Adestra recently awarded Campaign of Year 2018 to SMA for a fantastic integrated email and social campaign that celebrated mums.
It was a close contest, with a massive range of B2B and B2C entries this year, from a broad spectrum of sectors – all voted for by clients, partners and the general public. Notably, it included many cross-channel campaigns from across FMCG, Retail, Not-for-profits, durable goods and more.
So let’s take a look behind the scenes to see what separates the winners from the highly commended/losers…who knows it might give you some inspiration for this year’s entry or even just your next campaign.
What we generally look for is the use of key strategic areas that underpin a successful marketing strategy. Not just the intelligent use of our Adestra platform, but campaigns showing strong design and innovative use of email – such as kinetic elements – all wrapped up in best practice techniques. We look beyond metrics. So while testing and measuring against it is of course critical, we are looking for practical applications of personalization, segmentation, automation, deliverability and data optimization.
Cross-channel pays big dividends
To make the most of email marketing it cannot be used in isolation and, increasingly, cross-channel elements produce great bang-for-buck. Using the SMA example, they successfully combined email and Facebook to drive engagement and saw a 38% open rate which is impressive when you consider that Mother’s Day is a busy period to stand out in a crowded inbox. Similarly, Fortnum & Mason ran a cross-channel campaign promoting honey integrating their store and online elements to drive subscribers and engagement.
Don’t forget seasonal
Don’t dismiss the draw of seasonality simply because your brand is not a classic ‘fit’. You don’t need to be a chocolatier or lingerie brand to have a great Valentine’s campaign. It can seem difficult to create enthusiasm and engagement when the products you sell are not as exciting as the latest tech gadget or on-trend fashion item. But Fuel Card Services didn’t let that deter them. The boosted their opens by 41% and saw an uplift of 90% in clicks by creating an enticing campaign which included an on-brand animation and a straightforward message.
It’s sale time
A common question is how to make Black Friday/Cyber Monday a retail success when the whole world goes sales-mad? One way is to use the data you have to build segments according to customer engagement and then create personalized customer experiences. That’s precisely what the Internet Fusion Group did for their Webtogs campaign with engaging content, innovative elements and clear delivery and returns messaging. They saw an impressive sales uplift and a 14% boost in click-to-open rates.
Want to re-engage thousands of subscribers?
It can be difficult to prevent a re-engagement campaign from descending into a bland legal message. But get it right and your audience will reward you for it. The National Garden Scheme used a clever play on words to make their message into an email full of personality and fun. Not only have they reactivated over 15k subscribers, but through data cleansing they have improved relevancy and personalization – as well as supporting full GDPR compliance.
