Personalization and the human touch

Even in our technology-driven age, people appreciate a personal touch in interactions – that’s why personalization remains a vital marketing tool. Human-to-human (H2H) marketing strategies focus on creating individual experiences, like personalized videos or understanding prospects’ interests through social media. These tailored approaches attract quality leads and boost conversion rates.

Why not level up your workflow by blending personalization with marketing automation? Trust us, it’s a game changer, making your marketing feel even more genuine and engaging to your audience.

How to personalize with marketing automation

When done right, marketing automation adds a human touch by catering to each contact’s unique needs and preferences. It teams up with personalization effortlessly, helping you deliver tailor-made experiences at scale. Here are four ways to achieve that:

1. Segment your audience

When it comes to reaching your audience effectively, segmentation is key. Dotdigital offers powerful tools that allow you to create segments based on various criteria, such as age, location, and RFM score. This means you can tailor your marketing efforts to specific groups within your audience.

By utilizing automation programs, Dotdigital makes it easy for you to create segments and deliver targeted messages. This not only saves you time but also ensures that your audience receives personalized content that resonates with them.

2. Use dynamic content

Dynamic content is a game-changer when it comes to email marketing. It enables you to provide personalized and targeted content to your recipients in one email. Achieving this is possible by tapping into your customer analytics and creating engaging content, which can be delivered at scale using dynamic content blocks and smart program logic.

Imagine being able to display images of local stores to recipients based on their location, making them feel like you’re right there with them. Or recommending products based on their recently viewed or purchased items, giving them that extra nudge toward making a purchase.

With dynamic content, you can create highly relevant and engaging emails that cater to each recipient’s unique preferences and behaviors. It’s like having a personal assistant who knows exactly what your customers want, delivering the right message at the right time.

3. Customer-driven journeys

Gone are the days of a one-size-fits-all approach to automation programs. In today’s customer-centric world, it’s all about giving your contacts control over their journey. Instead of bombarding your customers with generic content, why not offer multiple paths based on their actions and preferences?

But it doesn’t stop there. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches like remails to find what truly resonates with your audience. Keep testing and refining your strategies until you discover what works best for each segment of your contacts.

4. Leverage behavior data

Tapping into behavioral data is the key to understanding your audience by tracking their actions and responding in a way that resonates with them. With Dotdigital, crafting automation programs that respond to your contacts’ behavior as it happens becomes a piece of cake, paving the way for timely and relevant communication.

Imagine noticing a shopper leaving items in their cart, and effortlessly sending them a gentle trigger to encourage the completion of their purchase. Or, picture welcoming a new subscriber to your newsletter by guiding them through your brand’s journey, all the while showcasing meaningful offers, using marketing automation.

By harnessing the potential of behavioral data, you’ll never miss an opportunity to connect with your audience when it matters most, leading to stronger relationships and increased satisfaction.

Combine marketing automation and personalization for maximized results

Both personalization and marketing automation have their merits, but combining the two can help you unlock your full marketing potential. With tools like Dotdigital, you can provide personalized experiences at scale, catering to each contact’s unique interests and preferences, without sacrificing the efficiency and reach of automation.

But, what is complex commerce?

Businesses that experience complex commerce usually cater to multiple markets, a variety of customer demographics, and several product lines simultaneously. As you grow and expand, so do your commerce needs, often leading to an intricately connected web of requirements and workflows.

Businesses often evolve into these scenarios when their customers’ demands and expectations diversify, or when moving into new markets requires products that cater to multiple demographics and markets around the world. However, while complexities might be challenging at times, it’s a natural indicator of growth and innovation. Just as the best songs have layers of harmonies and gourmet meals require numerous ingredients and steps, complex commerce signifies a drive to stand out so you can cater to an array of customers worldwide.

Rather than viewing complex commerce as an obstacle to marketing, it’s essential to understand that the limitations are likely due to your provider falling short in supporting your growth.

Going global without limits

Most marketing automation platforms aren’t equipped to handle complex commerce. They may lack global reach or aren’t able to support multi-store arrangements, restricting growth for businesses with multiple brands across the world. This can cause issues in a marketer’s day-to-day life which can turn drive and passion into frustration and aggravation.

Inadequate platforms can lead to the inability to manage multiple stores cohesively, creating disjointed data, poor decision-making, and time-consuming reporting procedures. These issues are frustrating and can ultimately hinder long-term growth.

To successfully scale and navigate the world of complex commerce, businesses would benefit from a customer experience and data platform (CXDP) that offers support in these five key areas. 

1. Go big, go global: multi-store and multi-brand support

Seamless engagement with customers shouldn’t have to be a challenge just because you have different brands or accounts. Your ideal marketing automation platform would be able to support this with several essential features with lots of different options that aren’t going to restrict you. 

Let’s say you have multiple regional stores on your commerce platform of choice (e.g. Shopify), and within that, you have multiple brands to manage. Unlike other marketing automation platforms, Dotdigital supports multi-store and multi-brand options with a number of our ecommerce partners. We also offer parent and child account structures which make marketing a breeze when you need to have different subscribe lists for different brands, for example. With Dotdigital, you can mix and match these features however you like so that you can be sure that your platform is a perfect fit.

