STEVEN GUYER

Email as we know it was born in the early 1980s, but in the world of commerce, email is still a relatively emergent force in the marketing mix. We all know that email is incredibly fast, extremely cost-effective, track-able and targeted, making it arguably one of the best ways to maintain a one-to-one relationship with your customer. And Email Service Providers (ESP) are finding more and more ways to use it more and more effectively to target customers. And customers are taking notice.
One way that ESPs are finding more effective ways to communicate is through behavior-targeted messaging. Behavior-based messaging takes into consideration customer preference, actual shopping activity, and product availability.

To get an idea of how behavior based messaging works, imagine that you walk into a store where you browse around, and ask the stylist to hold on to some items as you continue shopping.  Now imagine that a few days later, the stylist remembers who you are, and then reminds you of your favorite items (or new items that you might like). This low pressure, highly targeted shopping experience is becoming less and less common in real-world stores, but is becoming more common in the online one.

Experian CheetahMail sends emails to customers using their own proprietary data collection systems as well as integrated with Omniture.  The online display community also uses existing customer data to provide targeted solution to their customers as evidenced by the Google Ad words Remarketing service which serves your ads when customers visit your site and then another web site in the same category.

After implementing dozens of these programs for a variety of Fortune 500 clients, behavior based marketing now has metrics that prove the involvement of users (openers, clickers) and the power to influence purchases. The dollar-for-dollar return on investment in targeted email communications can far exceed that of postal mail or other traditional direct methods. And as customers are turning to their mobile devices to supplement their shopping experiences, these targeted email messages will reinforce the real-world brand experience and fosters a closer relationship between the brand and customer.

Email remarketing is by far an overwhelming trend with over 74% of respondents engaging in remarketing and retargeting advertising.   And with the advent of mobile devices being a larger part of the online and brick-and-mortar customer experience, the trend will only continue to grow.

The good news: an abandoned sale is not a failure; it's simply an opportunity for a low-cost, high-yield email.