How Singapore brands can refresh their email marketing strategy in the face of omnichannel

Every year there’s a new thinkpiece declaring the death of email, claiming people are moving on from this technology now that has reached middle age. Despite the naysayers, email lives on and remains a widely-used and extremely popular mode of communication – particularly for marketers in Singapore.

Some studies have put the ROI of email marketing at 112% and the average open rate at slightly over 20%, making it one of the most effective marketing channels. In Singapore, our research found email marketing to be a 2019 priority for 72% of companies in the region.

However, marketers should never rest on their laurels – even when a certain channel is a strong performer. There’s always more to be done to drive greater efficiency, especially in the age of omnichannel marketing.

Omnichannel: bringing greater data into the mix
Adoption of an omnichannel approach within digital marketing is growing fast and brands are investing in innovations around data analytics, automation and seamless integration between marketing channels. What this means specifically for email marketing is that it can now become more relevant and timely, as well as work in greater coordination with other marketing channels to create more tightly integrated marketing programmes and campaigns whole value to a brand is greater than the sum of its parts.

Take an online travel company as an example. Prior to omnichannel marketing, a company would segment and target its customers by demographic factors such as age, spending power and places last travelled. This meant that every member of a demographic group would receive the same marketing emails with information considered to be relevant to the majority of that group.

With today’s insights and advanced omnichannel tools, brands can customise their emails at an individual level, ensuring messages are even more relevant to each customer. Advanced technology such as data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) enables marketers to identify patterns and opportunities in customer behaviour and automate campaigns based on these insights.

With the data from omnichannel tools, the online travel agency from the previous example could now know that an individual customer regularly searches for and purchases a family vacation around the same time every year. The travel agency could review the customer’s past searches and purchase history to come up with a list of recommended places that would fit their preferences with an email offer, as well as with messages targeted to this individual customer via other channels, such as SMS, push notifications or social media ads to achieve omnichannel impact.

Of course, such a campaign can be done at scale, with much of the process automated to ensure marketing outreach remains cost-effective while becoming more targeted and relevant. Of course, the entire process would appear seamless to the consumers.

Constructing an integrated email strategy
All successful omnichannel strategies start with data, which means you first need to compile data from all relevant existing channels and silos. Having a common customer data pool makes it easier and more efficient for analytical tools to develop insights targeting and personalising messages and experiences. Brands can also consider adding in external factors. Continuing the travel agency example, this might include seasonal weather, travel conditions or airfare price fluctuations.

All this data is used to develop a 360-degree customer view, which can then be translated into a personalised, integrated and real-time marketing campaign. Automating and scaling this type of campaign requires an omnichannel rules engine. In general, this model works by identifying triggers and matching them with a corresponding marketing action. With this framework, marketing professionals can start building out their integrated email strategy by identifying a customer need, when this need arise, what the brand can do to meet this need and what is the most effective way of communicating this solution.

Take for example a banking customer needing a home loan. This need is likely to arise when a person gets married - and for a bank, the trigger could be when that customer creates a joint account with their partner. The action could then be a personalised email of possible bank loan options based on that customer transactional history, and other factors, such as info on the current housing market. The email could also be part of a larger marketing campaign, with a marketing push across other channels like social or through in-app notifications.

No matter how well a brand’s existing email marketing is working, there is more untapped potential to be tapped. By leveraging the latest tools and strategies, brands can not only develop greater insights into their customers, but deliver an integrated email campaign that is more timely, relevant and ultimately impactful to the customers.