Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: How Marketers Can Prepare for the Unknown

Expect the Unexpected

How many marketing initiatives perfectly follow the initial plan proposed by a project manager? If you answered, “none,” you’re in the same boat as every other marketer. No matter how far in advance campaigns are planned, something unpredictable inevitably arises. It’s the nature of ever-evolving  customers, dynamic business needs, and shifting global circumstances.

Marketers should not try to avoid unexpected changes; instead, their focus should be on adapting rather than sticking to outdated plans. The key to this lies in using strategies that are built with flexibility, such as the reduce, reuse, recycle approach.

Reduce Net-New Content

Emails have a notoriously long production period when they don’t take a templated approach and are hard-coded, making it difficult for marketers to adjust and adapt messaging quickly. To mitigate this issue, marketers should capitalize on the abundance of content that’s already at their fingertips, rather than creating net-new messages for every single deployment. Campaign images, product imagery, or editorial and user-generated content (UGC) that are already live are a treasure trove for marketers to activate in evergreen modules:

Web Content 

• Whether it’s product images, blog posts, or promotional messaging, websites are marketers’ best bet for existing content. Using tools like web-cropping, marketers can easily tap into that content and replicate it in email.

1st Party APIs

• Automated APIs are marketers’ one-stop-shop for streamlining data-driven content. Using APIs, marketers can stream real-time data and customer behavioral events all in an automated, set-it-and-forget-it approach. Additionally, APIs can also be used to include several data points in a single, hyper-relevant image.

3rd Party Vendors

• Most marketers have a variety of martech tools within their tech stack. Chances are, these solutions act as yet another repository for content that can be leaned on. When tech stacks are built strategically and each data source is integrated efficiently, using this content for messaging is quick and effective.

Hibbett Sports put the “reduce” approach into practice with their automated modules. Following their peak season messaging, the brand sent an email highlighting clearance product modules that displayed both original and sale prices. By using an Open Commerce API for up-to-date pricing and product imagery from their site, Hibbett was able to eliminate the need for new content while generating an enticing email that drove a 15.8% lift in revenue. 

Lean On Reusable Content

When customers are spending nearly 4 hours on their smartphones a day, it’s clear that marketers need to react quickly in a mobile-first world. To support an omni-channel story, an efficient workflow that reuses existing content for mobile is critical.

Supplement the “reduce” tactics with tools that make mobile deployment smooth sailing. As email and website imagery won’t render in exactly the same way as mobile, automatic image adjustments will be non-negotiable. To take the content a step further, marketers can also leverage mobile-specific data—such as app downloads, browsing, and purchasing—for the utmost relevance.

Asda is the perfect example of reusing content for an effortless omni-channel message. Their weekly Milestone Mission email was chock-full of personalization, such as a progress bar, personalized product recommendations, and timely reminders to inform shoppers of outstanding rewards and when they’ll  expire. The Asda marketing team reused this campaign in a rich push notification that highlighted customers’ current loyalty status in a data visualization progress bar. Customers clearly loved this omni-channel campaign, as it yielded an impressive 18.2% lift in CTR.

Recycling Leads to Relevance

Recycling isn’t just good for the planet, it’s good for content. While repurposing and resending messaging may seem like a dangerous faux-pas for marketers, it can result in greater efficiency and relevance for customers. By using the same creative asset for a variety of automated messaging, marketers can quickly adapt to customers’ individual needs, as the retailer below does:

Using the same module along with a CSV and associated icons, this retailer can feature varying content with a set-it and forget-it approach. Whether the retailer wants to surface supplemental benefits, early product releases, or exclusive events, the module automatically adapts—no updating of imagery or HTML coding required.

Marketers can improve further upon this approach by using AI to extend the life of each creative asset. By decoupling creative assets from their initial campaigns, content can be recycled for customers who are predicted to enjoy it or didn’t open their email the first time. Ultimately, the customer’s unique preferences are always prioritized, even when their individual needs don’t fit into traditional batched sends.

Take Lands’ End, for example. By using Da Vinci AI, the brand repurposed their off-season products, such as raincoats and swimsuits, as new content within their promotional emails. Rather than discarding these seasonal items after the initial promotional period, Lands’ End gleaned far greater value from each creative asset and used AI to understand which content would resonate with each customer most.  

Marketers pour so much time, effort, and creativity into each asset, yet in traditional email programs, these hand-crafted images become one-and-done sends. But with Da Vinci, marketers can truly make the most of each creative: it remains eligible in the brand’s library for longer, and the content can be resurfaced for a much lengthier time period.

Act Quickly for Speedy Results

By pairing robust tools with a reduce, reuse, recycle approach, marketers will be able to act at the speed of their business demands. To discover more efficiency wins through the power of innovative martech solutions, explore the related resources below.