in a happier customer who’s less likely to unsubscribe or flag you as spam, and it also stops you wasting time and money on campaigns you know they’re not going to be interested in.

Customer experience is a huge part of deciding repeat custom, especially in a market where consumer budgets are smaller, each transaction needs to deliver. That includes the whole customer lifestyle from initial sales email to post-purchase communications. Ensure you’re using the preferences and data available to you to deliver an experience that makes the customer feel valued and want to come back for more.

What do I need to be aware of with zero-party data?

Unlike first-party data, you don’t need to worry about seeming creepy as customers have consciously given you this information. One thing to consider though, is that not everyone knows what they want. A customer may say they’re not interested in a certain category, but their browsing and order history could say different. Which leads us to…

How zero-party and first-party data can work together

Zero- and first-party data should work together to paint a full picture of your customer. There are strengths and weaknesses to both, let’s look at an example.

‘Customer A’ makes their first ever order with your brand. It’s a jumper from your menswear section. First-party data is then telling you this is likely a male customer.

As part of their purchase, they sign up to your newsletter to get the 10% off code you’re promoting to new customers – value-exchange in action. The customer then gets a welcome email pointing them towards your preference center. It’s here that they provide some personal information and preferences (zero-party data), and you discover they are in fact female. Perhaps they are buying a gift for a male friend meaning this is a less frequent purchase, or she prefers the cut of a male garment and will be interested in more menswear – we won’t know that much detail yet.

Over time, first-party data such as browsing and purchase behavior will continue to build the customer profile, as will any future zero-party data from things like surveys that you choose to send.

The point is that customers can be complicated, and not everything is as linear as you might think. A combination of zero- and first-party creates a reliable and accurate picture of your customers. Taking information from both sides of the customer journey and combining it to create a strategy that works both in theory and in practice, enables you to create highly-relevant campaigns, resulting in better performing marketing.

We explore some email marketing top tips to keep up the holiday spirit all year round.

Utilize automation

Use automation programs to nurture your customers with the right message, at the right time. Automation programs allow you to create emails that are triggered based on set criteria, such as a new customer signing up, or an existing customer not opening an email in two months.

Once you’ve spent time setting up an automation program, it will run in the background. This allows you to communicate with people in a way that’s not possible if you had to do these sends manually. Automation is a great tool for charities, as budget constraints often mean not-for-profits have smaller than average marketing teams.

First of all, ensure your welcome programs are doing their job. Ensure you have a welcome program for people who sign up as well as one for anyone who’s donated or volunteered. Some people may sign up to get more information before they commit, so make sure you’re delivering the experience that will motivate them to support your cause.

Utilize dynamic content and personalization to make the message highly relevant. Tailor the message so that it talks directly to people who have recently donated, or to those who are yet to donate. A good welcome series will go a long way in immediately nurturing the relationship, and setting you off on the right foot.

You should also have a re-engagement program set up. There will always be those donors who donate once a year and then go quiet. A re-engagement program allows you to check in with them when they’ve stopped engaging, and lets you remind them of what’s important. This is also a great time to remind them the impact of their previous donation. Use friendly language and offer a clear CTA, giving them an easy way to reconnect with the cause.

Employ a cross-channel strategy

A great way to get support year round, is to have people think of you all year round. Utilize the many digital channels available to you to have an online presence – keeping your charity at the forefront of people’s minds throughout the year.

Social media is a great option for charities, as organic social doesn’t require a significant budget behind it. It offers you a platform to raise awareness and educate people. It’s also a great place to share updates, thereby demonstrating the positive impact any support will generate.

It’s a great platform to grow a community and raise brand awareness as people share and comment on your posts. Make sure you have a hashtag that people know to use when sharing their own social media content. This could be photos of a fundraising event for your charity for example, then you can gather all of this engagement in one place.

As well as social media engagement, this doubles as great user-generated content. You can then use this in your email marketing to show prospective supporters what you do and bring your charity to life.

Show the impact of their support

Donating to a charity isn’t like other transactions – you don’t get anything tangible from it. Likewise, as it’s not something you experience yourself, it’s not always clear if it’s money well spent. Make sure you’re showing supporters evidence that their support is benefitting people who need it. By showing people how their donation is helping, you’re giving them that feeling of satisfaction, which will likely encourage a repeat donation.

