Introduction to Bronto Email Marketing
Bronto, acquired by NetSuite (Oracle) in 2015, is a powerful email marketing platform designed for mid-market and enterprise-level retailers. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools to create, manage, and analyze email marketing campaigns, allowing businesses to personalize communications, automate workflows, and drive revenue through targeted messaging. While its user base has shifted somewhat following the acquisition, Bronto remains a robust solution for companies seeking advanced email marketing capabilities.
This guide will provide an overview of the Bronto platform, covering its key features, benefits, and how it can be used to enhance your email marketing strategy. We’ll explore everything from list management and segmentation to automation, reporting, and integration with other business systems.
Key Features of Bronto
Bronto boasts a wide range of features that cater to the needs of sophisticated email marketers. These features are designed to streamline workflows, improve deliverability, and enhance the overall effectiveness of email campaigns.
- Segmentation: Bronto allows you to segment your audience based on a variety of criteria, including demographics, purchase history, website behavior, and engagement with previous emails. This enables you to send highly targeted messages that resonate with specific customer segments.
- Automation: The platform’s automation capabilities allow you to create automated workflows that trigger emails based on specific events or customer actions. This includes welcome series, abandoned cart emails, post-purchase follow-ups, and more.
- Personalization: Bronto provides advanced personalization options that allow you to tailor email content to individual recipients. You can use dynamic content to display different information based on customer data, such as name, location, or product preferences.
List Management and Segmentation
Effective list management is crucial for successful email marketing. Bronto provides tools to manage your subscriber lists, ensure data quality, and segment your audience for targeted messaging.
List Creation and Import: You can easily create new lists within Bronto and import existing subscriber data from various sources, such as CSV files or integrations with other systems. The platform supports various opt-in methods to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.
Segmentation Strategies: Bronto offers powerful segmentation capabilities that allow you to create highly targeted lists based on a variety of criteria. Some common segmentation strategies include:
- Demographic Segmentation: Segmenting based on age, gender, location, income, etc.
- Behavioral Segmentation: Segmenting based on website activity, purchase history, email engagement, etc.
- Lifecycle Segmentation: Segmenting based on where customers are in their journey (e.g., new subscribers, loyal customers, inactive users).
Data Hygiene: Maintaining a clean and healthy email list is essential for deliverability. Bronto provides tools to identify and remove invalid email addresses, unsubscribe requests, and other data quality issues.
Email Creation and Design
Bronto offers a user-friendly email editor that allows you to create visually appealing and engaging email campaigns. The platform provides a variety of templates and design tools to help you create professional-looking emails that align with your brand.
Drag-and-Drop Editor: The drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to create emails without requiring coding knowledge. You can simply drag and drop elements such as text, images, buttons, and videos into your email layout.
Email Templates: Bronto provides a library of pre-designed email templates that you can customize to suit your needs. These templates cover a variety of use cases, such as promotional emails, newsletters, and transactional emails.
Personalization and Dynamic Content: You can use Bronto’s personalization features to insert dynamic content into your emails, such as the recipient’s name, location, or product recommendations. This helps you create more relevant and engaging messages.
Automation and Workflow Management
Automation is a key feature of Bronto that allows you to create automated workflows that trigger emails based on specific events or customer actions. This can help you save time, improve customer engagement, and drive revenue.
Welcome Series: Create an automated welcome series to engage new subscribers and introduce them to your brand. This can include a series of emails that provide information about your products, services, and company culture.
Abandoned Cart Emails: Send automated emails to customers who have abandoned items in their shopping cart. These emails can remind customers about the items they left behind and encourage them to complete their purchase.
Post-Purchase Follow-Ups: Send automated emails after a customer makes a purchase to thank them for their order, provide shipping updates, and offer related product recommendations.
Birthday Emails: Automatically send personalized birthday greetings and special offers to your subscribers on their birthday.
Reporting and Analytics
Bronto provides comprehensive reporting and analytics tools that allow you to track the performance of your email campaigns and identify areas for improvement. You can monitor key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and revenue.
Real-Time Reporting: Access real-time data on the performance of your email campaigns, allowing you to make informed decisions and optimize your strategy on the fly.
A/B Testing: Use A/B testing to experiment with different email elements, such as subject lines, content, and calls to action, to determine what works best for your audience.
Segmentation Reporting: Analyze the performance of your email campaigns by segment to identify which segments are most responsive and profitable.
- Open Rate
- Click Through Rate
- Conversion Rate
Integration Capabilities
Bronto offers a variety of integration capabilities that allow you to connect the platform with other business systems, such as CRM, e-commerce platforms, and marketing automation tools. This can help you streamline workflows, improve data accuracy, and gain a more holistic view of your customers.
NetSuite Integration: As a NetSuite company, Bronto has a deep integration with the NetSuite ERP system. This allows you to seamlessly sync customer data, purchase history, and other relevant information between the two platforms.
E-commerce Platform Integrations: Bronto integrates with popular e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce, allowing you to automatically trigger emails based on customer behavior on your website.
API Access: Bronto provides a robust API that allows you to build custom integrations with other systems and applications.
Bronto Pricing
Bronto’s pricing is typically based on a tiered model that considers factors such as the number of contacts in your database and the volume of emails you send per month. It’s often tailored to the specific needs of mid-market and enterprise-level businesses, so contacting Bronto directly for a custom quote is usually necessary.
Benefits of Using Bronto
There are several benefits to using Bronto as your email marketing platform:
- Advanced Segmentation: Target your audience with precision based on a wide range of criteria.
- Powerful Automation: Automate workflows to save time and improve customer engagement.
- Comprehensive Reporting: Track the performance of your campaigns and identify areas for improvement.
Challenges and Considerations
While Bronto offers a powerful suite of features, there are also some challenges and considerations to keep in mind:
- Complexity: The platform can be complex to learn and use, especially for those new to email marketing.
- Cost: Bronto can be more expensive than some other email marketing platforms, particularly for smaller businesses.
- Post-Acquisition Shifts: Some users have noted changes in support and focus following the NetSuite acquisition.
Alternatives to Bronto
If you’re looking for alternatives to Bronto, consider platforms such as:
- Klaviyo: Focused on e-commerce and known for its strong segmentation and automation capabilities.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud: A comprehensive marketing platform that includes email marketing, social media marketing, and more.
- HubSpot Marketing Hub: A marketing automation platform that offers a variety of tools, including email marketing, CRM, and website analytics.
Conclusion
Bronto is a powerful email marketing platform that can help mid-market and enterprise-level retailers create, manage, and analyze their email campaigns. While it may not be the perfect fit for every business, its advanced features and robust integration capabilities make it a compelling option for companies seeking to drive revenue through targeted messaging.