Several employees from Digital Additive attended the Think Summit hosted by Movable Ink in New York on June 8–9th. Like most conferences, it has been put on hold for the past two years, and it was the first conference I have attended since 2019. You could immediately feel the excitement shared by others to be back in person, and the energy was high. The conference was held at The Glasshouse, which is right on the Hudson River in New York City with amazing 360-degree views of Manhattan. There were 500 guests from 200 unique companies in attendance.
The conference started off strong with the Keynote given by Vivek Sharma, the CEO of Movable Ink, interviewing their client L.L Bean. They showcased L.L Bean email templates leveraging Movable Ink technology for full customer personalization. No one email is the same; all the content is driven by the customer’s search and purchase behavior using AI to power the personalized content. This personalization resulted in a lift of 16% in Open Rates, 20% in Conversion Rates, and 15% in Revenue. These increases were recognized as a huge success at L.L. Bean. Moving forward, the company plans to apply these email successes to other channels for a full Omni-Channel experience for their customers.
Throughout the conference, we heard from Movable Ink’s partners like MessageGears, Braze, and Phrasee on how they are integrating their technology platforms with Movable Ink to help their clients power customer engagement through data and technology.
We also heard from big name brands such as L.L. Bean, Walmart, Office Depot, Overstock, Frontier Airlines, Kohl’s, and Walgreens. They all shared a similar message emphasizing the importance of driving customer engagement and increasing email platform results through one-to-one personalized content and messaging. They all had examples of how they created real-time trigger emails that utilize Movable Ink technology, resulting in a lift in engagement, conversion, and sales.
Here are some key take aways and trends that I learned at the conference:
- “Everyone is doing Personalization” But are they really, a Forrest Research Analyst asked. First name or last purchase is not enough, and customers expect more. You need to use data to anticipate what they need or want next and show that to the customer.
- “Surprise and Delight is a Lie” It doesn’t happen. How many times have you, as a customer of a product from a specific brand, been surprised and delighted by an email? Probably never. Instead, figure out the customer’s pain point. Instead of trying to surprise and delight a customer, use your time instead to take away the pain points before they happen.
- “Testing is more important now than ever” Going into a soft economy, marketing budgets may be the first to be cut. Small changes make a big impact. The reason we test is to maximize outcomes and prove that the investments made provide incremental impact and value. So don’t stop testing.
- “Map out your Customer Journey” This is key to KNOWING YOUR CUSTOMER and their experience. Map out the process and the decisions to better understand where to push them through the journey and prevent them from dropping off.
- “Focus on Winning the Customers between Purchases” Stay top of mind, get in front of them before they need something, and don’t wait until they begin their search. Get in front of them before they search your site or enter your store.
We’re always eager to apply new learnings for our clients. Here at Digital Additive, we have built standardized templates and content libraries to allow for easy scaling with personalized messaging, creative and product recommendations that align with their customer’s behavior. Some of this is built natively in the Salesforce Marketing Platform using the customer’s data. For other clients, like Revlon.com, we use Movable Ink to power the personalization.
If you’d like to learn more about how Digital Additive can help you build your email programs and help personalize with the rich data you already have please contact us. We’d love to talk.
Written by Courtney Tierney