Parent and child account structures will simplify management for multi-brand businesses. For those with multiple stores globally, catering to international customers is made easier with multi-currency and auto conversion features, as well as the ability to communicate using multiple languages. At Dotdigital, we help you create seamless journeys for your audience in 20+ languages, and easy reporting that supports 35+ currencies. 

There’s no doubt that siloed data across different accounts will be making your life incredibly difficult, and you’re not alone: 98% of businesses state data silos as being a problem. If you’re currently managing all your customer bases in different places, and reconciling data from multiple sources because your provider doesn’t accommodate your needs, it could be time to look for one that does.

2. Cohesive commerce: integrations, commerce modules, and APIs

If your ecommerce brand is built on a headless platform such as Shopify Hydrogen, Shopware, or Commercetools, then your customer experience platform will need to support this setup. If it doesn’t fully support it, you’ll struggle with creating a truly unique customer experience through custom programming. At Dotdigital, we support headless commerce integrations so that complex commerce businesses can customize shopper experiences with full flexibility. 

B2B expectations are rapidly evolving so we support those businesses too, integrating with tech partners like Adobe Commerce and your chosen CRM. Our Adobe Commerce modules mean that you can sync customer, order, product, and quote data to truly leverage prospect and catalog data. Whether you’re B2C or B2B, you can rest assured that we integrate with your tech stack so you’re getting the right data to scale your business.

Your platform should also boast a wide range of API capabilities so that your full tech stack feels right at home with your provider. Dotdigital API lets you do exactly that. Built with developers in mind, our open API and an extensive list of webhooks let you connect your data seamlessly so you can deliver real-time messages.

3. Powerful reporting at your fingertips

Reporting needs to be easy and accessible. No matter how fancy your reporting dashboards look with your marketing automation provider, it’ll be meaningless if your data can’t be reconciled in one place. Without the multi-store and brand capabilities mentioned above, you’ll probably just end up with a headache when tasked with cross-account reporting. With Dotdigital, your reporting will look and act the part. Our cross-account analytics works across multiple stores and our retail and commerce dashboards can be filtered by single or connected stores.

4. Support for your business anytime, anywhere

We all strive for perfection, and the easiest way to achieve that is with the help and support of real-life teams of experts. That’s especially the case if you have complex needs. A helping hand could be the difference between a faulty campaign and a record-breaking month of sales. Most marketing providers only operate 9-5 in their local time zones – and even then it can be impossible to reach a human being. If you’re a commerce business looking to scale, you’ll need to be up and running 24/7. We believe your provider’s support team should do the same. That’s why you can reach Dotdigital’s award-winning support teams anytime, anywhere.

We also have deliverability experts with over 100 years of collective experience, and specialized teams to help you onboard, train, and optimize creative campaigns. They’re even in your region, so it doesn’t matter where you are in the world.

5. The boundless tech that helps you scale

To confidently step into a bright future as a complex commerce business, your chosen platform should have tech that adapts to your needs for continued growth, which you can’t guarantee without a platform that has scalable architecture in place. At Dotdigital, we foster excellent relationships with our technology partners who have built dynamic app blocks in our platform to ensure the smoothest possible experience with your tech stack. What’s more, we’re always working with our partners to make sure we’re evolving at the pace that our customers need us to. Along with robust APIs and custom program extensions, there really are no limits to what you can do to delight your customers as you continue to grow. 

For complex commerce, the solution is simple with a CXDP

To truly prosper in complex commerce, you need to embrace it. That means choosing a robust CXDP like Dotdigital, to support your growth no matter what challenges are thrown your way. Get started with a provider that understands complex commerce to see how you could scale and reach new heights anywhere in the world.

Utilizing back in stock notifications

In the fast-paced world of ecommerce, staying ahead of customer needs and expectations can make all the difference in boosting sales and customer satisfaction. Let’s explore some examples of back in stock notifications that demonstrate their value to your ecommerce store:

1. Seasonal products: Seasonal products often face high demand and nothing disappoints a customer more than finding their favorite holiday items out of stock. Back in stock notifications allow a customer to act quickly when the item is available again, making sure it arrives just in time for any special occasion.
2. Limited editions: Offering limited edition products is an excellent way to showcase your brand’s creativity and create a sense of urgency in the market. By having back in stock notifications in place, customers are less likely to miss out and limited runs can maximize their exposure.
3. Pre-orders and product restocks: Anticipation for new launches and restocks can lead to a high volume of inquiries. Back in stock notifications will keep your customers informed about restocks and save time replying to inquiries.
4. Analyzing product demand: Back in stock notifications also provide valuable insights into the demand for specific items, allowing you to optimize your inventory management strategy.
5. Promoting slow fashion and sustainability: By analyzing product demand data from back in stock notifications, you can adopt a more sustainable approach to product development. By understanding which items are most sought after, you can create products that stand the test of time and reduce waste and overproduction. Ultimately this will contribute to your brand’s long-term profitability and positive impact on the environment. 

Why Back in stock notifications are important

Back in stock notifications are not merely a convenience for your customers; they play a crucial role in fostering a positive shopping experience. Here are some reasons why implementing these notifications in your ecommerce store is vital for your business success:

Minimize customer frustration

An out-of-stock item can be frustrating for your customers. By providing a proactive, automated way for them to receive notifications when the product is available, you help manage their expectations and avoid disappointment.

