Research shows that relevant emails drive 18x more revenue than broadcast emails. The best and easiest way to step up your email marketing game is to use dynamic content to automatically customize emails based on real-time data.
While there are many ways in which dynamic content can help you make emails more relevant, we’ve decided to start with the basics and focus on location-based content.
The following 7 ideas vary in levels of tech difficulty to implement, but there’s a wide range of scenarios to help you get started.
1. Nearest store location and opening times
If you’re a national retailer with brick-and-mortar shops, this type of location-based content is a no-brainer to insert in your email campaigns. It gives one extra reason for your subscribers to convert by being helpful.
2. How to find us
If you’re an event marketer, this tip will make your subscribers love you especially when they’ve just got off the train and they take out their phone to use an app like Google Maps for directions. Use deep-linking to make the click-through from the email open the app, and use their current location to suggest a route.
3. Competitions and participating stores
Running a competition but you’ve limited it to some stores based on area or size. Use location-based content to show subscribers where they go to participate and save them a trip to the wrong store.
4. You might want to consider this while packing…
This tip is particularly suited for the travel industry, with airlines and hospitality venues as the obvious choices. Send an email campaign to holiday goers a few days before they’re due to travel and inform them of the weather. If you know the address of their destination use live maps to help them get directions. The more they regard you as a sort of personal assistant, the more likely they are to book again.
5. Weather-based offers
Who wants to convert from an email showing umbrellas when the sun is shining and all you can think of is an ice cold lemonade? Location-based content can dynamically alter an offer based on the weather in a particular location at the time when your email campaign is opened.
6. Hey you, feeling hungry?
With technology like iBeacons and other sensors, you can use proximity to a location to trigger an offer which is very much focused on the here and now. Starbucks knows exactly when I’m close to one of their stores and pops a little icon on my lock screen to let me know. But why not offer your customers 20% off the dinner menu as they pass by on their way home from work?
7. Make the small details matter
If you’re an international brand of any kind, your prices will differ depending on where people are in the world. Make sure the information they receive is relevant to their location, such as changing £ to $, or the country flags attached to the store locator. It might not bring you an immediate gain, but if this information is missing or gone awry your subscribers will see your marketing as disconnected, irrelevant and poorly managed.
I hope you find these ideas useful to get started with location-based content in your email campaigns. Do you have any interesting examples to share?