The ‘Email 2.0: Making Email Cool Again’ series began with Part 1, which spoke about the evolution of email and the problem of Attention Recession. The subsequent seven parts covered the various innovations of Email 2.0: Hooked Score, Atomic Rewards, Ems, AMP, and Progency. This concluding part offers a summary and a glimpse into the future.
Let’s start with an executive summary of the Email 2.0 pitch
The Problem
90% of marketing budgets are being used up for new customer acquisition, leaving only 10% for existing customers.
Marketers are increasingly worried about rising CAC and limited customer data.
AdWaste is the unstated problem – reacquisition and wrong acquisition. Half of the marketing budgets are being wasted.
The rising CAC is forcing marketers down a doom loop of ad spending.
The adtech spends are being further impacted by changes in privacy rules and the limits being put on the use of cookies.
Marketers need a way out because their department has become a cost center and loss leader.
Every CEO needs to be concerned about AdWaste as it directly affects profitability.
The Real Problem
To solve the problem, there needs to be a better understanding of the problem.
The real issue is Attention Recession – the lack of a hotline to existing customers.
Customers are ignoring push messages, and hence brands lack an effective way to bring them back to the website or app.
Attention Recession causes Retention Recession leading to Customer Churn.
This forces brands down the spending path of new customer acquisition.
The path to cutting AdWaste and increasing profitability, therefore, lies in solving the problem of Attention Recession.
The Solution
What brands need and have failed to do is to build a hotline to their existing customers.
Push messaging is the only way to do this; email remains the most effective push channel.
However, email has not evolved and is not seen as cool, leading to 90% ignore rates in messages.
This is where Email 2.0 comes in, with its five innovations of Hooked Score, AMP, Ems, Atomic Rewards, and Progency:
- Hooked Score offers a new metric to measure stickiness, streaks and engagement intensity.
- AMP makes emails interactive and infinitely more engaging; it also enables easier collection of zero-party data.
- Ems increases the mental availability of the brand by making emails a utility and daily habit for customers.
- Atomic Rewards gamifies emails, offering micro-incentives and nudges for the behavior marketers want.
- Progency is the next-gen agency that can make it all happen with a pay-for-performance model.
Together, they have the ability to drive attention, engagement, and habit creation.
Email 2.0 creates the pipe, a hotline to existing customers. This is what ensures that the brand’s messages get through to their existing customers.
This, in turn, drives higher revenues from the existing base and enables reduction of spending on new acquisition.
A 20% increase in revenues combined with a 50% decrease in ad spends can drive a doubling profit for brands (or convert losses into profits).
Email 2.0 therefore needs to become a CEO priority; it is the only path to profitable growth.
Email 2.0 can make CMOs the heroes their company needs: profit creators, not profit killers!
The Future
Email 2.0 is the foundation for Martech 2.0, Adtech 2.0, and better brand-customer relationships. The best martech platforms can be used to craft the perfect message, but if customers are not listening, it is all a pointless exercise. That is why the combination of interactivity, information, and incentives is needed to create a hotline to which the customer responds when the brand speaks.
Customer data platforms and AI-ML can add the layers needed to martech platforms to provide a unified customer view, making the engagement that much sharper and precise.
The pipe created by Email 2.0 is what enables the next phases of modern marketing – partitioning and prospecting. The key is to focus on the Best customers, create differentiated experiences for them, and make them the channels for new customer acquisition.
As I see the future, microns will pave the way for the micronbox and the µniverse. The micronbox will declutter the customer’s existing inboxes and ensure no brand messages are missed. The µniverse is about taking the brand-customer relationship to new heights using Web3 crypto tokens.
Tesla’s innovation in electric vehicles is creating an exciting new future – starting with personal transportation but going way beyond. Similarly, the promise of Email 2.0 is vast. Email remains the best communications channel; that is why it has survived for 50 years for one-to-one and group interactions and almost 25 years for brand-customer engagement. Many wannabe alternatives have come and gone.
Email 2.0 takes email into the future, making it cool again. For customers, it creates magical moments; for brands, it drives habits. For marketers, it makes them the profit creators, not profit killers.
Welcome to the world of Hooked Score, AMP, Ems, Atomic Rewards, and Progency. Welcome to Email 2.0!
Postscript 1: 27 years ago, I launched India’s first Internet portals. Now, my hope is that Netcore can pioneer the Email 2.0 revolution. More importantly, I want Netcore Cloud to be the company that enables brands to become profitable. For the past 15 years, Netcore Cloud has built a foundation of profitable growth. I want to be able to take this same mindset to brands. Yes, capital is easily available and can be used to fund growth. However, it is only profitable growth that creates enduring, great companies.
Email 2.0 is the technology that is the key – I would argue, the only key – that can unlock exponential forever profitable growth. For brands, and, hopefully, for Netcore Cloud.
Postscript 2: Here is the Email 2.0 webinar presented jointly by Forrester and Netcore. Shar speaks initially, and then I present from minute 22 onwards. We then have Q&A from minute 44 onwards.