Create excitement with your customers

Studies show the brain releases more dopamine in anticipation of a reward than when receiving a reward. This means that subscribing to a notification and waiting for the product to be restocked is arguably more exciting than going and buying that same product from your competitor.

Retain customer interest

Customers won’t always remember to check your site for the return of an out-of-stock item. Back in stock notifications help you retain customer interest and capitalize on buyer intent. A well-timed alert will create urgency and increase your chances of an immediate purchase.

Decrease churn and increase loyalty

By using back in Stock notifications, you can demonstrate to your customers that you value their satisfaction. With this feature, customers can quickly return to the purchase funnel and avoid missing out on their desired products when they become available again. This fosters customer loyalty and shows them that you are committed to providing exceptional service throughout their entire journey. Ultimately, this can increase their customer lifetime value.

High-quality experiences like these not only keep customers coming back to purchase from your store but also contribute to a higher average spending and long-term engagement, ultimately resulting in a more profitable relationship with your customers.

Get started with Back in stock today

Implementing back in stock notifications in your ecommerce store will have numerous benefits, including minimizing customer churn, improving inventory analysis, and enhancing overall customer experience. 

Dotdigital offers back in stock notifications for BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and Shopify, with more integrations arriving later soon. Don’t hesitate and start taking advantage of this valuable feature today. Get in touch with our team to kickstart your journey and give your customers a shopping experience they’ll love!

What are marketing automation programs?

Marketing automation programs are pre-set email marketing campaigns designed to streamline marketing efforts and personalize customer experiences by delivering relevant content based on specific triggers or customer behaviors. Automation programs save time and resources by sending personalized emails, segmenting contact lists, and nurturing leads.

Benefits of marketing automation programs

An automated marketing program offers the following benefits: 

Improved ROI

Automation programs carefully fine-tune crucial elements such as the frequency of your email sends, the relevance of your content, and the effectiveness of your lead nurturing process. By automating these aspects, you can significantly improve the overall performance and return on investment (ROI) of your email marketing strategy.

Enhanced customer experience

These campaigns deliver personalized, timely, and valuable content to your audience, creating a positive and engaging customer experience that cultivates long-term customer loyalty.

Scalability

Those days of individually crafting and sending emails to each subscriber are gone. Automation streamlines the process by automating repetitive tasks, freeing up time and resources. Your automation program does the heavy lifting for you as you can set up workflows, triggers, and segments based on your subscribers’ demographics, behaviors, or engagement levels. 

Programs based on engagement or ecommerce are two of the most common types to implement into the subscriber journey. Let’s look at both.

Engagement-based programs

In engagement-based programs, customers are actively engaged in a personalized and interactive way. These programs aim to build meaningful and long-lasting relationships with your target audience. 

Welcome

Welcome programs offer brands the chance to engage with their subscribers from the first interaction at the start of a customer journey. A compelling and well-crafted welcome program plays a pivotal role in setting the tone for your new subscribers and paves the way for strong, ongoing relationships. 

As part of your welcome program, it’s recommended to send engaging and personalized welcome emails. These emails should offer a warm welcome, introduce your brand story, and gather customer data and interests through preference centers. Welcome programs are a great opportunity to showcase your brand and establish a connection with your subscribers at the first point of contact, which will build long-lasting trust and loyalty.

Nurture or brand loyalty

To maintain good relationships with your customers, consider creating a nurture program. In your program, use your clients’ preferred channels, and offer personalized and relevant content. The more engaged you are with your customers, the higher the chances of generating sales. Implement a lead scoring model to gauge customer engagement and offer rewards such as exclusive content, vouchers, and promotional offers. This will strengthen your relationship and make your customers feel valued.

Event reminders

If you have an upcoming event, it’s recommended to set up an automated event reminder program. You should promote your event at each stage, before, during, and after the event. This will ensure your attendees are well-informed of the important details and your event schedule. An effective reminder program will build anticipation, drive registrations, and create a positive experience for all attendees. 

Customer service

A customer service program is an important program to implement into your marketing strategy. Customer experience (CX) is important to any brand. When customers have a positive experience, they are more likely to recommend your company to their friends and family. Every interaction with the customer impacts their perception of your brand, so each touchpoint must be considered. 

Adding live chat to your channels is an effective approach to improving your customer’s experience. While it might seem like a small addition, live chat can increase conversion rates by up to 20%. It will also prompt your customers to use it when they need it and reduce any barriers to making a purchase.

Ecommerce based programs

When using ecommerce automation programs, you can enhance customer experiences, build loyalty, and streamline your marketing campaigns.  With these programs, you can deliver targeted and personalized communication that drives customer engagement and revenue growth. 

Abandoned cart or browse

If a customer adds items to their online cart but doesn’t complete the checkout process, you can use an abandoned cart program to reach out to them. Additionally, you can also use an eRFM modeling tool to determine how engaged the customer is and target them. This can include offering a discount code or other incentives to re-engage them.

Sometimes customers may abandon their cart because the product is not quite perfect; we’ve all been there. With AI-powered product recommendations, you can provide relevant alternative options during abandoned cart campaigns.

It’s important not to think of abandoned cart programs as only applicable to B2C or ecommerce brands. Abandoned browse emails can be used in a very similar way. For a B2B brand or service, consider what your high intent-actions are. Whether it’s filling in a form or viewing a pricing page, you can create abandoned browse emails to capture any customers who drop off without completing an action.

