Proving the ROI of Dynamic Content Marketing

Positioned correctly, dynamic content marketing can help marketers carry customers and prospects from email and SMS contacts to engagement on a website and beyond.

“Everything needs to carry through to the web experience, because if you don’t actually convert in an email,” said Jason Jennings, director, user experience, dCRM, Verizon Wireless, at the recent Responsys Interact event in San Francisco. “You need to create a consistent experience.”

Erica Webb-Belzer , director of marketing communications of Schwan’s Home Service, noted that the food delivery service has developed a centralized location to house content and images so it can be easily accessed from one central repository. This is essential, given that the company has over 350 products and accompanying information and visuals.

Likewise, Verizon stories all of its brand images with references to product IDs so it can be easily found for use in the over 2,000 different campaigns the company runs annually.

“We have to maintain brand standards, that’s the reputation of our company,” said Jennings. “If messages aren’t on brand we run the risk of losing the customer or prospect.”

An easily accessible content library can help companies quickly test offers and creative, to see what is working and what isn’t. In its “See What’s New to Love” campaign, Schwan was able to test things like double rewards versus total dollar-off offers, or vertical versus horizontal, as well as calls to action, to understand what portions of email messages are their “prime real estate.”

“Dynamically testing offers allows us to use real time analysis to inform other pieces, such as the catalog,” Webb-Belzer said. “We’re pretty lucky—we have a methodical testing process and we know our customers typically scroll through our entire email.”

Verizon’s Jennings notes that its important to understand where the customer will interact with your offer—they may miss it in an email promotion, so it is essential to be able to retarget them if they visit your site.

“We’re looking at multiple things, like what sequence users do things in, and how these things lead to a positive—or not so positive—result, comparing what they might say to a rep in the store versus on the phone, or interactions via email or on the website,” he noted.

When thinking about how to get started in creating dynamic content, Jennings advised starting with your largest segment groups—i.e. the ones with the largest ROI—and looking at those groups where the content could be reusable across multiple channels.

“Start small and test one thing,” suggested Webb-Belzer. “Set expectations with managers and senior leadership, to show them how much effort and time it will take so you can prove out the ROI of dynamic content marketing.”