We’ve officially wrapped up day two of Litmus Live, the premier email marketing event of the year.
With the second (and final) day now complete, what were the top moments and highlights?
Let’s take a look back at day two—and all the action-packed education and inspiration we walked away with.
Looking for our recap and highlights from day one? Check them out here.
Want to rewatch your favorite session (or catchup on the ones you missed)? You can still upgrade your ticket to get access to all live and on-demand sessions →
What Is Data Driven Marketing (And What It Is Not)
Data driven marketing is an approach used to gain insights and identify trends about your customers and how they behave. But to be truly data-driven, we must remind ourselves of the actual definition of data: all types of information.
Karelle Gordon (Marketing Director, Education, Fortune Media) shares that when using personalization, marketers have seen up to an eight times higher return on investment (ROI).
With returns like that, marketers need to put themselves in their customer’s shoes to ensure their experience is relevant. Gordon shares that 74% of customers feel frustrated by seeing irrelevant content—so it’s important to do it right.
As Gordon puts it: “Data gives you a predictability that is the ultimate advantage when creating your marketing plan.”
74% of customers feel frustrated by irrelevant content #LitmusLive2022
— alemieux (@alemieux) October 26, 2022
How to Speak “Martech” to Everyone
Reminder: not everyone speaks marketing technology (or martech). “Martech language is not universal,” says Alicia Garside (Digital Marketing Production Manager, TELUS Health). “Focus on tailoring your information to your audience.”
When we get caught up in the lingo, it can be hard to effectively communicate needs in a way that will resonate with others. (For example, terms like open rates, streams, smart lists, and subscriber keys often aren’t known or used by teams outside of email marketing.)
📌 Reminder: not everyone speaks martech.
“Martech language is not universal. Focus on tailoring your information to your audience.” 🎙 Alicia Garside (@TELUSHealth)#LitmusLive2022 pic.twitter.com/Xy7xxy7Vpk
— Litmus (@litmusapp) October 26, 2022
Email Makes Everything Better
Email makes all of your marketing better. It provides the foundation for personalization, is an efficient tool for testing, and adds value to all other channels.
Blake Miller (Senior Director, Product Marketing, Salesforce Marketing Cloud) teaches us how to use email to create personlized moments across the entire customer journey.
As Miller puts it, when engaging with customers across multiple channels, remember these three guiding principles: be there, be useful, and be quick.
When engaging with customers across multiple channels, remember to:
🎯 Be there
🛠️ Be useful
⚡ Be quick@BBlakeMiller @marketingcloud #LitmusLive2022 pic.twitter.com/KfrwqXLMpp— Litmus (@litmusapp) October 26, 2022
Let’s Take it Personal
Keynote speaker Morgan Matthews (Head of People and Finance, National Cycling League) session was all about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in marketing.
Matthew urges business to think critically about actual allyship versus performative allyship. What have you been doing vs. what have you only started because of a recent event?
“Think through more lenses than your own,” says Matthews. Don’t just appear to be an ally; actually be one. For most brands the key is intersectionality: take things personally when it comes to marketing.
Check your social capital. Are you only doing something because every other brand is doing it? Stick to things the brand advocated for before any recent events. #LitmusLive2022
— Anne Tomlin (@pompeii79) October 26, 2022
Email Deliverability Roundup: How to Ensure Your Beautifully Crafted Emails Hit the Inbox
Lauren Meyer (CMO, SocketLabs) has over 16 years of experience in email marketing. As an expert in email deliverability, her session clears up the misinformation about deliverability and what it takes to do it right.
“Recipient engagement is about the closest thing that exists as a ‘deliverability hack’ in 2022,” said Meyer. Mailbox providers tend to measure positive engagement (like clicking links, starring things, and saving them to folders).
Other factors that help include:
- Avoiding huge or sporadic spikes in volume. Your ESP and your mailbox provider will see it as suspicious.
- Avoiding links that have poor reputations within the content of your email.
One final point to keep in mind: people do not like it when you show up unannounced at their house (aka, their inbox). It’s one of the main triggers for spam complaints.
Repeat after me: Your “SUBSCRIBERS” ARE HUMAN. Send them information that is relevant & valuable. The sooner you can stop trying to “sell” every chance you get, the sooner you can improve your deliverability along with your relationship with said humans. #LitmusLive2022 pic.twitter.com/3VkOoxN5xQ
— Jell K (@iamjellk) October 26, 2022
How to Get the Most Out of the Welcome Journey
Most organizations settle on a simple welcome email, but Fernando Rubino Pereira (Global Email Marketing Manager, Canyon Bicycles) encourages email marketers to take it a step further.
