In the last article on a fairly comprehensive concept, which is the drip campaign, we discussed briefly a promotional drip, which is an element of the campaign which involves sending a tailored and well-timed special offer. This is a kind of campaign that is often sent to prospects who are close to the bottom of the funnel as an additional incentive and motivation to make a purchase decision, but this is not the only situation when it is used. Other situations are e.g.
- launching a new product or service,
- expanding the market reach,
- attracting the attention of new leads,
- bringing back the attention of leads who for various reasons have not been active in previous campaigns,
- increasing product or service sales,
- improving brand image,
- standing out from the competition.
The best strategy
The timing strategies vary, as well as the circumstances vary, but the final function of this campaign is usually the same. In principle, it can be determined by a combination of functions:
- it is a catalyst that helps pulling the trigger on a purchase,
- it increases awareness of your products or services,
- it improves customer loyalty or retention,
- of course, it generates more revenue.
Promotion in marketing
Promotion is generally one of the key elements of marketing, and promotional emails are an essential part of an effective (and usually automated) marketing strategy. It is a great way to engage recipients, and at the same time a way that – if properly measured in time and relevant enough – may be very important in the overall communication process and be a turning point that will raise the level of this communication. Each of us likes, after all, good promotions, especially those that are associated with receiving gifts, special pricing, additional features or high discounts. We associate it positively, and a well-organized promotion can carry a high emotional load and evoke desire, which can be seen when companies such as Apple launch new products on the market. The trick is to stand out and apply the right promotional strategy.
It is even more difficult since we all get more and more emails from various sources and it is becoming very challenging to draw the recipient’s attention to our message. After all, about 269 billion emails are sent daily. An additional threat is a fact that promotional emails are a very simple way to irritate the recipient and to avoid this you need to be very careful. Appropriate audience segmentation and personalization are very important to make our offer as relevant as possible. That is why effective marketers are in high demand. Discounts or additional freebies can be given by anyone on the market and this method does not guarantee success. To stand out on the market and prepare a really good strategy, you and the marketing team have to consider several factors that make up the promotional campaign process, the most important of which are:
- Identify your target audience. Who will you direct your content to? Will it go directly to the prospects or the influencers, or maybe to the decision-makers? To a large or small group of recipients? Or maybe to general public, without any segmentation? Do you know the needs of the target group you selected?
- Determine your objectives. You need to know what you require from your promotional campaign and you must have a reference point when you will check its effects during and at the end. The SMART method turns out to be very useful here. Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-oriented.
- Select a communication channel. As with most campaigns, which we discuss in our articles, email is just one possible form of communication, and we give it as the main example because it is the most common form. However, the most common does not necessarily mean that it is the best. Anyhow, if you decide to use email, you also need to choose the type that will best suit your assumptions. They can be relational emails, transactional emails, etc.
- Use available technology wisely. There is a wide selection of tools to create email campaigns. One of these tools is the Email Studio, available in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. They allow you to save a lot of time and improve your operations. Thanks to the high level of sophistication, they can also enrich the created campaign with elements that you may not even know exist.
- Develop your promotional message. Focus on creating the highest quality content, structure, format and appeal of your message. You must know exactly what and how you want to convey, and then skillfully transform it into practice. Take care of every element, from headline to keywords, use power words and other techniques that draw the recipient’s attention.
- Specify the budget you will spend on the campaign. Do not set it too low, but do not overdo it the other way. A budget too high means more pain when the campaign requires many corrections, which can always happen. Your budget should simply be reasonable. Remember that during the campaign, you can modify it depending on what effects it will bring.
- Specify how you will study these effects. Checking the outcome of your promotional campaign is the only way to get valuable insights such as the effectiveness of the communication channel you have chosen and the relevance of your content. It can also help you check how did the actual performance measure up to your planned objectives.
At the end of each email campaign, including a promotional one, it is worth measuring its results and checking whether it meets the expectations. Based on the statistics, make sure your promotional message reaches your intended and targeted audience, whether your audience understands the message and whether your message stimulates the recipients enough so they take action.