Last week, we went to Madex – the “ultimate marketing, advertising, design, social media, and all that good stuff expo.” Did you go? We asked Karyn Strybos, our Marketing Manager, what her take was on the event and this is what she said:
Your overall feeling about Madex?
For Everlytic, Madex 2019 was a hit! We had some strong conversations about email and SMS marketing – particularly around POPI. This suggests that marketers are getting ready for data privacy legislation, which is comforting.
We also had opportunities to educate the visitors, as some people still equate email marketing with spam – we need to work on this.
How did it differ from Madex 2018?
We had more authentic conversations this year. With our sweet stand last year, we found that some visitors just came to us for the sweets, rather than out of genuine interest in our software.
We also had more of a meeting hub set up this time. This was a great addition to the stand because it meant that attendees could get comfortable when chatting to our sales representatives about Everlytic and how it can help their businesses.
Did you take any lessons out of it?
Yes, that a good stand position is everything. Ours was right by the Academy Theatre where some of the seminars were held, which is great because people leaving the talks flooded passed our stand. This was especially helpful after our own presentations as some people were too shy to ask questions during the session.
What was your presentation about?
The topic was The Future of Email Marketing, where I looked at a few key trends in email marketing over the next five years. According to Statista, worldwide email traffic will grow to over 347 billion during this time, so the opportunity is massive.
Some of the key topics I discussed were:
- Using data for personalisation
We need to understand our audiences better. By collecting and using the right data, we can have more personalised communications – this doesn’t just produce higher open and click-to-open rates, but 6 x higher transaction rates too.
- The power of nurturing leads
Brands have seen higher sales and lower costs per leads when using a lead-nurturing strategy. This is most likely because these contacts have already shown interest in your brand, so they have a much higher chance of converting.
- High-quality message content
There are so many brands out there – you need content that’ll make your brand stand out. Find ways to create more engaging content – for instance, including GIFs in email has shown higher click through rates. The possibilities of interactive email are also going to grow over the next few years – so, start looking at how you can bring it into your communications now already.
- How automation saves time & resources
Automation is often daunting for people who haven’t used it before, but it doesn’t have to be. Automated messaging can be as simple or as complex as you want. A simple welcome email, for example, can show open rates of up to 50%, which is much higher than the local average.
- Channel integration for customer experience
Email marketing is only really effective once someone has shown interest in your brand or organisation. The likes of video and social media, for instance, can be powerful tools for broadening your reach, creating awareness, and driving people to act.
Madex has proven to be an invaluable expo for us to showcase our software. We’ve learned a lot along the way and are excited about the lessons we get out of it every year. We hope you got some good value out of our experience too. ????
