Recently, I had the privilege of chatting with Caroline Riddle, partner marketing manager at Windsor Circle, about what data science is and why it’s so significant right now for email marketers. With lots of experience in the industry and unparalleled knowledge of the topic – this is Windsor Circle’s sweet spot – Caroline dove into the data science mystery with gusto, providing clear answers and a path forward. Here’s a snippet of our conversation:
Q: Why is Data Science important to marketers?
Marketers have access to important data pieces through many channels, such as their email marketing providers, website analytics, and eCommerce platforms. Data science brings these pieces together and paints an accurate picture of buyers, what they like, how they like to shop, and when and what they’re likely to purchase in the future. As marketing evolves, it will be more important to continue to build individual profiles based on these data points.
Q: How can data science be applied to email marketing?
Thinking beyond just using data to create personalized emails based on name or gender, marketers need to utilize data science to help drive future purchases based on an individual customer’s past purchases.
For example, data science can tell us when a customer is due for a product to be replenished based on his or her previous buying cadence of the same product. This presents an opportunity to send a targeted email campaign showcasing that product through compelling language such as, “Don’t run out of X” and “order now!”
You can also use this purchase data to send dynamic product recommendation emails. It’s an opportunity to recommend similar products that complement a product your customer regularly purchases.
Q: What are important data points to capture in the future?
I would recommend running email campaigns asking subscribers for more information such as important dates (birthday, anniversary). These campaigns should tout the value of how this information will be used to send important reminders and other helpful tips.
Q: How can marketers use data science to reward best customers?
By completing an RFM analysis, marketers can determine their best customer segments. Use this information to create an email segment where you send exclusive offers, new products, company news and other VIP information. This group is one you should continually engage with and reward.
Q: Why is data science valuable to consumers?
When marketers use data science to craft email marketing campaigns, everyone wins.
The consumer receives a relevant, personalized campaign that speaks to them – the hope is they will see value in the campaign, open it, read it, click through, engage, and ideally make a purchase.
The marketer wins because if the consumers completes any one of those actions, this will be viewed as an engagement and will not only help in email deliverability, (recently ISPs have placed a strong emphasis on evaluating engagement), but will also help drive the bottom line.
A theme of the recent MarTech conference is that marketers still have access to a whole lot of data, and are still not using it to send email marketing messages that matter. Data science provides a roadmap from having data to implementing it. Are you using data science in your marketing?
Joy Ugi