It’s important to show the real life outcome made possible by a donation, or for the supporter it can feel like your money’s gone into the abyss. This doesn’t need to be specific, but general case studies and good news updates from the work your charity does will be great for a supporter to see. Consider a monthly newsletter which shares the good news stories from the month to all supporters.

Communicate human to human

Most charitable giving is based on an emotional connection. It’s a very emotion-led thing to do, so match the emotional investment from the supporter by engaging in empathetic marketing. All supporters are people, so ensure you’re using human language and engaging as you would face-to-face.

A way you can use email to do this is to send a thank you message from your CEO, founder, or similar – whatever is most appropriate for your brand. Sending an email with a real person’s name in the friendly from address, and adding a photo and name to the campaign itself can make it feel much more personal. You can do this as and when someone makes a donation of time or money, and at big milestones such as Christmas, the end of the financial year, or on the charity’s anniversary.

Empathetic marketing is also about speaking to people how you would in normal conversation. Use your copy to convey your message in a clear, and natural way. For example, don’t be afraid to say ‘the people you supported in December still need you in June’.

Remember best practice

A great customer experience is what makes people favor your brand, and that’s true in the not-for-profit sector too. As we’ve already discussed, when you donate to a charity, you often don’t get a tangible thing yourself to make the donation feel worthwhile. Providing a great experience to your supporters is a great way to ensure they get something positive in exchange for their support.

I have certainly donated to charities in the past, only to be so bombarded with so many follow-up requests for more money that I ended up almost regretting the initial donation. Of course charities have a cause to fundraise for, but you don’t want to hound your supporters. There is definitely a balance to be found.

Ensure that when you do contact your supporters you are sending out quality communications that have a purpose. Use segmentation and personalization to make the message relevant and appealing to that particular customer, so it doesn’t feel like spam, and makes them feel valued.

Another great way to keep your email campaigns engaging, is to test them. Run A/B tests regularly to make sure your content is in-line with your customers’ preferences. The best way to figure out what your supporters want to hear from you, is to ask them. Offer a preference center that lets your supporters choose how often they want to hear from you, on what channels, and what style of content. This allows you to serve them highly relevant content, and keeps them happy and less likely to unsubscribe.

Summary

Keeping your supporters’ engaged throughout the year relies on staying front-of-mind, and providing a positive experience that encourages more support. Deliver an engaging customer experience through email marketing, and utilize other channels to keep the engagement going.

December will probably always remain a stronger month for charitable giving, due to cultural reasons and the fact it’s the end of the year. However, engaging campaigns across multiple channels, using clever language, and a great customer experience will lead to a more engaged audience all year-round.

So, what can we as marketers learn from Christmas adverts? And what can we apply to our year-round email marketing campaigns? Let’s take a look.

Know your brand position

A huge category of Christmas ads belongs to supermarkets. UK supermarkets are all battling to be the place of ‘the big shop’. Money is important, especially this year, and of course quality is too – particularly if you’re hosting in-laws that you’re trying to impress. So all UK supermarkets pull out all the stops.

I’m going to start with premium food retailer Waitrose. I like its ad as it matches the brand so well. Waitrose know its’ selling point isn’t value, convenience, or even sparkle, but quality produce. It feels different to the other supermarket campaigns, it’s straight-forward, and honest. It shows how Christmas season is year-round for farmers and other producers. Christmas takes time, effort, and integrity; that is the message.

In a year where many households are feeling the pinch, Waitrose does a clever job of subtly illustrating the value behind its products. The behind-the-scenes element, reminds the customer of all the steps before it hits shelves. The final frame reads: ‘It’s the care we put in that makes Christmas this special’. Hammering home that the brand cares about the product, and by extension, its customers.

Key takeaway

Know your brand’s USP. Is it value, a one-of-a-kind product, a superior quality service? Whatever it is, make sure this shines through in your campaigns.

