We found out recently that we were one of five companies selected for Shop.org’s Innovation Contest as part of the Shop.org Strategy & Innovation Forum. Alongside companies like BazaarVoice (an SLI partner) and others, we have the opportunity to give a short presentation about our innovative idea – leveraging site search data to dramatically improve the results of email marketing campaigns.
Our “idea” was based on a few client projects where we teamed with our partner ExactTarget to create highly targeted, personalized email marketing messages tailored to individual shoppers at our clients’ sites. By incorporating site search data about visitors’ search activity and data about their shopping preferences and behavior, companies can create email messages that contain popular search results for preferred items (e.g. “women’s shoes”), brands and styles of each customer, and see amazing results. In some cases, our customers saw a 250% higher open rate, a 400% increase in click-troughs, and 300% increase in sales. They also saw a 400% decrease in un-subscribes, a pretty significant measure for email campaigns.
There is so much marketers can do with site search data beyond showcasing products in search results – and many marketers aren’t even aware. Using the data for highly targeted email messages is just one way to extend the ROI of site search and make it worthwhile for your business. If you have any thoughts to share about this, we’d love to hear from you. And if you’ll be at Shop.org in Orlando next week (Feb 2-4), drop by our booth (#307) or come hear us talk about our Innovation Idea. It might be something you can replicate too.
