It is likely you have seen the returns from messaging driven by lifecycle moments of engagement, or MOEs: welcome, post-purchase thank yous, and abandoned shopping cart messages are just a few examples. These messages resonate with consumers because they are triggered by actions or events related to the individual and recent studies find that lifecycle messages perform 389% better than broadcast campaigns. You will see your overall program performance improve if you capitalize on these existing lifecycle MOEs, while also manufacturing additional moments of engagement. Use MOE to drive more revenue, engagement, list growth, and ultimately the overall health of your e-mail program.
Manufactured moments of engagement, such as brand and merchandising MOEs (which I'll explore further in subsequent posts) are additional opportunities for you to increase relevance and promote your brand and products. While lifecycle MOEs respond to an action taken by the individual, manufactured MOEs help to achieve a deeper relationship with your customer. With these MOEs in hand you will be better equipped to balance your customer’s needs with the needs of your brand and your business.
Although lifecycle messages are organic and take advantage of existing customer behavior, manufactured moments of engagement are not as naturally occurring. In order to create these effective touch points, there are three key ingredients needed when manufacturing a MOE (and they all revolve around relevance):
Subject relevance: You must have a story worth listening to. Your message needs to be fresh enough to cut through the clutter of the inbox or include a noteworthy offer or promotion. With this said, don’t turn to promotion overload. Fewer but flashier promotions are more effective.
Timing relevance: The message should be sent at the right time, perhaps relating to a customer purchase, threshold of activity (or inactivity), or even just tied to a relevant date on the calendar or season. Lifecycle events like first purchase and welcome are well documented here, but look also towards creating timing relevance. Maybe celebrate your company’s anniversary and make it memorable to your customers.
Content relevance: You find content relevance by publishing recommendations and paying attention to subscriber preferences or demographics such as geographic location. Messages promoting items with five-star reviews, or the season’s top ten sellers can quickly grab attention. An alert featuring on-sale fares from a subscriber’s home airport makes more of an impact than a generic list of all fares on sale.
In subsequent blog posts, we will delve deeper into each of the MOEs, with examples of what works and strategies for implementation. With these tools in hand get ready to fight the evils of batch-and-blast marketing, eliminating list fatigue and customer disengagement.
