In Part 6, I discussed the various elements of Email 2.0: AMP and Ems to make emails better, Atomic Rewards to power a loyalty program for attention, Hooked Score to measure engagement intensity, and Progency to make it happen.
This part contains examples of how a composite of AMP, Ems, and Atomic Rewards can work together to drive greater engagement. Most of us are familiar with Wordle. Imagine if brands could use the same game idea to drive more engagement. We have called it Wordex.
Exhibits A and B show the AMP-enabled email delivered to the inbox. It can also be considered as an Em – short, informative, sequenced. The µ in the Subject Line identifies it as a micron – an email with rewards. The number next to µ (1803 in this case) shows the total loyalty points I have.
When I open the mail, the MuCount in the footer (shown in Exhibit B) has increased by 1 – so I earned 1 µ for opening the email. This real-time feedback is important to ensure customer delight.
Exhibit C shows the results as I fill in the letters to guess the word. I am doing all this in the email itself – without clicking to a website. This is the magic of AMP!
Exhibit C shows me also earning more Mu by guessing the word in 3 chances. Exhibit D shows the increment in MuCount with my newly earned rewards. Exhibit D also has some AMPlets – to rate the email and unsubscribe.
This is a unique kind of email that we have never seen before!
It has Interactive (AMP), Informative (Em), Incentivized (Atomic Rewards). Together, they can combine to make push messaging so much better. This is the way to drive a multi-fold increase in email open rates and engagement, laying the foundation for building the brand hotline to each customer.
A brand can begin with 10% of the user base entrusted to Progency to combine regular campaigns with Ems, with every email AMP-enabled and enriched by Atomic Rewards. Hooked Score can be used to do an A/B test over a 30-day period. The results should conclusively prove that the problem of Attention Recession can be solved. This creation of the pipe is the path to profitability.
Pipe Power
Email 2.0 is not just the pipe to customers but also the path to profits. Building a hotline to existing customers is a mission-critical agenda for brands. Without customers listening to their messages, the connection with the customer is broken. Brands have no other option but to join the unwinnable race to spend on the Big Tech platforms to acquire new customers.
Email 2.0 is thus the solution to attention recession, retention recession, and continuous customer churn; it is the path to profitability. Put like this, it all seems so obvious. So why have marketers not focused on this? There are multiple reasons.
First, until a few years ago, the martech platforms did not exist. While email lists have been around for the better part of two decades, without the ability to collect, analyze, and segment customer data to scale, marketers had only two choices: send one-to-one transactional messages or mass broadcast to all. It was the marketing automation platforms that helped marketers orchestrate journeys for better targeting.
Second, among the push channels, even as email showed the best ROI, it was still a one-way channel with the only option being a clickthrough to a website. Compared to the richness of social media, email came across as almost ancient and clumsy in its interface.
Third, the increasing ease of spending on customer acquisition (pay for performance), combined with the land-grab mindset of top management, made acquiring new customers the priority. Adtech was easy; martech and CRM was hard. Easy always wins. Martech budgets were only 10-20% of overall marketing spends, and that is not enough to build multi-talented teams to deliver results.
Finally, in most brands, the tenure of CMOs is typically 2-3 years. So, by the time a fledgling martech program starts to deliver results, there is a new leader who starts the journey from scratch.
Email 2.0 addresses all these problems. As part of sophisticated, AI-driven Martech 2.0 platforms, it allows omnichannel personalization. Second, it makes email fun and interactive, bringing in immense possibilities and excitement. Creativity can now combine with tech to create memorable customer experiences. Third, CEOs are now starting to realize the dark side of adtech – the deep impact on profits.
The realization is starting to dawn that incessant and relentless acquisition cannot build an enduring business. Finally, Email 2.0 can deliver results in days and weeks, not months or years. CMOs can now hope for the corner room if they deliver – they can be the rainmakers, the stars at the head of the table.
Email 2.0 is the key that opens the door to lasting and win-win brand-customer relationships and profits in a way that none of the other push channels can. SMS has the telco tax, push notifications lack richness and interactivity, and WhatsApp’s price tag makes it prohibitively expensive if used regularly and at scale. Email is the best answer among the push messaging channels, and Email 2.0 addresses all the weaknesses of Email 1.0 to create a genuine transformation.
In fact, Email 2.0 will make other cross-channel efforts much more successful because marketers will have the attention of their customers and much more first- and zero-party data for personalization and segmentation. Email 2.0 can make every other customer interaction more meaningful.
Email 2.0 needs a new word – the one I like is Microns. Just as internal combustion engines and electric motors can both power cars but are a world apart, Email 2.0 is not only an upgrade to email but also different and significantly better.
Continued in Part 8