Add some character

Staying with the food retailers, Asda, Aldi, Lidl, and M&S all utilized a character to star in their Christmas adverts this year. Brand characters have gained momentum in recent years. Asda and Aldi both tapped into already well-loved Christmas characters from blockbuster movies. With Asda using Buddy the Elf, and Aldi offering a fresh, carrot-led take on Home Alone.

“My brand doesn’t have a character, so how can I apply this to my emails?”

We’re glad you asked. A character doesn’t need to be an animation or a famous star, it can be anyone from your brand. Whether it’s your CEO, your denim designer, warehouse packer, heck, even your email designer, showing the humans behind a brand can really connect with customers. Showing some personality and some character really warms customers up to what can otherwise be a faceless entity.

Key takeaway

Utilize the natural characters in your brand and give them a spot in your campaigns. A great option is in a welcome program to build trust, and a Christmas message from your CEO or other important figure goes along way at building rapport, and loyalty.

Tap into trending topics

Tesco’s advert is a jolly parody of a party political broadcast. The UK has had (another) heavy year where political matters have dominated the headlines on an almost daily basis.

For brands, tapping into a trending topic is a great way to piggy-back on pre-existing momentum. Tesco have chosen something the whole country is aware of, and made it light-hearted.

The brand also heavily features its products throughout, highlighting the low-cost options, something that will appeal to many. This is also done by subtle reminders that using its Clubcard gets you cheaper prices. Loyalty is certainly something you need to be encouraging and rewarding at this time of year, especially to keep customers coming back in the new year.

The ad also shows relatable family groups, this is something that naturally warms customers to a brand – seeing someone like them enjoying the brand. In your email marketing, you can employ this tactic through the use of user-generated-content (UGC). UGC and email are the perfect pairing, it’s a great way to get free content, encourage engagement, and build trust with your customers.

Key takeaway

Gain instant momentum by tapping into trending topics and making them your own.

Showcase your brand values

Moving on from food retailers now, to department store John Lewis. The undisputed leader of great Christmas adverts. When I started drafting this blog I decided to watch the John Lewis offering first. They are usually the best after all. It was a big mistake, as it left me sobbing at my desk. John Lewis have once again created an advert that stays with you.

This year, John Lewis have chosen to make the 104,000 children in the care system in the UK the focus of its advert. The ad also recognizes that the Christmas experience is different for everybody. This is something John Lewis have done before, it’s fantastic to see a huge brand represent those people who don’t fit a traditional ‘happy family’ narrative. Without a single product in its ad, it’s all about emotion and values. Something John Lewis do well.

John Lewis has understood the current social climate, choosing to use its platform to share an important message, rather than pushing expensive items many can’t afford. It’s a strong demonstration of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – something that’s a big part of John Lewis’ overall identity and appeal.

The festive period is a time for giving, it is the season of goodwill after all. So it’s nice to see a crossover between those values, and the ever-present commercialization of the holidays. It shows that a balance can be found.

Of course, for some shoppers value has to come first. However, for those in a position to shop based on brand values and reputation, John Lewis makes a strong bid – and as always, creates conversation amongst everyone else.

Remember, there’s nothing worse than social-washing, stemming from the term green-washing, social washing is the act of intentionally looking like you care about a cause to look good, but not actually helping the cause in any way. As expected, John Lewis have also backed up their advert with a new program to support charities in the sector and to offer employment opportunities to young people who have experienced life in care.

Key takeaway

Recognize the mood of your customers and use it to inform your messaging. You don’t want to be sending out tone deaf sales messages that will turn customers off from your brand.

Tell a story 

It turns out that Disney are quite good storytellers, who knew? This year’s campaign tells the heart warming story of a growing family, told from the point of view of a young daughter. The ad shows how the girl feels that the unborn baby is taking her mum’s attention away from her. This is a story many viewers will resonate with on some level.

It’s a heartwarming tale, one that leaves you wanting more. It certainly made me want to go and lose myself in a wholesome animation. Storytelling is an excellent way of getting your message across, and making it memorable.

The campaign also gets brand values in there, the ad ends with a nod to Disney’s chosen charity. The final frame saying ‘Supporting Make A Wish’ – a well-known children’s charity that ties in very closely with the Disney audience.

