WORKWEEK

Bonjour Millionaire,

You know that expression Waste Not, Want Not? 

My Dad usually used to use it against me growing up when someone at school would get a fancy new something and then I’d subsequently ask for a fancy new something. I’ve always been easily influenced I usually found a way to break him down over time LOL.

Anywho, I digress. Waste Not, Want Not has a lot to do with how you think of your Marketing resources. Sorry, I had to bring it back to Marketing, I don’t want to make my Dad mad before the holidays LOL. 🎁

Us Marketers sure can get stuck wasting. 

Which brings up the dreaded U word.

No, not ugly.

UNDERUTILIZATION

Underutilizing your Marketing tech stack is a great way to kiss efficiency and effectiveness goodbye. Most of us get this wrong (let me show you):

You know Gartner? Yes, that Gartner. A Gartner survey of marketing leaders conducted in May and June 2023 (this year!!) revealed the utilization of their organization’s overall martech stack’s capability dropped to just 33% on average in 2023, marking a 2nd consecutive year of decline (42% in 2022 and 58% in 2020). 

When you pay for technology you don’t use… not good. Not good at all, dear angel millionaire. We’ve all been guilty of throwing too much software at the problem. That ends here. 

I admittedly used to do this, by the way. I’d go with the software that was most hyped and most expensive and most capable of doing this one little tiny thing that I needed. Does it actually make sense to bring on an entirely new partner for each ONE of these things? 

Email

SMS

Push (App + Web)

Identity Resolution

Advanced Acquisition Tools

Triggers

Behavioral Banners

Split-Testing

Predictive Product Recommendations

No, dear millionaire, it does not! Because when we use multiple providers for these key, INTERCONNECTED channels and tools, we overspend and we waste. If we’re gonna waste, let it be on something more fun. Ideally at the mall. 

Too many brands have been told that they need a different provider that only does this one thing well and then before you know it you’re in disparate systems that don’t connect well with each other, that overlap, that over-index (over-report the contribution), and that aren’t actually incremental at all. 

THE MATH DOESN’T MATH RISK

(THE PROBLEM)

When you have so many different platforms that all do very similar things, you run the scary risk of over-attribution on who really drove what. 

The source of truth becomes pretty hard to find. If 2 platforms give themselves credit for 1 sale, that’s hard enough. Multiply that by 20 different softwares and we have a problem. 

A problem with hidden over-credit, AND A HIDDEN COST PROBLEM.

🐲: Duplicate technology ➡️YOU’RE OVERPAYING

🐊: Multiple systems that you have to access for messages, reporting, analytics ➡️ inefficient use of your time and resources, and inaccuracy in attribution

If you house data in 40 places and then you need to figure out what is happening with this 1 singular customer – how do you bring that data back together and trace every single communication and every single touchpoint directly and correctly? Doing this for 1 customer would be hard with data stored in a million different places. Imagine having to track this across all of your customers! 

🐉: No true connection of data and each channel is in a silo ➡️ sub-par customer experience and lacking revenue

There’s a true hidden cost if you’re sending an expensive text message to a customer that actually performs better for you on email, if your systems can’t tell you exactly what to send to who and when… why not? When you send a customer an SMS but they actually would have performed better for you on email, you are adding on wasted costs. Waste Not, Want Not. It’s not about sending more messages, it’s about sending the right messages on the right channel depending on the actual behavior of that one singular customer – their preferences should dictate their channel not your overflowing tech stack. 

🦖: Chasing bells and whistles and features you won’t actually use ➡️ inconsistency and lack of optimization in other areas

Hidden costs are frightening. 

Terrifying, I know, hidden costs scare me too. 

Enough about the problem (inefficiency, ineffectiveness, wasted money, wasted time, shiny object syndrome).

OPTIMIZED OWNED CHANNELS

(THE SOLUTION, OOO BABY )

Your owned channels (email, SMS), are the most important, drive the most revenue, and give you that everlasting connection with your customers – that direct line of communication to your angelic shoppers! 

When you think about your owned channel strategy, there are 5 key things you need, above all else. Not 4. Not 1. 5. And you can’t skip any of them (if you want to squeeze every last penny out of your tech stack and out of your beloved shoppers). 

Without further ado, please find below the 5 imperatives – mission critical. Code green (as in cash. $$$$$). 