Post-purchase

Today’s customers demand a seamless shopping experience from start to finish, including online browsing, purchasing, delivery, and after-sales support. It’s important to create a consistent brand experience across all channels and leverage customer data to connect with shoppers wherever they choose to engage.

One way to keep your customers engaged is to analyze their browsing behavior and identify products they are interested in. After that, you can send an email, SMS message, or push notification saying: “We’ve noticed you liked or viewed this.” Or why not send instructions on how to care for the product they’ve bought or how to use it? These simple interactions show that you’re available to the customer even after they’ve converted. 

Loyalty or birthday reward

If you have engaged champions, why not give them exclusive benefits or create a customer loyalty program? You can engage these customers by sending them personalized loyalty emails or SMS messages with relevant content, or updates on their reward points, achievements, and special offers.

This strengthens your brand and keeps your business at the forefront of their minds, increasing the likelihood of repeat purchases. Additionally, collecting subscribers’ birth dates and sending personalized birthday messages is an excellent way to show your customers that you value and appreciate them.

Win back

A win-back program aims to bring back customers who have stopped engaging with your business by offering them an incentive to take a specific action, like making a new purchase. Although it’s not necessary to start with an offer, it’s a good option, especially when customers are close to becoming inactive. Reach out and retarget past customers who have become inactive and encourage them to return and make a new purchase while fostering long-term loyalty.

Summary

These automation programs will transform your email marketing strategy. By leveraging the power of automation and personalized communication, you can stand out in the inbox, cultivate long-term customer loyalty, and achieve exceptional results in your email marketing campaigns.

What is customer intent?

Customer intent is often confused with buyer’s intent – i.e. the thoughts or actions directing customers to make a purchase. In basic terms, that would be the moment a shopper enters a brick-and-mortar store and heads to the jeans aisle. Their intent to buy is clear.

However, in the wide world of marketing, buyer intent doesn’t take into account the wide range of online actions customers can take before converting.

Some actions can be simple, such as an immediate click-through from your homepage to a product page. But with the extensive range of channels customers can interact with you on, there are many actions that, when added together, can express their intent.

Why is customer intent important?

Today’s customers demand fast, friction-free experiences. They want brands to understand what they’re after and help them achieve their goals in real-time.

At the same time, marketers are asked to do more with less; to make marketing budgets go further.

Identifying moments of customer intent is essential to meeting both goals. For marketers, data insights that highlight micro-moments of customer intent provide you with more opportunities to convert customers and drive revenue.

For customers, brands that use customer intent can deliver personalized messages at the right time, making them feel valued and driving them into action.

Why is customer intent more powerful than demographics?

Marketers who exclusively rely on demographic information to target customers risk missing more than 70% of potential mobile shoppers.

Demographic information and marketing preferences are great tools to help marketers build a customer profile and understand what they want from you. Unfortunately, they offer little insight into what they’re looking for in the moment.

When customers are looking for something; a product, a solution, or a service, they go to the web. More often than not, they turn to their smartphones. These intent-filled micro-moments are what brands need to target to connect with people.

How do you identify customer intent?

Marketing is no longer as simple as ushering customers down the funnel. The customer journey isn’t linear but cyclical and chaotic. We expect shoppers to visit our sites repeatedly and communicate with us on multiple channels before they’re ready to make a decision.

So now we know that we’re looking for intent-filled interactions to signify customer intent, how do we determine what these moments are?

Collect actionable data

Demographic and preference data is essential for creating personalized and engaging marketing messages. However, you need to collect more than just customer data. Actions such as category page views, product page views, registrations, on-site searches, and landing page clicks should all be measured.

These can help you identify patterns in customer behavior before they convert, such as how many times they visit a page before the point of conversion. You will then be able to target specific high-intent actions to drive customers towards completing your goal.

Spot the key customer starting points

Your homepage might be the page most frequently landed on, but it doesn’t reveal real customer intent. Instead, you need to decide where the customer journey begins. Site searches are always good indicators of customer intent. Shoppers are looking for something specific so you should act on this and make the journey to conversion as simple as possible.

Similarly, specific category pages or feature pages can clearly indicate what customers are looking for. If a customer knows what they’re after, then this is a vital place for you to track and target.

Create pre-intent content

Understanding customer intent goes hand-in-hand with understanding the pain points that have driven them to your website in the first place. By strategizing your content marketing to focus on these specific pain points, utilizing blogs and learning resource pages, you can capture customer intent before they realize yours is the solution they need.

For example, if your brand offers a kitchen fitting service you can create content targeting first-time homeowners with a checklist of things they need to consider when renovating a kitchen. This will help you pre-emptively capture customers interested in finding out more about your service. You can then guide them through your customer journey and lead them to the point of conversion.

How to use customer intent in your marketing automation?

Targeting intent-filled micro-moments increases revenue. There are several scenarios where customer intent can trigger timely, relevant, and personalized marketing messages.

Abandoned browse and cart abandonment emails

Active carts or high-intent page visits demonstrate clear intent. To turn this intent into conversions you need to build abandoned cart or abandoned browse programs. Our Global benchmark report shows that acting quickly can make a big difference – 45% of abandoned carts are recovered within 2 hours. So, it’s important to re-engage your customers quickly and guide them back to your site to boost the likelihood of securing a sale.

