Marketers Use Technology to Drive Individualized Messaging

Transcription

1 Marketers Use Technology to Drive Individualized Messaging Smarter s Drive More Sales.

2 Table of Contents Summary Aggregate Findings Gender Findings: Open and Click Behavior Income Findings: Open and Click Behavior Conclusion Methodology About SimpleRelevance

3 Summary Today s digital marketing requires personalizing the messaging and experience to meet the increasing expectations of each consumer. Many companies believe personalization can be done with basic segmentation, for example, adjusting an based on one variable such as including customer name or having two versions by gender. However, we found that this is not sufficient. Most consumers have very limited windows of time throughout the day that they are receptive to taking action on , and they almost never act on s outside of these time windows. Even more importantly, each individual has their own unique window of time during the day to drive clicks. This magic hour can often be inferred by looking at an individual customer s key demographics, such as gender, age, or income. Companies must leverage the power of the data to ensure they hit the consumer at the best time for him or her. Making the step to personalizing s can be easily done by leveraging available market tools and combining them with the basic information marketers already have internally or through third party services.

4 To prove customers should be targeted individually and not just segmented by demographic, the SimpleRelevance team of data scientists analyzed data across all clients. They discovered: Customers open their during several hours throughout the day, with some individuals opening up to 23 out of 24 hours per day. Men tend to open an average of 8 time-periods throughout the day, while women average 7. While customers open several times throughout the day, 62 percent only click through to the website during one single hour per day. Men click more frequently in the early morning 4am until 9am, while women click more frequently in the afternoon to evening 10am until 9pm. For all hours in which men and women open their , 57 percent of men and 66 percent of women prefer one single hour per day in which they actually click through, 22 percent of men and 19 percent of women have two hour time-periods per day to click through an . People earning $150,000 or more are more likely to click in the early morning from 5am until 8am, while people earning $75,000 or less are more active from 9am until 8pm. In addition to gender and income, we discovered that time of day can be further optimized by incorporating purchase history, age and household composition as well. Personalizing marketing by each demographic to offer individualized messaging is easy using data append tools. By incorporating data that each company already owns such as consumer age, gender, household composition, social engagement, income, purchasing history and more, marketers can quickly and easily increase sales.

5 Aggregate Findings Only relying on the simplest segmentation, such as gender, leaves marketers missing a large number of potential clicks and purchases. The below graph illustrates that for every hour in the day, there are individuals who will click through an opened to a marketer s website. Marketers looking to reach the largest number of customers in one hour time period are likely to send at noon, reaching only a fraction of their customers. Implementing a personalized solution allows each customer to interact with at his or her preferred time of day. How Frequently Do People Open s? According to emarketer, more than one 25% third of people open on a tablet or 20% smartphone. This trend may explain why is often opened, but not clicked. Number of People 15% 10% 5% 0% Number of Unique Hours s are Clicked In our study, however, 62 percent of customers only had one single hour per day in which they preferred to click through an message, digest its content and potentially make a purchase. This time varies from person to person. How Frequently Do People Click? The criteria for meeting customer expectations has become more sophisticated and technology has caught up. By using data to assess which hour of the day a customer is likely to open their , marketers can ensure their message is at the top of the inbox at that particular time. For the highest probability of having their s opened and clicked, marketers must take the next step to discover which hour in a given day each individual s propensity to click is highest.