Also, worth noting, there’s only 1 provider in the marketing technology world that has all 5 musts. Listrak. My marketing knight in shining armor, here to save me from inefficiency and waste. I love Listrak for these 5 specific reasons:

1️⃣♞: Listrak is a single platform with unified data. Designed to be actually actionable (imagine that!). Designed with highly personalized, 1:1 experiences that make our shoppers feel oh so special. 

🎠: Single, CONNECTED customer profiles

🎠: Highly intuitive and actionable      segmentation 

🎠: Relevant and personalized capabilities – built in

🎠: SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH FOR REPORTING AND ANALYTICS – unified dashboards connecting data and channels (my favorite part)

🎠: One login, one view, one way of managing it all

🎠: Maximize revenue, spend less, make more, go shopping 😉

2️⃣♞: Their robust cross-channel orchestration (where your channels work together – there’s no provider for each that are dueling for credit. On the contrary! There’s one source of truth, one team helping you (the Listrak team), and one goal – make you rich! Hit your revenue goals. 

🎠: Channels that actually work together 

🎠: You can actually make in real time and dynamic decisions on what’s working, where to double-down, and what channels to deploy what on. 

🎠: Allows you to get your messages to the right customer, at the right time. 

🎠: All of the best features, under one roof (single platform!!!)

🎠: No attribution wars (thank goodness, I can’t stand the drama)

3️⃣♞: GXP! Identity Resolution that is 100% focused on delivering revenue making you rich.

🎠: 95% of your website traffic is anonymous today – that ends with GXP (let’s you identify visitors that aren’t logged in).

🎠: Because Listrak’s ID Resolution provides the ability to identify more anonymous site visitors and market to them because you do, in fact, know them. This prints money! 

🎠: Truly Advanced acquisition and on-site personalizations to grow your lists and continue to activate this identity flywheel. It works so well. 

🎠: As an added bonus (lean in, dear millionaire)… Listrak will guarantee the results of their Identity Resolution product, GXP – that’s how powerful this is. SEE! PRINTS MONEY!!!!! 

4️⃣♞: PREDICTIVE AI – included in the platform (so very 2023 of them!!)

BTW, this AI works at the subject line level, too. Listrak lets you use all of that data they build their AI and ML atop, and they inject AI reccos throughout the tech – even down to the subject line. It’s all in the details, now isn’t it?!

🎠: AI SMS copy / reccos / messages

🎠: AI subject lines! (as discussed)

🎠: HIGHLY customizable predictive product recommendations (think if you used your key data point – say same category, same color, same price point, or specific margin – and fed that data into Listrak and voilà – the AI robots will tailor recommendations specific to the data you feed it!) 

Listrak will model out exactly who you should message, exactly what that message should say, and the robots are roboting here!! This is preferred by me, considering I’m no statistician. I LET THE ROBOTS ROBOT.

5️⃣♞: More than technology- I’m talking expertise. (And world-renowned white-glove service)

Your account manager can and will give you advice across the entire viewpoint of your channels – all of them. That makes the advice channel-agnostic. That makes it impartial. That makes it uncompromised. 

When the person giving you advice isn’t incentivized to boost one channel over another – then the data can really lead the recommendation.

Speaking of who is on this team, Listrak only and exclusively focuses on retail and ecom for clients you might know. 

CLIENTS LIKE Godiva (my chocolatier of choice), vineyard vines, Hunter Boots, MVMT, Sol de Janiero, etc. 

^ These are just 5 of more than 1,000 brands that Listrak powers. Good enough for Godiva, good enough for Ari! 

🎠: With Listrak, expect to reap the benefits of their award winning client services team, most of whom have been with the company for a full decade. That’s who works here. 

🎠: And, GXP by Listrak is a MANAGED SERVICE, so they actually do the entire thing for you – the A/B tests, the creative, the implementation, the growth – all white-glove. Love that. 

All this to say that I’m sailing off into the sunset with my knight in shining armor, with my fully utilized tech stack, and with more revenue than I know what to do with – because as they say, Waste Not, Want Not. 

If you’d like to gallop off into the blissful abyss that is hitting your owned channel goals, call my friends. I work with Listrak across so many of my clients, the team there are truly my friends. I root for them, they root for me, they’ll root for you. 

However, I have to go. I just realized it’s almost October and I’ve yet to send my Dad my holiday demand letter short, ever-so-brief list of little present(s) that I’d like this December. 

Dad, if you’re reading this, check your email in about an hour. There’s a spreadsheet with your name on it. 🎁

😁,

Ari