Email Marketing by the Numbers: How to Use the World’s Greatest Marketing Tool to Take Any Organization to the Next Level

How Do I Create Relevant Content?

Let’s start with the most basic concept for driving relevance beyond segmentation. Dynamic Content refers to content that changes according to rules. The idea is that these rules are set up on the back end (i.e., a rule could be: Location = Indiana), and content to match this segment is easily created by the marketer. The email system automatically inserts that content into the email template for only the Indiana audience using the backend rule. For location targeting, you could have all fifty states defined by rules, and each version would use these rules to generate the appropriate content. Or you could split up the country by regions, with appropriate clothing based on those regions. The big idea is that in a single email, you can dynamically insert content based on information in your database (see Figure 7.1).

To recap, these dynamic content elements are inserted based on rules that the marketer defines within the email system that he or she is using. These rules can be as simple or as complex as the marketer desires. They can use “and” statements and “or” statements. For example, an “and” rule may be: Location = Indiana and Last purchase = July. An example of an “or” rule could be: Location = California or Location = New York.

Dynamic Content is a great place for experimentation. I’ve included some ideas to get you started on testing and driving stronger engagement. Again, every organization is different, and each example should be tested ...