Key takeaway

Tell a story; it’s much more memorable than other styles of writing. Remind customers of your brand’s purpose, or the journey your product has taken to get to them, or the journey it could take them on. Find your angle, and create something special.

Conclusion

Christmas adverts are a celebration of marketing. A time where brands go all-out to wow customers and create something worth talking about. With email marketing there are certainly some key tactics we can take away and apply to our campaigns to stand out in a busy inbox.

In my own experience, email marketing is fast-paced, and centered around results you can track. As it should be. But sometimes it’s important to take a moment, and look at the bigger, marketing picture. Otherwise we risk our campaigns going stale.

This holiday season try and carve out some time with your team to discuss how your brand can add an extra layer of emotion, sparkle, or brand story to your campaigns. Have some fun with it, and create something your customers will remember, and make your campaigns something to look forward to.

To get the most from email marketing, you need to be continually optimizing. Something as simple as having an emoji in your subject line, can add up to a huge improvement in your campaign’s success.

We’re sharing 10 strategies you can implement to optimize every stage of your email’s journey, in order to elevate your campaigns. Let’s get into it.

1. Maximize your subject line and pre-header

Let’s start at the beginning. Your subject line and pre-header are the first thing your audience will see, and will determine whether they open your campaign or not.

You need to write subject lines that get opened, so this copy needs to be enticing and intriguing enough to make customers click. Use your subject line and pre-header to let subscribers know what they can expect from your campaign. Including a CTA in your subject line, such as ‘join us’ or ‘shop now’ will help prompt the reader.

Ensure that the subject line is relevant to the content of your email. You also need to be concise, aim for around 30-50 characters for your subject line, and 50-100 characters for your pre-header.

Ultimately, with subject lines, there are no hard and fast rules. Test what works for your audience, whether that’s emojis, puns, discounts, asking a question, and so on. Standing out in a busy inbox is no easy feat, so get creative.

2. Test your friendly from name

Still on the ‘outside’ of your email, and determining if it’s worth opening or not, is your friendly from name. Whilst brand name alone can be enough to get opens, others may need more to grab attention.

You can switch up your friendly from name to include the team or topic. At Dotdigital, we often test this, trying friendly from names such as ‘events at Dotdigital’, or including a person which adds a human touch, for example ‘Jenna at Dotdigital’. This works great if you send out lots of different style emails and want to make it easily identifiable to your customers.

3. Optimize your send time

The time you send your email could make all the difference between a commuter looking for something to kill time, or a busy parent preparing dinner who’ll swipe your campaign away without a second thought.

This is something you can and should test, as it may be different for each of your contacts. Dotdigital makes it super easy for you to optimize your send times. Send time optimization uses AI technology to find the best time to send, based on your contacts’ historical click behavior. It then triggers individual sends at this time, to maximize engagement. Clever, right?

4. Utilize personalization

Once you’ve got the open, you need your campaign to grab the recipient’s attention. Personalization is where you use data fields to pull in relevant data belonging to the customer. This could simply be their first name to add authenticity and mimic real-life conversations. Another example is using the customers’ location in the campaign, such as calling out the nearest store to them. AI-powered product recommendations are also a great form of personalization; showing customers items they’re likely to buy, based on their previous purchasing behavior.

Personalization is a great way to make your customers feel valued and understood, especially in an inbox full of generic messaging. Plus, if it’s useful content like product recommendations or store information, it’s going to make their life easier too.

5. Provide dynamic content

Hand in hand with personalization is dynamic content. This a form of personalization in that it shows customers content that is relevant to them, and works by having rules set up within a campaign. You can create your campaign to show different variations of content corresponding to customers’ data fields. This could look something like: show content block A if data field: ‘recently bought’ is equal to: ‘sweaters’. Always ensure you have a default variation when creating dynamic content, and be sure to test a few out in the preview functionality.

Dynamic content allows you to set up one campaign, but have sections of it tailored to each recipient. Providing content that is super-relevant to the user will both increase your odds of a click-through to site, and create a better customer experience too – thereby generating loyalty.

6. Elevate your copy

Use compelling copy in your campaigns. The words in your emails are what brings the campaign to life.

