I just finished (as in a short while ago) virtually attending Stephanie Miller's session, "Customer Connections: Using Social & Customer Data for Sure-Fire Email Relevancy," at the Digital Marketing Forum.

Like my in-box, my mind is filled now with the fabulous tips that she shared about gathering and analyzing data and, most importantly, how to use this information to create more relevant messages for your customers.

I won't be like an overly long movie trailer and divulge every detail, but I will share a few ideas (from the many) worth mentioning:

• Be brilliant a few times a month. In other words, not every email message that you send out has to be yeehaw fabulous. It's all right if some emails are better than others. Just make sure that, if you're sending out emails once a week, you're amazing at least twice a month.



• Use info that's in the community. Don't limit yourself to gathering the ingredients from just one place for your email marketing campaigns. Use your call center, the sales teams, emails, and customer service to create a more personalized email.



• Make sure the data you gather is actionable. Data isn't useful if you're not using it for something. And it's not interesting if you can't do something with it.



• Collect social media info on your forms. Most people don't use the same names across their social media and business platforms. If you get the info upfront, it'll be easier to match up the info and get a more complete picture of your customers.



• Realize that what works with one segment might not work with others. The data you collect might not be relevant to all segments of your customers. It doesn't negate the value of the info---but know that it may not work for everybody.



• Store legacy data somewhere to access it later. Don't toss old info. It might come in handy down the road. Just make sure you have it organized and placed somewhere that you can easily access later.