6 Gender Findings: Open and Click Behavior 12% How Frequently Does Each Gender Open? Men are much more likely to open throughout the day, while women are significantly more likely to have limited windows of time. Percentage of Each Gender 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0% Male Female Number of Different Hours Our study shows that men are likely to open up to 21 hour time-periods per day, with the average number of time-periods being eight. Women opened during as many as 23 hour time-periods per day, with the average number of unique time-periods being seven. While both genders open regularly throughout the day, relevant content and individualized timing drive engagement and entice customers to click through. In fact, the majority of each gender chooses to click through an within only one hour time-period per day. More than half (57 percent) of men and 66 percent of women had one single hour per day in which they actually click through an to a marketer s website. Another 22 percent of men were likely to click an during two hour-periods, 10 percent had three and 11 percent had four or more unique hour-periods to click through. Similarly, 19 percent of

7 women had two, 8 percent have three, and 7 percent have four or more unique hours in which they prefer to click through to a marketer s website to potentially make a purchase. While there is one major time-period in which customers will click through an , marketers must acknowledge this does not mean that the hour will be the same for everyone. If an is received outside of a customer s preferred timeperiod, the will be pushed to the bottom of the customer s inbox and the click-through potential for the decreases regardless of gender. 14% What Time Do Men and Women Click? Percentage for Each Gender 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% Men Women 2% 0% 12 AM 1 AM 2 AM 3 AM 4 AM 5 AM 6 AM 7 AM 8 AM 9 AM 10 AM 11 AM 12 PM 1 PM 2 PM 3 PM 4 PM 5 PM 6 PM 7 PM 8 PM 9 PM 10 PM 11 PM Time of Day The preferred time of day for men and women to click through an varies greatly. Men prefer morning, while women prefer afternoon to evening. Gender is a basic demographic segmentation tool for marketers. But as depicted above, if only one campaign is sent per day, it will miss more than half of their target customers.

8 Income Findings: Open and Click Behavior 16% How Does Income Impact Click Times? Percent of People 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% <$75,000 >$150,000 4% 2% 0% 12 AM 1 AM 2 AM 3 AM 4 AM 5 AM 6 AM 7 AM 8 AM 9 AM 10 AM 11 AM 12 PM 1 PM 2 PM 3 PM 4 PM 5 PM 6 PM 7 PM 8 PM 9 PM 10 PM 11 PM Hour of the Day To showcase the importance of individualized , our data scientists also compared the click times for annual income levels below $75,000 and above $150,000. We found that people earning $150,000 or more are relatively active in the early morning from 5am until 8am, while people earning $75,000 or less are active from 9am until 8pm. While these segments have vastly different clicking behavior, it is also apparent that people within the same segment have individualized clicking behavior. If marketers attempt to find a single time of day to send to all their customers, they will exclude a significant segment of the population that they want to reach.

9 Conclusion Customer profiles continue growing more robust, however marketers still find it difficult to apply data to offer individually customized messages and increase engagement. The fact is, making informed decisions about how to market to prospects and clients encompasses the single greatest opportunity for almost any company to increase revenue. In our previous ebook, The Ten Most Important Lessons in Marketing for ecommerce Companies, we outlined simple, inexpensive ways to use marketing to drive sales. Starting with the basics of initiating an program and ensuring s arrive in the right inbox, then including key design elements such as professional templates and mobile optimization, and finally instructing marketers on how to incorporate more sophisticated data. This could include gender, household composition, income, product recommendations and especially time of day. Once the message has been delivered in the appropriate hour, it s imperative that the subject line is customized to each individual customer, as well as content and product recommendations. Marketers and their ecommerce partners already own a majority of this data. Even if they lack the internal resources to tackle analysis and application of it on their own, marketers will see great benefit from working with a partner who specializes in marketing customization. Working with an expert who can quickly and efficiently apply data resources, will generate nearly immediate sales lifts of 30 percent or more.

10 Methodology SimpleRelevance data scientists used a Python script to pull complete demographic and opening behavior from our complete client database. The data was cleansed and analyzed using SimpleRelevance proprietary technology. Further information can be provided upon request. About SimpleRelevance SimpleRelevance is a leading provider of personalized marketing communication and combines customers unique geographic, social and demographic data with interests and past purchase behavior to automatically send marketing with personalized product recommendations. SimpleRelevance offers marketing solutions to small and medium sized businesses as well as enterprise solutions for larger firms and agencies. To learn more or sign up visit