3 Reasons Why Data Can Improve Your Email Marketing Strategy This Year

It was an ordinary day in 1994 when Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel , and Elizabeth Vargas sat on the set of The Today Show and answered the questions everyone was asking: “What is the Internet, anyway?” and “What do you write about it, like mail?”

Almost three decades later and the Internet and email are societal mainstays. As of 2023, around 5.1b people use the Internet, and over 80% of them send emails.

And despite the rapid rise of programmatic advertising, the old-school email is still a stalwart in the minds of many advertisers. In fact, 37% of brands are increasing their email budget this year as the “old-school” tactic continues to pay dividends.

There lies the challenge. Your average customer and prospect receive 120 messages a day. As a result, many of your emails go unseen, while those that do see the light of day often lack the engagement you need to hit your goals.

The solution? Power your email marketing strategy with data.

Here’s why—and how—data can help you send better emails and hit your goals faster.

1. Data Helps You Personalize Your Messaging

Log into Netflix, and you’re greeted with suggestions based on your watch history. Surf Amazon, and you’re followed by a handful of products related to what you’ve bought in the past.

That level of personalization is the norm because it works and because 91% of consumers say they’re more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations.

That craving for personalization is now fully ingrained in the B2B world, with 75% of B2B buyers preferring personalized recommendations from trusted vendors. If they don’t feel like a brand, advertiser, or seller is taking measures to understand them, they’ll find ones that will (and buy from them).

This expectation carries over to your email marketing strategy.

Gone are the days of people opening emails with subject lines like “Discover Innovative Advertising Solutions for Your Business” and body copy that speaks to the masses.

There’s too much noise and competition for those tactics to work. The right data can help you navigate both of those hurdles.

Say you’re selling B2B media and want to reach out to prospects via email about a special on your ad inventory. With the right data into your prospect’s advertising strategy, competitors, market share, spend distribution, and more, you can craft a subject line and email that not only resonates but demands a click.

For example, if you were selling to a DraftKings competitor in the gambling industry, you could send email highlighting the company’s reliance on TV ads in March and April.

Example subject line: DraftKings is Spending Big on TV. Are You?

The rest of the email could then dive into additional insights into DraftKings’ strategy, how the competitor could get the advertising upper hand, and a personalized CTA that converts 202% better than default or standard ones.

2. Data Improves Your Productivity

If you’ve been in sales for any time, you know how demanding the profession is and, more importantly, how little time you spend actually selling. The average seller spends only about 36% of their time selling, with the rest spent on administrative tasks, prospecting, and research. You know, non-selling activities.

Let’s look at one of these tasks: Prospecting.

In some way, shape, or form, you’re looking to answer a handful of questions:

Does the prospect have a need or pain point my solution can address?
Does the prospect fall within our total addressable marketing (TAM)?
What’s the prospect’s long-term potential?
Are they open to exploring a variety of ad types?
Is this person the decision maker, or is someone else singing the dotted line?

You need to answer these questions—and more—before you can send a relevant email. The alternative is sending the email blindly to prospects who don’t meet your ideal customer profile (ICP), which wastes even more time and money.

The right data, however, can give you access to these answers, eliminate the guesswork from prospecting, and ensure you’re being as productive as possible.

3. Data Improves Your Lead Scoring System

Data doesn’t just help you send better emails; data can inform your future strategy by serving as the foundation of your lead-scoring system.

Remember those questions?

Does the prospect have a need or pain point I can address?
Does the prospect fall within our total addressable marketing (TAM)?
What’s the prospect’s long-term potential?
Are they open to exploring a variety of ad types?
Is this person the decision maker, or is someone else singing the dotted line?

A yes or no to these questions equates to a number. The higher the number, the more valuable the prospect and, therefore, the sooner you should reach out. That’s another efficiency and productivity play you can’t ignore.

On top of that, by sending better emails, you’ll naturally get a better understanding of a prospect’s point in their buying journey. Think about it: If you send a highly personalized email to a prospect that gets opened but ultimately ignored, you could conclude with some degree of certainty that they’re not currently in the market for what you’re selling. As a result, you can spend your time selling to other prospects who may be closer to the finish line.

How MediaRadar Can Help You Send Better Emails

All of the timely data and cross-format insights you need to send click-worthy emails are at your fingertips inside MediaRadar, an award-winning advertising intelligence platform used by those who sell media and those who buy or plan advertising buys.

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