OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2015. Does your holiday wish list include better performance from your email campaigns? No worries, I have just what you need—15 surefire ways to overcome generic mass emails by including personalized content and recommendations with every send.

In a recent blog, I explained how simple it is to configure Marketing Cloud’s Predictive Intelligence features to engage customers in 1-to-1 conversations at scale. The article describes how to observe customer behavior like web pages they’ve visited or products they’ve purchased, and then provide relevant digital recommendations by inferring preferences or intent.

Now, let’s check out some content-targeting strategies that can help you achieve specific email campaign goals. Whether your holiday objectives include add-on sales, upselling, improved customer loyalty, abandoned cart recovery, or others, Marketing Cloud can help you cut through the clutter with custom-tailored content and recommendations for each and every recipient.

Marketer’s Wish List: Add-on Sales and Upsells

One of the most effective ways to achieve add-on sales and upsells is to include email recommendations based on web activity, previously observed transactions, and/or current transactions. For example, the recommendations could be included in a post-purchase transaction message, a rate and review message, or following cart abandonment.

1. Cross-Sell Recommendation: Other customers who bought any of the products recommended in the recipient’s email also bought these products.

2. Upsell Recommendation: Other customers who bought the products the email recipient just purchased also bought these products.

3. Cart Recovery Recommendation: Other customers who bought the item the email recipient last added to her cart--but did not yet purchase—also bought these products. 

Marketer’s Wish List: Engage and Retain Customers, Drive Loyalty

Engaged customers are loyal customers. Predictive recommendations can dramatically increase the effectiveness of emails related to rewards programs, birthday campaigns, or promotional offers like discount campaigns and free shipping. The key, of course, is to personalize the content based on known user interests and affinity profiles.

4. Favorite Recommendation: The email includes content that is most popular with customers who share attributes similar to the recipient (based on his or her behavior like views, clicks, and purchases).

5. Affinity Recommendation: The email includes items most relevant to a combination of the recipient’s top 5 affinities (based on purchases/clicks/views) pulled from his or her affinity profile.

6. Last Viewed Recommendation: Other customers who have viewed any of the last 7 items the email recipient viewed also viewed these items.

7. Recently Viewed Recommendation: The email includes the recipient’s last 7 recently viewed products

8. Last Viewed Cart Recommendation:  Other customers who viewed the item the email recipient last put in his or her cart also bought these products.

9. Last Viewed Bought Recommendation: Other customers who viewed the item the email recipient last purchased also bought these products.

10. Last Viewed View Recommendation: Users who viewed the item the email recipient last put in his or her cart also viewed these products.

Marketers’ Wish List: Increase Sales of Specific Products

Looking to drive sales on specific products or inventory? Try one of these recommendations in your next newsletter.

11. New Release Recommendation: The email includes new items or content recommendations based on the product release date.

12. Most Popular Recommendation: The email recommends the most popular products based on a combination of purchases, clicks, and views.

13. Top Grossing Recommendation: The email recommends the top selling products based on dollar amount.

14. Top Selling Recommendation: The email recommends the top selling products based on units sold.

15. Top Views Recommendation: The email recommends the most highly viewed products across the site.

Our Recommendation? Get Started!

With every view, click and purchase, your customers are telling you about themselves and their interests. With Marketing Cloud and Predictive Intelligence, you can automatically and continuously analyze, data, surface insights, and act in real time. For additional tips on new ways to achieve your marketing goals with personalized recommendations and content, check out this free eBook, Meet Predictive Journeys.