Repeat page hits

As part of your work identifying customer intent, you should have a clear idea about which pages on your website are essential to your customers’ journey. Using this intelligence, you can create automation programs that are triggered when a browser views the same page three times.

For example, if you’re a furniture company and have noticed customers frequently visiting your payment plans page, you can use this insight to trigger a campaign. When a shopper views the page numerous times, a friendly ‘ask us anything’ email might be just the push they need to convert.

Customer engagement

Customer modeling tools such as eRFM and lead scoring help you measure subscriber engagement. You can identify which customers are actively interacting with your brand and which have lapsed.

Customer modeling triggers campaigns when customers move between audience groups. So, when a customer stops engaging with your marketing and falls into a needs-nurturing or lapsed group, you can automatically enroll them into a win-back automation campaign.

Similarly, when an unengaged subscriber starts re-engaging, you can leverage the data you already have on them to deliver a personalized campaign that enhances their customer experience. Product recommendation blocks and dynamic content are just a couple of ways to drive newly engaged customers to convert.

Summary

Customer intent is the secret weapon for creating effective, relevant, and persuasive marketing campaigns. By examining your audience’s behavior, segmenting them based on their intent, and delivering tailored content that speaks to their individual needs, you’ll unlock unprecedented levels of customer engagement, conversion, and growth. So, tap into customer intent today, and take your marketing strategy to the next level.

What is a customer journey?

The customer journey is traditionally a step-by-step process that encompasses the experiences and interactions a person has with your brand across all touchpoints. If you need a refresher, here are the steps: 

1. Reach 
2. Acquisition
3. Conversion 
4. Retention 
5. Loyalty 

So where does your customer viewing your site fall on this list? When a customer lands on your website, they are considered in the “reach” category. They will be able to subscribe to your email marketing, which helps build a relationship with your brand.

What is a form

A form is an interactive element on a webpage specifically designed to collect information from your visitors. They can be used for various purposes in the subscriber journey, such as gathering contact details, capturing leads, conducting surveys, or simplifying customer service processes.

When creating a form in Dotdigital, typical data fields include name, email address, and phone number. However, as a brand, you can personalize your forms to collect additional, unique data fields such as asking additional unique questions, such as birthdays or favorite colors. Always think ahead when building your forms and consider what information you might need for future campaigns.

The benefits of forms

As forms are versatile and flexible, they enhance the subscriber journey. With forms, you can:

Capture valuable leads

Forms collect contact information. This enables you to nurture potential subscribers and build email lists for targeted marketing campaigns.

Enhance the user experience

Well-designed forms provide a straightforward way for visitors to engage with your website and access the information or services they need.

Boost conversions

Forms are essential for ecommerce websites, guiding your subscribers through the purchase process.

Encourage engagement

By offering valuable resources through lead capture forms, you can foster a stronger connection with your audience and encourage them to interact further.

Streamline communication

Forms centralize inquiries from visitors, making it easy to manage and respond promptly.

Simplify event registration

Registration forms guide users through signing up for events, courses, or membership programs, streamlining the process.

Pop-over and embedded forms are two key types of forms you can use to capture information and create a dynamic experience for your subscriber journey.

The pop-overs form

Pop-over forms are dynamic features that appear on your website at a specific time. It can be used during the subscriber journey to obtain consent, collect email addresses, or highlight specific information on your website.

You can use pop-overs to greet new visitors to your website and kickstart their subscriber journey. Use offers or highlight your brand’s USP to encourage viewers to subscribe to emails by filling in their details, such as first name, last name, email address, or SMS number.

It’s key to inform potential subscribers about the content and benefits they’ll receive when signing up for your emails. For instance, educational or non-profit organizations may emphasize the value of access to informational resources and event invitations. 

For retail or ecommerce businesses, your pop-over form can offer early access to upcoming products or discounts on their initial purchase. Alternatively, you could offer a special discount or complimentary gift on your subscribers’ birthday if you collect their birthday information. 

Examples of pop-over forms

Be careful not to disrupt the user’s experience. Avoid creating a spammy impression or displaying the pop-over just as they are about to buy. There are various strategies to implement forms effectively, depending on the desired outcome of your subscriber’s interactions:

Show after: Or a timed form

The user will enter your site, and after a time of your choosing (i.e., thirty seconds or one minute), the pop-over form typically appears in the middle of the page. This is one of the most popular pop-overs. 

Exit offers

This form may be triggered when a subscriber leaves your site. Essentially, it’s a last-shot attempt at converting a visitor before they leave the website. 

Banners

Although less dynamic in design, this form sits at the top of the site like an umbrella. This can be used to show off discounts or make timely announcements. 

The embed form

In some cases, a pop-over form might not be the right fit for your brand. An alternative to growing your audience is an embedded form. This type of form can be used as a standalone landing page or integrated into an existing landing page on your website to gather information from your visitors.

If a pop-over appears, then naturally, the embed form is embedded into the web page. To add the form to your site, you need to create code and paste it into your HTML.

Unlike pop-overs, embedded forms are more suitable for event registrations, and customer service requests, and a less intrusive option to subscriber acquisition. While pop-overs are typically used as your main source for subscriber acquisition, setting subscription expectations, and calling action to discounts and promotions.

