I was tasked by the UX Design Manager to independently research the current email marketing strategy, and understand why the metrics told a story of a highly ineffective approach. Based on my findings, I was to present analytics, propose solutions, and proofs of concept to the Vice President of ClubLabs, the digital incubator for AAA, for a mandate to test the strategy.

I decided that the primary goal of this project was to find a strategic, pragmatic, and user-centered Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) approach to differentiating their highly commoditized insurance products from their competition via personalized messaging. Having explored data automation via AI and ML on my own prior to working with ClubLabs, I interviewed the Vice President of Marketing, the Head Quality Assurance Engineer, Lead Product Managers, and the Manager of Digital Messaging to gain insight and understanding around AAA's existing CRM approach.

The current email marketing strategy is incomplete, impersonal, confusing, repetitive, and uninspiring. Overall metrics for auto insurance email campaigns continue to decline Y.O.Y. indicating a disconnect in engaging potential customers. Optimal A/B testing, personalization in messaging, and efficient internal workflow are seemingly non-existent, while overall revenue is not sufficient to meet business goals.

Interactive, targeted messaging, emphasis on brand awareness, attractive visual design, as well as clear and transparent value propositions, optimized user flows, and workflows, are all currently lacking in AAA email marketing campaigns.

A lack of a user-centered design mentality and innovative business culture, as well as undefined business goals, were contributing factors to email marketing failures. Back-end development was severely antiquated, making it impossible to make bold steps towards bringing the company to parity. Digital transformations like hyper-personalization and automation were simply out of reach for the stakeholders I interviewed.

As broad as the scope of the project was, the timeline was extremely short due to the one existing business goals of wanting to increase conversion rates as quickly as possible. It would be a matter of changing the corporate mindset and business culture in order to develop a strategic approach that could actually be tested and implemented.
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With a ~47% decrease in click-through rate YOY for 2018 and 2019, these declines may be due to an increasing customer expectation for personalization in online advertising and brand communication.

Recent technological advancements and the overall adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning in e-commerce may have spawned this expectation.
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System design issues that contribute to this lack of performance include an incomplete customer journey, a lack of variation and choice, no interactive or dynamic content, a non-optimal workflow, limited A/B testing, and lackluster visual design. Messaging Issues that contribute to poor engagement include, sell first messaging, no brand leveraging, lack of segmentation, and limited- or no personalization

My research showed that no messaging strategy existed throughout the entire customer journey, convoluting the heuristic phases of the buying process. The following two emails show no product value proposition that explains “why” the user should purchase an insurance product with AAA. A "sell-first" approach is used instead of nurturing the relationship with the potential customer. The four various discounts displayed in the emails, respectively, are not clearly defined, creating message confusion for the user. The message to “Amanda” is not specific, providing no information regarding the discount percentages.

I researched CRM best practices inside and outside of the insurance marketplace. Below are two examples I compiled from one of AAA's insurance competitors, USAA, and one from a completely different market, Mint, a budget, bills and finance tracking app. I also performed a competitive analysis on messaging best practices with other insurance competitors, including Lemonade, Farmers, Geico and Progressive.

Surprisingly, there was little to no structured or granular AAA customer data. Based on my research on optimal CRM experiences, I listed strategy questions to ask of stakeholders to help determine what the Marketing Department should consider regarding internal business processes versus customers expectations within a CRM strategy.

With less clean data available than expected, I explored automated personalization processes to increase conversion rates and improve workflow for AAA's Email Marketing strategy via four generic variables: messaging, time, promo (value proposition), and segment. These variables would be key to the testing process.

Creating personalized key messaging for each touchpoint across the customer journey is vital to increasing engagement and conversion. Focusing on and implementing “Pre-Purchase” messaging first would allow AAA to test and perfect their approach without potentially compromising the entire journey, allowing communicating with the drop-off segment to start sooner than later.

The following attributes are the values that users will perceive from the AAA brand.

There may be something of value somewhere outside of the product itself that can be leveraged to constitute valued differentiation for the customer. I determined it may be worth the effort to invest in this position, making it harder for AAA's competition to retaliate. For example, time can become the differentiator, emphasizing service, and efficiency, and it can be the basis of the marketing platform. I created a list of factors for AAA to increase its perceived value to the customer and increase market share...

Utilizing a UX Management Task Flow can assist in aligning marketing campaigns with consistent, targeted messaging, increased brand awareness, and overall workflow efficiency. This high impact, low investment approach can assist the Marketing Team with sticking to core business objectives, minimizing new investment, and positively engaging the respective customer segment. This approach also assures that the focus remains on the Customer Value Proposition (CVP) and the user experience.

In line with creating personal, engaging  and interactive content, establishing complete campaign user flows along each phase of the customer journey, with a designated start and stop point, assures that the end user has a complete customer experience, no matter their chosen outcome.

‍AAA Managers would start with A/B testing to show proofs of concept that automation would be a viable task flow tool in the future allowing a mandate for implementation. I determined the variables that should be used for testing and the rules to adhere to define the metrics.

It was determined that using the defined data points and segmentation should be used to create key messaging defined by the UX Management Process in the Pre-Purchase Phase of the Customer Journey Hourglass. Dependent variables for testing include the value proposition, campaign method, user experience, brand experience, customer touchpoints, tone of voice, customer needs, and segment. The independent variables include open rates, click rates, and click-through rates.

I created task flows to illustrate how the six steps of the UX management process can be leveraged to create key messaging within each stage of the customer journey, using "Engagement", the first stage, as an example.

Customers today are accustomed to high-quality personalized service, both online and offline. Email marketing has been the channel with the highest ROI consistently, so personalizing email campaigns for better conversion results is critical.

UX evaluation, research on best practices, and internal email analytics point to several factors that contribute to overall drop-off issues, including poor (non-targeted) messaging, which leads to a poor user experience and low- to no- conversion.