Lets Take 2 Ideas and Make Email More Relevant

What are the issues facing email today?

A cluttered inbox? That's certainly one.

But perhaps of more importance is the fact that as soon as the email is opened it has become out of date, if it was relevant at all to start with.

So here are 2 ideas to keep relevancy high. One new, one not so new.

Firstly the latter

Relevancy can be easier to attain if we ensure that we are sending messages that consumers want. Apart from using behaviour and transaction information which are often pieces of data that we don't have straight away what else do we have?

Well, we can always allow the customer to tell us what they want.

The Preference Centre

Nothing new there ( I did tell you)

But what if we actually made the way that the consumer gave us this information much more engaging?

Here are a couple of examples

You might remember this effort from HMV I talked about recently

And here is an idea not in place , but shows how potentially a coffee brand might get to know about what type of coffee its customers like

How much coffee do you like? Pull the tab

Pull the cup and let us know what time you like your favourite coffee?

Both of these ideas can be used to learn more about coffee habits but could easily translated into ideas about how much content you want and when!

Another brand that gave me some 'preference' inspiration was Graze . This is how it works

But of course the real beauty of Graze is that you get to 'Rate or Slate' your box. After each box, you get sent an email that gives you the opportunity to fine tune your preferences

Simple but engaging, and a lesson for all marketers on how to ensure you give customers what they want

Secondly

How do you ensure that your email isn't out of date?

Well, one concept that is gaining some traction through companies like Movable Ink is the idea of 'live' emails

So here is a product that essentially allows to include in emails ideas such as countdowns ( eg days to a holiday or number of items left in a sale) , maps and offers based on location .

It even includes the option to identify the device ( mobile, tablet, desktop) the email is being read on to ensure customised content.

Check out the daily deal demo