Collect data using targeted campaigns

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There are many ways to communicate with your prospects and customers. Email marketing tends to be an efficient way to convert prospects into customers, and the same goes for maintaining profitable relationships with your current ones. Make sure that you have a clean and updated customer database with active email addresses.

The best time to collect customer data, such as email addresses, is in the very beginning of the customer journey. It's much harder to motivate customers to submit more information later than to add a couple of extra fields in the signup form and collect all key information from start. However, there are still ways to collect more data later on using targeted campaigns.

Here is an example of how to set up an SMS campaign to collect email addresses from existing customers.

1. Plan your campaign

Start by planning your campaign. What is the requested outcome? How will you communicate with your customers? Can you reward your customers for giving you their email addresses?

To optimize the results of your campaign we recommend you perform a test. This example includes a test to find out if reward points work as a good incentive for your customers and how many points that will do the trick.

• Goal: Collect email addresses from customers
• Channel: SMS
• Target group: Customers with phone numbers but no email addresses
• Test purpose: Find out if reward points work as an incentive
• Conditions for the campaign: Same copy but different amount of reward points

Create an estimated time frame for the test and the final campaign. It might take up to one week for contacts to respond so don't rush things too much.

• Send test campaign: February 1
• Analyze test results: February 15
• Send real SMS campaign: February 16
• Analyze the results: March 1

2. Create a strategy

A plan is nothing without a strategy. In this campaign your strategy will be to split the target group in to four smaller groups. Three of these groups will be included in the test and receive different amount of reward points and the fourth group will receive the winning version.

*In the final version (group D), we will use the registration form and reward points that generated the highest conversion rate in the test campaign.

3. Order registration forms

It's time to order your registration forms. This campaign requires three registration forms, one for each test group. The forms need to have the same design and copy except for the amount of reward points—this makes it possible to analyze the outcome of your test.

When your registration forms are done you need to create a label for each test group and connect it to the associated registration form. The labels will then be assigned automatically to contacts profiles as they add their email address in one of the forms.

To connect labels to each registration form, go to Administration and Registration forms. Contact support if you need assistance.

4. Build automations to reward your customers

Create one automation for each test group and assign reward points to the customers who add their email addresses. When building the automations, use the trigger Contact adds email or cellphone number.

• Add the label as entry criteria for each automation.
• Add an activity to assign reward points.
• Save and activate your automations.

5. Create Test Scenario groups

Now it's time to create your target groups. Go to the Segmentation tool and select the criteria for your target group: Reachable by: SMS + Email: Empty.

Click Create Test scenario and split the target group to unequally sized groups according to the test plan. The percentage is depending on the number of contacts you have in your target group. In this example we use 5 % per test group and 85 % for the real campaign.

Give your Test scenario a proper name and save. Example: 191218 SMS campaign

6. Send SMS messages

Create three SMS messages, one for each test group, and remember to mention the reward points in the copy. Insert a personalized URL to the associated registration form and select the Test Scenario group (A, B, or C) as recipients for each SMS. Schedule the messages when you are ready.

Note: The personalized URL needs to be followed by a blank space, no period or comma sign.

7. Follow up on your test campaign

Which group got the best result? Can you see a big difference between the test groups? Do we have a winner?

Go to the Segmentation tool and select one label at the time to see how many email addresses you have collected from each test version. Another way to see the result is by looking at the automations—you can easily see how many contacts that have completed each automation.

Now you probably know which reward works the best and it's time for the real campaign.

8. The real campaign

Create a new SMS message and use the copy from the winning test version. Use the same registration form as in the winning test version but change the label that will be assigned from the form to "Group D". To update the label in your registration form, go to Administration and Registration forms. Contact support if you need assistance.

Change the entry criteria in the winning automation to “Has the label: Group D” and activate it before you send the SMS message. Include Test Scenario Group D as recipients in the SMS message and schedule.