Steer away from big chunks of text. Instead, keep things easy to read. Use of headers to break up your copy or signpost your content and make sure your language is simple and easy to understand. Make it skimmable for those short on time, do this with bullet points, bold certain words or phrases, capital letters to draw attention (sparingly), and using clear headers where appropriate.

You should also test your CTAs; look at in-text links vs buttons. Consider the copy within your CTA buttons too. The seemingly small difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘learn more’ can actually indicate a different stage of the journey and alienate some customers.

Optimization is all about drilling into the detail and considering seemingly simple things. Recognizing that they can have a big impact on the overall success of your campaign.

7. Encourage preferences and unsubscribes

Email is a great channel because you can tailor your content. And the best way to find out what your customers want? Ask them.

It’s that simple. Ensure you have a preference center, and signpost it to your customers. This lets you create a menu of content, and lets them tell you what piques their interest. Then you can use this information to plan your content, and send relevant, enjoyable content out to your subscribers.

Similarly, if a customer isn’t enjoying your content, let them go. Your brand won’t be for everyone, and it won’t be forever. People’s needs and wants change, and some degree of list churn is healthy. Good data hygiene means a better marketing list with engaged customers which leads to better engagement overall. So don’t hide that unsubscribe button, as you’re then risking reputation damage and being marked as spam.

8. Consider different devices

Your email will look different depending on the device it’s opened on. When creating and designing your campaigns you need to be aware of mobile, tablet, laptop, and desktop devices. Globally, 92% of internet users access the internet via mobile phone, 66.8% use a laptop or desktop, and 28.2% use a tablet. It’s important to know your audience and how they’re viewing your campaigns. With Dotdigital, you can easily find this information in your campaign analytics.

Ensure you have adaptable templates, so that your campaign looks great no matter the device. Dotdigital’s easy editor email builder does this for you automatically. You can also preview how your campaign will look on multiple devices, as well as being able to switch between portrait and landscape view.

9. Improve your automations

Another important area to optimize is your automations. When you’re a busy marketer, it’s easy to ‘set and forget’, but you need to check back in regularly. Dig deep into your program reporting, to see how many users entered the program, the path taken, campaigns sent, and a whole host of other metrics. You should also look at the individual campaigns within the program, just like you would any other send. See where users are clicking, unsubscribing, converting, and then optimize accordingly.

A great way to continually optimize is to run A/B tests on your automation programs. Once your campaign has run long enough to create statistically significant data, update the A/B test to the winning version and a new variable.

Not every test will have a clear winner, and oftentimes you’ll find the existing version continues to win. A/B testing is a learning curve, and every outcome is a learning experience. Continual improvement, no matter how small, will add up over time. Top tip: set a recurring calendar appointment with yourself to check in on automations as it’s so easy for them to slip down the to-do list.

10. Get reliable insights from reporting

The best way to optimize is to keep learning, and the best way to do that is to delve into your data. Use trackable links and utilize the reporting suites available to you to get the full picture on your activity. Look at campaign reporting regularly, and use this insight to inform future sends.

Reporting isn’t just looking at campaigns, but looking at customer insights too. Single customer view brings together all the data you hold on a contact into one easy-to-view place. From this, you can create lookalike segments which groups contacts based on shared characteristics and behaviors.

For more insights into your customers, utilize the persona movement report to see how customer groups have changed over a set date period, i.e. from engaged to unengaged. This is a great way of creating segments for hyper-relevant campaigns and programs.

Similarly, the opportunities dashboard allows you to see an overview of your customers and the stage they are at, based on their persona and engagement level. This insight allows you to take a step back and see from the data which opportunities to focus on.

Optimization takeaways

To get the most from your email marketing you need to test what works, and never stop optimizing. The digital marketing landscape changes, people change, the economy fluctuates, and trends come and go. For your campaigns to flourish, you need to continually check in and see what’s working, and what’s not.

Always stay one step ahead, and don’t get complacent. Test everything you can in order to find the perfect recipe for your customers. Remember that one brand’s winning formula will tank elsewhere, you really have to see what works for your brand and your customers.