MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit ’10: a mix of data and insights

Our man in Miami did it again, here is another post on MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit ’10. Our man was a bit overwhelmed by all the sessions: “impossible to do them all in one day” he writes.


So he mixed some B2B and B2C sessions that he followed according to his personal interest. As always, Kenny, comes quickly to the point (in sharp contrast to yours truly).


So here are an overview and key findings on some of the slots, the Kenny way.



Must-Have triggered email marketing campaigns for every business


A very complete overview of every possible triggered email campaign you can set up. Here’s the list:

  • Confirm emails
  • Search and browse emails
  • Follow-up emails (events, …)
  • Catalog request emails
  • Abandoned cart emails
  • Product review request and notifications
  • Anniversary or reminder of last order emails
  • Reactivation campaigns
  • Survey emails

Some interesting figures also:

  • Only 11% of Internet merchants send email to abandoned cart shoppers.
  • SAS client case stats: 25% respond to abandoned cart emails, 1/3 of them order afterwards.

Lifecycle marketing – Starting at the Zygote stage


Parenting.com case – different content enewsletters depending on the lifecycle of moms and their pregnancy/kids stage. Fascinating, Parenting.com has set up the same lifecycle email marketing strategy as Kenny’s EmailGarage did for Nutricia Baby. Soon-to-be-moms, new moms and experienced moms are getting valuable content based on the lifecycle of baby expectations, pregnancy and having kids.


Everything is also entirely automated.  Results: 51,66% opened rate and 36,42% in click-to-open rate


A great extra in the approach is a pregnancy planner; an interesting idea to start even before the actual pregnancy. Furthermore, adapting the length of the copy according to the lifecycle is cool as well. 


3 key take-aways:

  • Capture and leverage the data
  • Engage with customers (eg. the copy adapting story)
  • Automate and Optimize

Be an email creative “top chef”



Orbitz case – B2C emails: Reminder drop-out emails on price-drops for previous searched flights.


Good thinking, nice designs, great personalization and fully automated. Just one thing, isn’t it a strange idea to integrate a search form in a “top chef” email!?


Results: 25% opened rate and 15% transactions increase via this new approach.


SalesForce.com case – B2B emails: A re-design of the e-mail marketing communication, texts and visuals. The goal was to differ from competition. Changes made: refreshed design, including a pre-header, giving the possibility to switch to text emails (Smart phones in mind) and conditional based content.


Honestly, nothing really chocking, although it is a good idea to give business users the possibility to switch to text messages. Results: unique click-through rate increase of 27%.


Seems our man wasn’t very impressed.


Read the previous reports from MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit ’10 below:


Joseph Jaffe’s keynote at MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit ’10
– A scientific approach on email marketing effectiveness

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