l planning for Q4: How to reach your most valuable customers //

Are you ready to launch your Q4 emails? You still have plenty of time to optimize your emails.

This article will explore how you can improve your email program.

• Find out who your most valuable customers are.
• Building a successful Q4 testing campaign.
• Integrating personalization with automation.
• Improving for the year 2024.

How to identify the highest-value customers

Different industries (CPGs, B2Cs, e-commerces) have different ways of determining their most valuable customers. In the context of email, high-value clients are those who consistently interact. Focus on customers who have engaged in the past 30-60 days (i.e. clicked, opened or purchased).

If you want to learn more about your customers, make sure that you include the 90-day segment. If you start collecting data today and run tests, you will have three months to learn with some holiday time left over.

How should you prepare for the Q4 tests?

I am often asked what the best thing to test first is. I suggest testing everything, which is why just a quarter isn’t enough time to prepare.

Offers and incentives

Working with clients or colleagues, determine what offers they would like that would keep them profitable. Use a “control option” that you know is effective. Then test out more aggressive and less aggressive offers to determine what works the best.

You can run these tests on your most valuable and least valued customers to find out what motivates them. You may learn the most from the low-value users, since they are the hardest to reach.

Send Time Optimization

If you’re able to increase sales without offering any offers, just by optimizing your content and send timing, then that will be the most impressive thing. You can use the ESP send time optimization tools to achieve this (e.g. Smart Send Time in Klaviyo, or Einstein STO for Salesforce) in order to accomplish this. By tailoring your send time to the user’s engagement patterns, you can have a huge impact on email engagement.

Test your email copy

Test elements other than subject lines. You can start by testing the copy if you’ve identified your engagement segments.

Customize your communication to the frequency of engagement and familiarity that users have with your brand. It could be adding a personalized touch for less engaged users that need more educational material.

You can also tailor copy for users who are highly engaged and familiar with your brand. Focus on updates and brand equity. You can gain insight into how to communicate with each segment by starting with a segmented content approach. This will also allow you to test different email elements.

Test the features of your product

After you have completed your general content testing, examine the features of your products. You could test popular products, or the way you present dynamic features of your product based on user engagement. The placement of product features can boost sales quickly.

What is the best place to start when integrating automation and personalization?

As much as you can, personalize your emails. Customize product placement and features for ecommerce brands. This is especially important if you are targeting a specific audience. Use personalization to tailor your products based on the preferences and behaviors of customers, regardless of industry. A CPG dairy manufacturer, for example, can send out different recipes depending on the past engagement of specific products.

The most important levers in automation are the abandon cart, browse abandoned and welcome series. You can expect more visitors to your website and more subscriptions over the holidays. So, entice them by offering CTAs. Create a plan for engagement after subscription.

In Q4, post-purchase email automations can also be a major revenue driver. Test your post-purchase experience now when the volume is lower, so you can put in place the most effective one for Q4 when purchases increase.

Cross-selling can be a great opportunity. (If you’ve just sold sneakers, give them a package of stylish shoelaces). Even if you only send one thank-you email (including the shipping timelines), this should be sent at the right moment.

Do a decision split for your customer journey if you are ready to focus on post-purchase emails. Ask people to sign up if they haven’t already. If they are already signed up, try a cross-sell.

Explore 6 email automations that are essential but underused

What can you do to make 2024 better?

Plan your Q4 in January and be honest about what worked or didn’t work. By Q2, you should have a good idea of your audience and what they are looking for.

The most successful email clients are those who know how to segment their audience into high, medium and low engagement segments. They also tailor their content for each bucket, and they have tested and built their Always-On Journeys.

Another benefit of planning so far in advance is that with data gathered over months, you can build up and stress test your volume and frequency. Brands who don’t engage with their subscribers for nine months, and then start blasting them in Q4, are not as effective as brands that have a measured, steady approach.

Drive Q4 revenue through email optimization: Testing, personalization, and automation

Now is the time to put things into action. Small changes, whether it is more strategic segmentation or personalized product offers, more effective cadence, or all of the above, can have a huge ripple effect at a time when interest in buying products is high.

Dig deep: 6 email programs to optimize for Q4

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