Anne-Sophie Mullier describes the keys to turn the actions of Email Marketing into a highly effective tool to get to know the customer better, consolidating their loyalty and confidence towards the company. With the right resources and the commitment to measuring and segmentation tools, communications via email become more personal, offering the client an optimal response capable of satisfying their needs and desires.
Recognized as one of the reference professionals in the world of Email Marketing, Anne-Sophie Mullier addresses in a recent interview granted to the online marketing agency Webpositer, the keys to make the campaigns of Emailing a weapon of maximum effectiveness. The general director of Cabestan Spain, Spanish subsidiary of the world leader in Email Marketing, reviews his professional beginnings where the online media has always been his great companion of adventures. His passion for the Internet led him to expand his studies in Marketing and Communication specializing in Electronic Media because, picking up his words, “it was a world that really fascinated me and where there was much to discover”.
Always in the continuous search for the “balance between technical concepts and user behavioral knowledge”, he found in Email Marketing the discipline capable of adding both variables. In fact, Mullier states that, beyond the technical, the development of Emailing campaigns requires a detailed study of the needs of users, the center of these communications. With finality he concludes saying that “there is more psychology in Emailing than you can think”.
The customer, the cornerstone of any Email Marketing strategy
Anne-Sophie Mullier clearly identifies the client as the starting point and purpose of the Emailing campaigns. In fact, it is forceful to say that only luck can favor strategies whose central axis revolves around the product. “We can not sell a product that does not interest the market, that has no demand, it happens exactly the same for an Email Marketing plan,” he adds.
Another of the big mistakes identified by the CEO of Cabestan Spain is to focus the strategy on the database believing that “the bigger, the better”. Faced with this position, Mullier argues that “behind every direction there is a person, with a profile, customs, a network, fears and desire … this is what you have to understand.” Its recommendation is to have a database of few qualified contacts – “few people we know and understand” – to develop Email Marketing actions focused on responding to the needs of users and not the wishes of brands.
These arguments lead Anne-Sophie Mullier to emphasize that “one of the key points of Email Marketing is that it should be a very personal communication channel”. Faced with social networks where everything is shared, the excellence of an emailing plan will increase the confidence of the client or subscriber towards the brand, but not in a general sense but, more importantly, “at the level of their own individual experience with it” .
Due to its characteristics, Anne-Sophie emphasizes that, taking care of all the axes in communications via email, Email Marketing becomes THE CHANNEL with capital letters whose capacity allows “to significantly and lastingly improve the brand / client link”. Among its advantages is to be fully measurable and the information collected is useful even in the medium-long term. For this reason, Email Marketing “allows establishing a trust at the person-person level” where every small detail reaches a great relevance to obtain the expected success.
The main objective of any emailing campaign is to “improve customer knowledge”, which is the center of every strategy. With this priority clear, says Mullier, it will be possible to “increase his loyalty, retain him and increase sales”. By betting on quality email marketing, Anne-Sophie advises putting all the efforts and resources available to obtain customer information and “seek to diversify the offer to maintain interest and avoid fatigue”.
In the effectiveness of Email Marketing, metrics are essential. Placing the web itself as a geographical starting point for the strategy given that this is where the subscription is developed, the Web Analytics is the informative source where to know which products get more attention from the user, data that help to personalize the contact and the communication.
After the launch of the campaign, Anne-Sophie Mullier urged to “analyze the data that the tool itself can obtain from each shipment: Opening, clicks, generated purchases, average basket, even the” share “of Facebook that were made to from the campaign … ” It goes further and states that combining these data with the information offered by web metrics tools “gives almost infinite possibilities”.
Email Marketing in Spanish companies: Towards a definitive bet
Analyzing the use and implementation of emailing strategies in Spanish companies, Anne-Sophie Mullier declares that “much remains to be done” making a firm commitment to have the necessary tools and resources so that these communications are effective. Although the companies show their predisposition to improve their actions, now they have to be nourished of the necessary resources so that everything works. “Not only do I refer to having a sending tool to send many mails quickly, but also to measurement and segmentation tools that allow us to take another step forward towards the knowledge of the client,” says Mullier for Webpositer.
However, he argues that in recent years in Spain companies are betting on more advanced actions, a bet especially motivated by the success stories produced in other countries. Anne-Sophie points to interaction as one of the aspects that most Spanish companies work in their communications via email, a breakthrough motivated by the growing relevance of social networks.
Far from the famous saying “money is on the list”, Email Marketing is based on people not on lines of a file. Mullier declares that in “90% of the cases the feedback fails”. The shipping statistics are not analyzed properly so the data obtained are not taken into account to study and plan future actions. For this passionate about the online medium, the optimization of the entire process goes through “feeding the files with the information that the company has at home and that is updated every day: The data of the last purchases or the average basket are two good examples ”
In the measurement of the results of a campaign, the opening rate “is a dangerous indicator” because it is measured when the image of the sent communication is downloaded, with many email providers blocking the download of the images by default. Based on her extensive professional career at the forefront of Emailing projects for clients such as Yves Rocher, RENFE, Barceló Viajes and Expo Hotels & Resorts, Anne-Sophie notes that “you can have a low opening ratio but a high reading rate”, which is difficult to measure but with experience and analyzing other indicators is possible.
In the first communications with a client or subscriber, Email Marketing has a determining role. Mullier suggests that companies inform their customers that the subscription has been made well not using high-level email confirmation emails. Although there are many companies that carry out this practice, it is an error because “it does not give a good image of the program, making it think that this will be the next communications, while not allowing an identification between the web and the mail”, in addition to be much less attractive.
Overcoming the technical limitations of yesteryear, these first communications are the perfect excuse, according to Anne-Sophie, to “present the benefits that the user will have by subscribing”, being very effective to make striking proposals that make clear the exclusive benefit that You will receive for being part of this list (discount coupons, half price shipping, etc.). Also, this is a good time to clearly communicate what kind of communications they will receive and “when there are no surprises”. But it goes further and indicates that the first contacts are undoubtedly the perfect opportunity to “encourage the user to make their first purchase”, offering for example a discount if it makes it effective.
Coherence, simplicity and clarity: Key factors for the effectiveness of Email campaigns
Anna-Sophie Mullier maintains that in the design of Email Marketing actions coherence is essential to ensure that users “feel at home with our communications”, being It is necessary that they remember and respect the “editorial line” of the web.
The simple is always more effective, hence simplicity must be a constant in these actions. By reproducing his words, “if the user does not see clearly and quickly that this interests him, he will move on to something else”.
The final touch is clarity. Far from putting many proposals of different value, “4 or 5 are enough or we could confuse the user”. In fact, Mullier recommends that, if you want to include long texts or extensive explanations, it would be optimal to do it through landing pages because they also “allow us to measure who has read our page”.
The subject of the email with the name of the sender, the address and its reputation are key ingredients because they “participate in the trust.” Short, descriptive and attractive, the subject of an Email Marketing campaign must indicate to the user “why you have to open the email and what benefits you will get by doing so “with calls that invite action, avoiding such indifferent matters as” Newsletter number 1245 “.
With a “massively one-to-one communication”, Anne-Sophie Mullier estimates that the communication of the brand to the client will take more and more strength through this medium. Moreover, he affirms that “the vocation of the email, in comparison with media such as social networks, will increasingly be that of being a small island of privacy”, where all aspects have to be taken care of in detail to make communications much more personal
Likewise, and to conclude the interview with Webpositer, he points out that “the arrival of 4G in Europe will clearly favor M-Commerce and T-Commerce radically changing shopping habits”, new habits that must be known in order to optimize as much as possible. the execution of Email Marketing campaigns in the near future.