Why is lifecycle email marketing such a hot topic these days? For one, it has proven out time and time again that lifecycle email communications can significantly boost subscriber engagement and retention. After all, messaging based on factors that change over time increases relevancy and speaks to customers at much more personal levels.

One example of lifecycle messaging done right is a recently launched campaign from Healthy Pet Magazine. HealthyPet, a veterinary communications and analytics company offering pet owner reminders and education via a comprehensive suite of print and digital communications, leverages dynamic content and offers relevant cross-sell promotions to significantly increase email opens and click rates while deepening customer engagement.

HealthyPet’s program consists of a series of dynamic content-filled emails triggered at each life state of a cat or dog, from 0 to 16 years of age. Dynamic customer data is leveraged to achieve deep and relevant content personalization.

• Customer name
• Pet name
• Species specific content
• Age/life stage specific content
• Breed name, image and link to breed profile
• Up to four breed-specific medical conditions and their associated links
• Breed-specific did-you-know factoid
• Life stage and animal hospital specific offer or cross-sell promotion
• Customer-specific login/registration codes embedded in all link URLs to personalize their click-through and Website experience

Dynamic elements also include each animal hospital’s name in the ‘from’ field of the email envelope. In addition, each animal hospital’s logo, phone number and physical address were inserted to customize the email communications to each animal hospital.

HealthyPet emails with personalized content had click rates three times higher than publishing industry benchmarks. Great job, Healthy Pet! To learn more about the program, click here.

Verifying email addresses is just one part of a comprehensive marketing strategy. Today, Experian Marketing Services offers a new case study on Bass Pro Shops

Capturing and maintaining correct contact information for customers and prospects is an important step in the data collection process. Good contact data allows businesses to ensure that consumers receive important communications, which ultimately translate into sales opportunities. In particular, email addresses have grown in importance as more and more communications shift to a digital form.

While today’s marketers collect large volumes of email addresses through various channels, there is no guarantee that those email addresses are in fact correct. Inaccurate email addresses frequently plague marketing databases, and mean that order confirmations, targeted messaging, and other vital information is never received by the consumer. To combat this problem, businesses are beginning to implement email validation tools.

The most effective email verification tools work at the point of capture, checking different parts of the email address as the consumer enters their information. When a potential error in an email address is identified at the point of capture, the consumer is able to correct potential typos or other careless mistakes. This type of email verification ensures that an accurate email address is captured up front while the consumer is still engaged. Future business communications actually reach the consumer, ultimately improving their overall experience, as well as the business’ future marketing opportunities.

Read the full case study on Bass Pro Shops to learn more.

Part II – Demographic segmentation

Gender, age, ethnicity, interests, education level, occupation, location, marital status, number of children, and income are all examples of demographic attributes that can be used to effectively segment your email subscribers. Depending on the nature of your business and industry, you can combine such attributes to create highly targeted audiences that really zero-in on your best customers. So why would you target females with your email marketing messages when your best customers are more specifically hispanic females aged 45-60 with a college degree and adult-aged children?

The reason why many fail to use sophisticated demographic segmentation is because they have difficulty gathering all the demographic information they desire from the initial registration page. As a general rule, the more information you require at sign-up, the likelier a prospect will abandon the registration process or provide false information.

To help email marketers gather the info they need for sophisticated demographic information, I’ve compiled a list of techniques to improve the data collection process:

• Don’t ask for demographic information until after the prospect has subscribed to your list. This will help reduce abandoned registration forms.
• Develop a preference center where subscribers can update and add their demographic information. Preference centers can take a good amount of work, testing, and planning, but can pay huge dividends when you learn more about your customer base.
• Use online surveys or sign-up confirmations to request more demographic information from the customer. Here is an example of a welcome email from Bluefly.com where they are not only welcoming subscribers to their list (and offering free shipping) but are also asking for more demographic data. Smart!

• Validate the captured information at the point of entry. A misspelled email address, name, or postal address could mean lost revenue, additional marketing costs, and unhappy customers. Take a look at Experian QAS for email, mailing address, and phone verification technology.
• If you ask for information, you should use it. If a customer lets you know that he loves camping but never receives a camping-related email, an opportunity has been lost and you might betray consumer trust.
• Briefly explain the benefits of providing information to your subscribers. Why should he or she complete this form? What’s in it for the subscriber?
• Send a thank you or confirmation message in a timely manner once the registration is complete. This could be an email or at the very least a simple thank you page once information is submitted.

Once you’ve got your vital customer demographics in place, you can slice and dice your file to your heart’s content. Segment away!

In the lower right hand corner of their home page, an email subscription box awaits your email address. Once the address is submitted, a good looking registration page appears in a dialog box for the user to enter more details. After filling out that information, the user is sent back to the home page. The cool thing about Puma’s design is that after signing up for email, the area where the subscription field resided now displays a simple line of text, saying “Thank you for signing up!”

Not only does this give users a warm and fuzzy feeling, it allows the brand to start the online conversation by acknowledging that the user did something a few seconds before. The user is aware that their information has been received, and conveys a level of technological intelligence that hopefully will continue throughout the customer relationship. All in all it’s a pretty cool idea that might be worth a look for other brands.

While a lot of the industry talk today revolves around the latest technologies and newest communications tools, I thought I’d offer a personal anecdote about using relatively low-tech means to drive customer data acquisition.

Take a look at the attached photograph I recently snapped on my Blackberry from a Robeks smoothie shop. That’s a store-owned laptop computer sitting by the cash register, inviting customers to fill out the email registration page on their website. It’s an idea so simple that it comes off as clever — just an open laptop with a browser opened to their email registration form. The top of the form had a rotating banner offering special coupons via email, which demonstrated the value of signing up.

I took a moment to fill out my information on the laptop, received my smoothie and left the shop. The next day I received my welcome email and appeared to be entrenched in the customer lifecycle. To be honest, Robeks could use a little help on the follow up communications, but the acquisition effort was simply perfect. The rotating screen and form gave me — and others — something to look at and do as we waited to place and receive our smoothie orders.

To make it even better, Robeks simultaneously offered a mobile program where I could send a text to receive coupons on my phone. I love the idea, particularly during the holidays, of providing an incentivized mobile or email sign-up opportunity while customers wait in checkout lines. It’s just a great way to make a customer feel wanted and appreciated, and it certainly gives you something to do while waiting to get to the register.