When to use embedded forms

Imagine this: You’ve written an engaging blog article that connects with your target audience. This is an excellent opportunity to integrate an embedded form to that page of your site to collect contact details and grow your subscriber list. By encouraging email and SMS sign-ups using embedded forms on popular landing pages of your website, you will grow your audience, fuel conversions, and nurture valuable leads.

So, when should you use embedded forms? Here are some ideal moments to utilize their power:

Lead generation

Whether it’s event registrations, contact forms on landing pages, or service requests, embedding forms within your content can be a highly effective way to generate leads and gather valuable customer data.

Research

Embedded forms provide an excellent opportunity to gather subscriber feedback. By inviting your audience to share their thoughts and insights, you gain valuable insight into their subscriber journey. This allows you to improve your strategies.

Section logic

In cases where your form involves technical aspects or conditional content, embedding forms utilizing section logic allows you to hide or display specific sections based on the options chosen by the user. This logic-driven approach ensures a seamless and personalized user experience.

Customer service

Whether it’s a contact form on your website’s landing page or a post-purchase feedback form, embedded forms enable streamlined communication with your subscribers. It encourages them to reach out, share their experiences, and assists you in providing timely and effective customer support.

Send confirmation emails

It’s important to send a confirmation email to your subscribers after they submit a form. This triggered email lets them know that their submission has been received and provides reassurance.

If you are using a pop-over, your initial welcome program campaign should be set in the form of your first message. For event registrations using an embedded form, consider sending a confirmation email that includes the exact details of the information they provided when filling out the form.

Summary

Use Dotdigital’s EasyEditor to effortlessly add forms and pages to your website and create an engaging experience for your audience. Follow these best practices to improve your subscriber journey, increase engagement, boost conversions, and build lasting connections with your subscribers.

We can no longer concentrate on experiences in silo. Email marketing is consistent in every customer journey. It’s there throughout every key touchpoint but it’s not good enough to focus on improving the email experience alone.

Modern customers are more impatient than ever. They want things now and they want it across every channel. For brands to meet and exceed these expectations, we need to dive deeper into the customer experience. What do customers want, what are their motivations, what potential pain points might get in the way, and how can you anticipate these to drive customer retention and loyalty?

What is the customer journey?

The customer journey tells the story of your customer’s experiences and interactions with your brand across all touchpoints. Traditionally customer journeys can be considered to have five key stages:

1. Reach: this is your chance to reach new customers while their deliberating, researching, and comparing products and propositions.
2. Acquisition: when customers land on your website or subscribe to your email marketing they’ve officially been acquired. This stage should be about building trust.
3. Conversion: after you’ve educated your new audience and customers are ready to convert you should be providing value and building a strong relationship.
4. Retention: to retain your newly converted customers you need to be showing customers that you care about how they feel and the benefits that come with their loyalty.
5. Loyalty: brand loyalty is of the utmost importance; loyal customers turn into brand advocates and that’s the name of the game.

Mapping the customer journey

Whether you’re an ecommerce, B2B, or non-profit business, how your customers interact with your brand will be unique. You need to consider all experiences customers have when interacting with you.

Mapping your customer journey can be particularly helpful to identify motivators and potential obstacles across customer touchpoints. While customer journey maps are often depicted as timelines, modern customer relationships are lifecycles.

The cyclical nature of lifecycles means there’s no end to the journey. Driving customer loyalty is the ultimate goal. Brands have to continually deliver relevant, timely, and personalized messages to retain customers. If you don’t, you’ll not remain at the top of customers’ minds and brand awareness will quickly fade.

Visualizing the customer journey will help you pinpoint key channels for each stage. When you know which channels to target, conversion and retention will be easier to optimize.

Why are customer journeys important?

Understanding your customer journey makes it easier to determine what customers expect from their experiences with your brand.

In marketing, emailing especially, expectations keep changing. From personalization to privacy, we’re in the middle of an irreversible revolution. Customers want personalized experiences, one-to-one conversations, relevant messages, and timely notifications. At the same time, they’re increasingly wary of brands, reluctant to hand over their personal information unless they get something in return.

The needs, wants, and motivations of your personas will vary according to the channel they prefer at each touchpoint. Customer journeys are also important for you to develop a customer-centric approach to your marketing. By understanding your customer’s journeys, you can tailor the experience to their needs.

The more you offer personalized, relevant marketing across your marketing channels, the happier your customer will be. And a happy customer is a loyal customer. Ultimately, you’ll find retaining customers and turning them into brand advocates far easier.

How to improve the customer journey

Maintaining good marketing results requires continuous optimization. As customer expectations adapt, so must your strategy. You should be regularly reviewing your customer journey to ensure you’re providing customers with the most seamless experience possible.

Stage 1: reach

To effectively target your audience, it’s important to collect customer data such as zero-party data. This is information customers willingly and intentionally share with you. It’ll help you build personas for your audience that can be used to create targeted ads on Google and social media.

Ensuring you’re reaching the right people will provide you with a much stronger list of engaged contacts. But, remember, you should only be collecting necessary customer data and you shouldn’t be collecting any information you don’t need to use.

