10 Things Every Editor and Media Marketer Needs to Know About Sailthru

I’m the luckiest girl in the world. As Sailthru’s Manager of Training and Customer Development, I spend my time traveling from client site to client site training our latest and greatest customer teams.

On any given day, I’m working with B2C ecommerce marketers to help them maximize their use of our solution to increase consumer engagement and retention, or am working with the editors of some of the most highly-regarded publications showing them just how easy it is to publish content for omnichannel use.

It’s seriously a dream.

What’s so amazing to me is the moment when our new clients “get it” – when they see how much time Sailthru will save them; when they realize just how powerful the solution is; when they recognize that they will finally be able to focus on strategy development rather than day-to-day batch and blasts for email or working with multiple teams to pull data to be analyzed for future campaigns. This a-ha moment always makes me smile (and reinforces why I’m so proud to be on this team).

So how does my role translate into something you need to know?

Well, I’m in the application every single day and the questions that come up in client trainings are wide-ranging and incredibly varied because Sailthru itself can do SO many things beyond email.

Here’s a shortlist of what you need to know about Sailthru:

1.  Realtime dashboard means true real-time.

It’s a new feature that we’re rolling out and what makes it different is that it’s actually updating in real time. You’ll find pageviews and other metrics so that you can quickly action based on activities of note.

2.  Direct API-CMS integration makes it easy on your team.

Our system becomes a part of your system. The API plugs directly into your CMS – whether it’s off the shelf or custom built – so that editors work in their primary system and can quickly publish content that dynamically populates into email.

3.  Success-based A/B testing is tied to engagement metrics, not just open rates.

Media and publishing companies can test 4 versions and then tie their A/B testing winner selection to pageviews and other success metrics to ensure that email is driving action, not just opens. It’s about taking the long-view for measurement success and looking a level deeper than what is immediately intuitive.

4.  Our recommended content slider doubles as an onsite acquisition tool.

We automatically identify anonymous users and serve them with an email sign-up message in the slider. You choose when the acquisition CTA appears (after 1, 2, 3+ article reads) and how many times an anonymous user sees the CTA. You can see this at work at www.businessinsider.com. If you’re an anonymous user, you’ll be served with the CTA after reading your second article. Business Insider has seen the Sailthru recommended content slider become their 2nd most effective user acquisition vehicle.

5.  Onsite content recommendations tools are 100% customizable.

Deploy as a full page, mid-page gallery, right rail widget, in the footer or wherever you choose in your look and feel to ensure a seamless experience. This feature is also on Business Insider, but check out https://my.allwomenstalk.com/- the entire site is powered by this product!

6.  Our mobile SDK allows for true mobile personalization.

The user interest graph we build on each individual user includes the full spectrum of devices and operating systems that are used to access content. For mobile messaging, you can select either Push Notifications or SMS, based on your preferences and those of your individual audience members. For your mobile app, we collect user interests! It’s amazing what this SDK allows us (and you!) to do.

7.  We’re built natively for flexible big data querying and analysis.

Using Marigold Engage by Sailthru, you can action based on user-level variables, purchase-level variables and interest-level variables from data that we collect and/or data that you pass in via our API. You can leverage the variables we set or create your own. Either way, queries instantly access data back to user acquisition, whether that be 5 years ago or 5 minutes ago. All without needing your devs or additional professional services!

8.  Email follow up queries are built so that you can take action within a campaign email (or communication).

Once a send is completed, you can then query users based on criteria like “opened the message,” “did not open the message,” “clicked in the message,” and other criteria that will allow you to send follow up campaigns to these specific users. Better yet, you can use Smart Strategies to automate this entire process. It’s amazing and many clients are seeing increased pageviews because of it!

9.  Editable Smart Lists allow you to run lists once and then they live in real-time.

These email lists pull in users who fit specific criteria and push out users who don’t, in real time. Just before an action is taken, Smart Lists automatically query your database to ensure that you are communicating to the right customers in real time. These lists take just a few minutes to create and they are now editable – it’s another new feature that is saving time for all of our clients!

 10.  We have leading account management.

The bottom line is that you get the best support and attention, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. Our Account Management Team takes the time to understand your business needs and goals, and works alongside you to determine what success looks like for your business. Then we provide best practice information, define optimization opportunities, execute strategic business reviews, and are your primary source for all the Sailthru platform knowledge you could ever need. We love to help our clients grow their businesses using Marigold Engage by Sailthru, and top tier Account Management is critical to making it happen.

Okay, so maybe that was a long shortlist, but I’m just scratching the surface with what makes Sailthru so unique. Want to learn more about these features? Check out more blog posts about the Realtime Dashboard, A/B testing and Sailthru Mobile.

—

Jenna Drapkin is the Manager of Training and Customer Development at Sailthru and prior Senior Account Manager. Before joining Marigold Engage by Sailthru, Drapkin has worked multiple marketing and client services roles at companies like Acxiom and MEC.