An ExactTarget Case Study: Volvo's Integrated CRM and Email Marketing Success
It's not uncommon to hear the argument, "B2B sales are done in person." That same sentiment is often paired with "social is for B2C," or "email is B2C." But, at this week's Connections 2012 Conference in Indiana, another story is being told by an unlikely source: Volvo Construction Equipment.
I'm talking excavators, pipelayers, and demolition equipment. The type of equipment some of us played with as kids, in not-to-scale Tonka Toy versions. But these guys are moving big equipment, and big money, and they're doing it with integrated customer data and email as essential parts to their internet marketing strategy.
Volvo Construction's products and services are offered in more than 125 countries, and channeled through proprietary or independent dealerships. The company's machines are used for road construction, oil and gas exploration, building demolition, industrial material handling, and forestry.
So what's all this have to do with email and data? First, let's start with a look at the power of email.
The Power of Email
A study by MarketingSherpa found that 75 percent of social media users prefer email as the method for companies to communicate with them. Whereas social is more easily a turn-off, turn-on channel that users can selectively engage with, email is far more intimate and direct. Dave Scott, CEO of MarketFish, put it this way in my interview with him earlier this year, “In order to make digital marketing effective, you have to drive the right traffic.”
Email is certainly a good way to do that. After all, people rarely switch email addresses, but they do migrate from one social media channel to another. And a recent study on word-of-mouth influence by Zuberance shows 57% of brand influencers use email as their main online recommendation tool.
Volvo uses ExactTarget as its targeted email marketing provider. ExactTarget's email solution allows Volvo to power data-driven messages—everything from transactional email sends and abandoned cart campaigns to dynamic content and live offers. Volvo has mastered the product, and uses it to deliver monthly newsletters and targeted offers.
The Power of Data + Email
The buzzword of the past two years, big data, is more than idle talk. Big data is now mainstream, moving from the supercomputing environment managed by data engineers, to enterprise IT applications used by much broader audiences. For digital marketers and advertisers in particular, the benefits of bringing big data mainstream are unmistakable; it provides access to a goldmine of untapped, previously unusable information.
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