Stage 2: acquisition

You don’t want to lose a newly acquired customer by sending them irrelevant messages. 37% of customers are willing to unsubscribe from brands sending them impersonal and generic email marketing.

Ask customers what they want to hear. Or, better yet, offer a self-service content model where your subscribers can pick and choose what subjects they hear from you about. Irrelevant messaging will only make customers lose trust in your brand, so avoid it as much as you can.

Stage 3: conversion

Conversion is the point where marketing and customer service come together. Both departments should be working in tandem to ensure customers have as smooth an experience as possible.

Channels such as live chat can help remove blockers on the path to purchase, but can also be used as a data collection tool. You can discover areas on your website that need improving or find out frequently asked questions about your products or services.

By collecting customer data along the way, you can create engaging and delightful post-chat email automations to improve overall experiences and help build strong, long-lasting relationships with your new customer.

Stage 4: retention

This is the stage where your customer data really takes on a life of its own. You should only be collecting data that you intend to use to personalize experiences and post-purchase is where you should be focusing.

Using explicitly expressed interest as well as purchase history data you can deliver personalized product recommendations or content to keep customers engage and retain them for longer. You can also team zero-party data with eRFM or lead scoring to create distinct pathways for highly specific and targeted customer segments.

By using customer data to personalize your marketing messages and offers, you can create a more relevant customer experience that is more likely to drive conversions and build customer loyalty.  

Stage 4: loyalty

The loyalty stage is all about making the customer feel valued. By optimizing the earlier stages in the customer journey you’ve already earned their trust, demonstrating your commitment to using customer data appropriately and that you value customers’ privacy. Now you need to level up the relationship.

Inviting loyal customers to join review panels or loyalty programs can create even stronger bonds with your customer. It will help them feel more invested in your brand giving them a reason to stick around and continue to choose you over your competitors.

What is customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) is how your customers think and feel about your company during their whole customer journey.

What is a customer experience platform (CXP)?

A customer experience platform enables you to monitor and manage customer interactions. The platform helps you engage with your customers using multiple marketing channels, such as phone calls, chats, email, messaging, and social media. The platform then uses this information to create tailored recommendations, marketing campaigns, and preferences based on the customer’s preferences. 

A CX platform helps bridge the gap between your customer insights and customer experience. With the platform, your company can get a better understanding of your customers and the channels they enjoy to provide them with the best possible journey through your sales funnel. As a result, you will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

What is customer data?

A customer’s data is information you receive from them whenever they interact with your company. You can gather zero-party and first-party data via your website, surveys, mobile applications, and marketing campaigns. 

What is a customer data platform (CDP)?

A customer data platform (CDP) is a unified, customer-focused platform that can be used as a foundation for developing data-driven marketing initiatives. The platform tracks customer data from multiple touchpoints and channels it into a single customer view. This unified view of the customer is then used to drive personalized experiences and targeted communications across channels. Explore Dotdigital’s partnership directory to discover our CDP and Data Analytics partners.

What is a CXDP and how does it work?

A CXDP is a comprehensive platform that enables marketers to effectively manage their customer experience and data. Marketers can use a CXDP to easily track customer data and analyze it to gain valuable insights into customer behavior. 

This type of platform also provides powerful optimization tools that enable companies to personalize customer experiences and increase customer engagement. You can easily create a customer-centric strategy that boosts customer retention and loyalty.

By combining three major functionalities: data unification, actionable insights, and customer experience, a CXDP provides marketers with the complete toolkit they need to create incredible customer journeys.

Data unification

CXDPs centralize and fine-tune data management. They connect with major CDPs and CRMs, to give you a 360-degree view of your customers and a deeper understanding of their behaviors, purposes, and preferred channels.

Actionable insights

A CXDP simplifies your marketing strategy by doing the heavy lifting for you. It analyzes data from multiple sources to deliver actionable insights, including your customers’ preferred channels. Also, you can tap into which RFM persona each customer is a part of to help you convert every time.

Customer experience

Armed with actionable insights, you have everything you need to create unforgettable customer experiences. Powered by automation, cross-channel marketing, and personalization tools, you can efficiently optimize your customers’ journeys.

What are the benefits of a CXDP?

A CXDP is the perfect solution for marketing teams looking to get the most out of their customer data and improve customer satisfaction. It offers the ability to create personalized experiences for customers. By leveraging data from across the customer journey, from their first interaction to their first purchase, you can create experiences that are unique to the individual. This can help build loyalty and trust as customers feel understood and appreciated. 

Additionally, you can also improve your marketing efforts by tracking customer engagement and satisfaction levels over time to make more informed decisions. This will result in more effective campaigns and the implementation of best practices, plus the ability to benchmark your performance against competitors.

With a CXDP you can:

• Identify the key drivers of customer satisfaction
• Create unique and personalized experiences
• Target your audience with segmentation tools
• View real-time performance metrics
• Build customer loyalty and trust 
• Simplify your marketing platform

What can marketers do with a CXDP?

CXDPs empower you with the tools you need to create a seamless customer experience. Also, you can use a real-time API, to integrate your entire marketing stack in just a couple of clicks.

A CXDP provides you with an integrated view of your customer data enabling you to map out your customers’ journeys and track behaviors. This will give you a better understanding of how they interact with your brand across marketing channels.

