EXM or Sitecore Send: which fits for your organization best?

Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective and efficient ways to reach and engage your customers. Sitecore recently acquired state-of-the-art SAAS email solution and rebranded it as Sitecore Send. Increasingly, I am being asked by existing Sitecore customers which email solution is best for their needs. Are they better off continuing to use EXM (Sitecore Email Experience Manager) or moving to Sitecore Send. In this article, we look at the benefits of email marketing for organizations and dive deeper into which of Sitecore’s email offerings is the best fit for your organization.

Benefits of email marketing

Email marketing offers marketers a wide range of benefits. First and foremost, email marketing is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience. Unlike traditional advertising channels like TV or radio, email marketing is relatively inexpensive and can be targeted to specific segments of your audience. You can use email marketing to promote your products, services, or events, share news and updates and even nurture leads.

Another benefit of email marketing is high engagement. According to a report by Epsilon, the average open rate for emails across all industries is 18.1%, with click-through rates averaging at 2.6%. These rates can be even higher for well-crafted, personalized emails. By creating targeted, personalized emails, you can build stronger relationships with your customers and drive more conversions.

Finally, email marketing is a great way to gather insights and data about your audience. By tracking open rates, click-through rates, and other engagement metrics, you can gain valuable insights into what types of content and offers are most effective for your audience. This information can help you optimize your email campaigns and improve your overall marketing strategy.

The future of email marketing

The future of email marketing is bright. Many organizations are still prioritizing email marketing. As a result, we can expect continued innovation and growth in the industry. Some of the key trends to keep an eye on are:

• Increased personalization: advances in data analytics and AI will allow marketers to create even more targeted and personalized email campaigns.
• More automation: automation will become more sophisticated, allowing marketers to create complex, multi-staged campaigns triggered by specific actions or behaviors.
• Integration with other channels: email marketing will continue to integrate with other marketing channels.

Segmentation and personalization

One of the greatest benefits of email marketing is the ability to segment your audience and personalize your messages. By using data such as previous purchases, browsing behavior and demographic information, you can create targeted and relevant messages that resonate with your subscribers.

For example, a fashion retailer can segment its email list based on gender, age and shopping history to send personalized product recommendations and promotions. Because the content is so closely aligned with your target audience, this is likely to lead to higher open and click-through rates and increased revenue.

Marketing automation

Another benefit of email marketing is the ability to automate your campaigns. With marketing automation, you can set up triggered emails based on specific actions or behaviors, such as an abandoned shopping cart or a follow-up after purchase.

This not only saves time and resources, but also helps to nurture your subscribers and keep them engaged throughout their customer journey. By sending relevant messages in a timely manner, you can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Analytics and optimization

Email marketing also offers valuable analytics and optimization opportunities. By tracking metrics such as open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates, you can gain insight into the effectiveness of your campaigns.

These insights can then be used to optimize your messaging, design and targeting to improve performance over time. For example, if you notice a low open rates for a particular email, you can test different subject lines to see if that improves engagement.

Sitecore's email marketing tools

Sitecore offers two powerful email marketing tools that can help you take your email campaigns to the next level: EXM and Sitecore Send. Let’s take a closer look at both tools:

Sitecore Email Experience Manager (EXM)

EXM is a feature of the Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) that requires a license and installation on your own server. EXM integrates seamlessly with the Sitecore CMS and the Sitecore Experience Database (xDB), allowing you to easily use existing customer data and content for email personalization. With features like A/B testing, analytics, segmentation and automation, EXM gives you greater control over your email infrastructure and increased scalability and performance.

Sitecore Send

Sitecore Send is a cloud-based service that requires no license or installation on your own server. You can use it with any CMS or CRM system via APIs or connectors. Sitecore Send offers email personalization, analytics, segmentation, automation and more. It is perfect for organizations looking for lower upfront costs and less technical complexity.

Choosing the right tool

So which of the two tools is best suited for your organization? That depends on your needs, budget and resources.

You can use both email systems to improve engagement, drive conversions and ultimately grow your business. It's all about choosing the right email marketing solution for your organization. Ultimately, it is especially important to carefully evaluate your needs and priorities and determine what stage of email marketing maturity your organization is at before making a decision.

If you have a large amount of customer data and content within Sitecore, and are looking for advanced personalization and integration capabilities, EXM may be the better choice. However, it requires higher upfront costs and more technical expertise to set up and maintain.

If you are looking for a more cost-effective and user-friendly option that can be easily integrated with any CMS or CRM system, Sitecore Send may be the better choice. However, it has some limitations in terms of integration and control over your e-mail infrastructure.

If you would like more information about EXM or Sitecore Send, or would like to explore together which program is best for your organization, please let me know by sending me an email!