Adestra Unveils New Report: Email and the Age of First-Person Marketing

Email marketing is nothing new, but as marketers' ability to harness big data improves, so does email's potential as a marketing channel. In a new report entitled "Email and the Age of First-Person Marketing," Adestra reveals how data-driven personalization is shaping email marketing and how brands can leverage it to earn customer loyalty.

     (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140331/678597-a )

According to Henry Hyder-Smith, CEO at Adestra, First-Person Marketing is a philosophy that aims to deliver a uniquely personal experience to customers - in other words, ensuring their experience with a brand is tailored to them as an individual.

"It's one-to-one marketing done at scale," Hyder-Smith said. "Advanced technology and data integrations allow marketers to create the kind of personalized, relevant messages for a mass audience that look as if the marketer composed a personal message to each customer in the database."

He continued: "By incorporating preferences, behavior, interests, lifecycle/journey touchpoints and other data points in each message, First-Person Marketing creates a one-to-one experience that tells recipients they are understood and valued as individuals, and not just more records in a database. And when customers feel valued, it has a measurable impact on your bottom line."

In a study by Infosys, 59 percent of shoppers who have experienced personalization believe it has a noticeable influence on purchasing. The majority (58 percent) were also in favor of product recommendations based on previous purchases.

"The reality is that today's consumers are smart, and they have lots of choices. They expect personalization from their favorite brands," Hyder-Smith said. "It's no longer a 'nice-to-have' - it's table stakes."

First-Person Marketing can be applied across several mediums, including social media marketing, or by displaying dynamic content on a website based on user history to generate personalized product recommendations.

However, email marketing remains a key channel to this approach because it delivers messaging in a direct - rather than a broadcast - format. Brands can easily identify the person they're talking to because they have that person's email addresses.

Email is ripe for personalization in other ways, too. For example, it's easier than ever to integrate other sources of data to get a better understanding of one's target audience. Luckily, marketers can now access a wealth of information about their customers. Customers' purchase history, for example, can now be drawn together alongside data on website behavior, interactions with emails and stated preferences. All this can then be collated and analyzed to help brands understand who their customers are, what they want, and how best to satisfy their needs.

One brand who has embraced the First-Person Marketing challenge is NakedWines.com, an online wine subscription service delivering customized wine selections from exclusive suppliers at wholesale prices. NakedWines.com recently approached Adestra to help sell wines more closely aligned with individual preferences and drive customer loyalty through increased engagement and satisfaction. Not easy given that wine selection is a highly personal and nuanced experience.

Adestra suggested adding personalized product recommendations to the company's emails and helped develop systems based on customer data that matched wines with a high degree of certainty, then set up automated campaigns to get the word out.

The result? A 40 percent email conversion rate and an increase of nearly 8 percent in gross profit per customer.

"As a system to deliver promotional messaging, email is evolving to a higher form," Hyder-Smith concluded. "It's an incredibly exciting time to be in this industry, and I can't wait to see what comes next."

To view the full report, as well as access to more expert analysis and insight from Adestra, please visit: https://www.clickz.com/reports/email-and-the-age-of-first-person-marketing/

About Adestra 

Established in 2004, Adestra is a trusted provider of one-to-one email and lifecycle marketing solutions for global and growing brands.

The company's industry-leading email platform provides a powerful infrastructure for contextual messaging, helping marketers communicate more effectively with their customers and subscribers. Its flexible structure and open integration architecture allows businesses to connect disparate technology platforms to create a seamless customer journey.

Along with a best-of-breed platform that drives customer engagement and boosts ROI, Adestra was founded on the principle that marketing success takes more than technology, which is why customer service is at the heart of its business. It is trusted by top companies including UBM, FranklinCovey, Incisive Media and The London Symphony. For more information, visit http://www.adestra.com.

SOURCE Adestra