With advanced automation, you can target customers on the right channel at the right time. As a result, you’ll see an increase in engagement, conversions, and overall customer retention.

CXDPs enable you to scale your customer experience and data management needs. This will help build experiences that inspire loyalty quickly and efficiently.

How can I get started with Dotdigital?

Dotdigital is a customer engagement platform that helps digital marketers and developers deliver communications across the customer journey. We harness the power of customer data, powering engagement, conversion, and loyalty for brands as they grow and scale. Getting started with Dotdigital is easy. Book a one-on-one demo to explore our advanced built-in analytics and streamlined optimization tools and gain insights into your customers’ preferences and behavior.

But, that being said, there are almost too many days and too many opportunities. How do you ensure you’re maximizing every opportunity without working all the hours in a day?  

The answer is simple: marketing automation.  

Holiday marketing automation 

The weeks from the end of October to the beginning of January are jammed packed. Not only are you trying to organize reunions and celebrations with friends and family, but marketers also have to make time and resources stretch even further.  

Email marketing is a demanding job for marketers, even during the quiet months. When the holiday marketing opportunities begin, email marketers are under pressure to turn every moment into a conversion. Marketing automation provides much-needed relief during this time.  

How? Because it gives you the ability to pre-build your email marketing for the period.  

The best thing about the holiday season is that the dates are set and unchanging. No matter what Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November; Black Friday follows immediately. Christmas Day will always be on the 25^th and the new year always begins on the 1^st of January.  

Holiday email marketing calendar  

These are just a few of the key days in the holiday season with immovable dates. You will know from the beginning of the year when these days will fall. As a result, you should be able to plan, build and schedule your email marketing around these dates well in advance.  

• Thanksgiving  
• Black Friday  
• Cyber Monday  
• Giving Tuesday  
• Small business Saturday 
• Free Shipping Day 
• Start of Hanukkah 
• Christmas Eve  
• Christmas Day 
• Boxing Day (UK) 
• End of Hanukkah 
• New Year’s Eve 
• New Year’s Day 

Our ultimate email marketing automation list  

The beauty of email marketing automation is the time it saves. You can build these emails to match your business needs well in advance of the day. No longer do you have to be fretting down to the last minute, or feel sender anxiety before you hit the send button.  

Even better is the fact that you can apply rules throughout your program to improve and personalize the customer experience. For example, if a contact has opened and clicked on your ‘last shipping date’ email but has not made a purchase you can prompt them with a new action to buy a gift card.  

Below is our ultimate list of emails brands should be adding to their holiday email automation programs. 

1. Black Friday  

Nowadays, Black Friday is a campaign in itself. But if your brand is still sticking to days gone by when Black Friday really was just Friday, there’s no better place to kick-start your holiday marketing campaign. 

2. Cyber Monday 

A close rival to the biggest sale event of the year, Cyber Monday is a must-have addition, especially for ecommerce brands looking to boost sales.  

3. Giving Tuesday 

This newcomer has been making waves in holiday marketing strategies for the past couple of years. At a time when corporate social responsibility (CSR) is being taken increasingly seriously by consumers, brands need to be thinking about Giving Tuesday (falling the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) as part of their holiday marketing campaigns.  

4. First of December 

The December first is when you can really kick things off. By the time this rolls around shoppers have seen all the Christmas adverts and received endless Black Friday emails. Why not kick it off with something light-hearted and fun to get people in the festive spirit?  

5. Gift guides

Gift guides are invaluable to the consumer during the holiday season. There’s nothing harder than spending hours trying to find the perfect gift for your impossible-to-buy-for loved one. Gift guides can help alleviate the pressure. Even better, when you categorize your email by product or price, you’re making it even easier for the shopper to convert.  

6. Free Shipping Day 

Another newbie you might not have considered before, Free Shipping Day generally falls in mid-December and offers free shipping with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve.  

7. Happy Hanukkah 

This one is less about Hanukkah and more about inclusivity. Never forget that not all your customers will be celebrating Christmas. Hanukkah and Kwanza both fall around the same time of the year too. To ensure you’re never marginalizing your audience, add these celebrations to your holiday email marketing plans.  

8. Last shipping date 

Gone are the days when Arnold Schwarzenegger has to run all over the city on Christmas Eve to find the perfect present for his kid. With a ‘last shipping date’ email in your campaign, even last-minute shoppers should be able to get organized.  

9. Gift cards 

And for those that don’t gift cards are always an option. Of course, some people won’t be able to see and exchange gifts with their loved ones, for gift cards CTAs should be included in all your holiday marketing, but after your last shipping date, it’s time to push them and help those un-savvy shoppers who have left it too late.  

10. Christmas Eve  

Depending on your brand and your brand message, Christmas Eve campaigns can look very different. For some it might be a simple season’s greeting; for others, it might be the start of yet another sale as you look to get ahead of the competition in the January sales.  

11. Merry Christmas 

Keep this one simple. Chances are people won’t get the time to read their emails on Christmas Day, so keep it short and sweet. Thank you and festive messages of goodwill always go down a treat.  

12. New Year’s Day 

And so, the new year begins. It’s likely that January sales have already kicked off, despite it only being the first of January. This is a good time to reconnect with customers after a long and busy sales period. Set out your goals and ambitions for the year and make customers feel a part of the journey. This is the key to long-term customer loyalty.