“You only get one chance to make a good first impression,” says Pereira. A welcome/onboarding series is your chance to do that and more. Compared to business-as-usual emails, welcome journeys get a higher open rate of +42%.
Enjoying @litmusapp How to get the most out of the Welcome Journey w/Fernando Rubino Pereira
Global Email Marketing Manager, Canyon Bicycles #LitmusLive2022 #emailgeek #EmailMarketing pic.twitter.com/3HW3foZyIb— LisaLeid (@Digitalnista) October 26, 2022
How to Orchestrate and Influence Infrastructure as an Internal Communicator Marketer
When inheriting a tech stack, it can often feel like things are difficult to change. Jell Khongkraphan (Sr. Manager, Lifecycle Marketing, Kong Inc) helped attendees navigate through common pain points during her session.
How can one solo marketer influence infrastructure? Before every campaign, ask yourself:
- What are your trigger events? This is THE moment that matters. You want to let your user know you’ve recognized the action (or lack of) that was taken.
- What would you like to use as dynamic content? People love it when brands understand them.
- How are you planning to measure the performance of this initiative?
“The goal isn’t to become an engineer—it’s to identify your own needs and make a case to request engineering resources that will help you bridge some gaps,” says Khongkraphan.
THANK YOU, everyone for attending my session. Feel free to keep the conversation going here, I am happy to chat all things email / data / saas / martech and cats 🙂 #LitmusLive2022 pic.twitter.com/DrvTBJ21se
— Jell K (@iamjellk) October 26, 2022
Accessible, Responsive, and Beautiful Email Design in 2022
Email marketers face unique challenges when balancing technical and aesthetic considerations for email design. Ali Mahad (Email and Marketing Automation Specialist, Finning International Inc.) says, “It’s important for email marketers to embrace and adapt to paradigm shifts, rather than consistently trying to fight them.”
In his session, Mahad shared how he optimizes marketing emails for mobile, Dark Mode, and overall content readability.
This is so cool! #LitmusLive2022 #emailgeeks https://t.co/iSCPCPphXq
— Courtney Fantinato (@CourtFantinato) October 26, 2022
Scaling up Your CRM
Fika—a Swedish tradition—is really important to Anthony Allen and his team at Volvo UK. As the CRM Implementation Lead, he’s taken the idea of fika and applied it to Volvo UK’s CRM campaigns, with great success.
“Fika is a sugar and caffeine mini-break that focuses on making time for you friends, family, and colleagues in every day life,” shared Allen. “Realistically, it’s a short, sharp opportunity to catch up on the latest goings-on—and also the opportunity to enjoy a pastry at the same time.”
Volvo UK once took a content and copy heavy approach, but with Allen’s “fika” program, all of that changed to focus on a short, bite-sized approach. Instead of sending an email newsletter once every eight weeks, they now send weekly newsletters. As a result, 21% of subscribers opened every email, every week—an example of just how powerful scaling up can be.
In Swedish tradition, fika is a sugar and caffeine mini-break. ☕️🥐 What does that have to with email?
Anthony Allen shares how he applies the idea of fika to CRM campaigns at @VolvoCarUK. 🚗 #LitmusLive2022 pic.twitter.com/II4v86A3HV
— Litmus (@litmusapp) October 26, 2022
Semantic First Email Code
Traditionally, if a layout worked in Outlook, it would likely work everywhere else. For a while, this “Outlook first” approach made sense. However, it isn’t ideal for creating responsive layouts or allowing assistive technology to manipulate email content, due to the rigid nature of table layouts that are typically used for building Outlok emails.
Mark Robbins (Software Engineer, Salesforce Marketing Cloud) has over ten years of experience writing email code. In his session, he shared how to think about code in a “semantic first” way for better accessibility, fewer bugs, and more future-proof code.
Semantic first code is full of benefits and very few deficits. As Robbins shares, “Simple semantic code like this will work in a wide range of email clients.”
“By default, semantic code is built to be accessible because we are using the correct tool for the job,” said Robbins. Overall, it’s better for readability, accessibility, and many other perks.
By starting with semantic elements, you can prevent many issues that arise from using elements counter to what they are intended.
A few helpful links from my #LitmusLive2022 talk https://t.co/g2yLhwnAYK
— Mark Robbins (@M_J_Robbins) October 26, 2022
Creating Effective Automated Campaigns
“As a slogan to promote triggered emails, ‘set it and forget it’ has been disastrously successful,” explains Chad S. White (Head of Research, Oracle Marketing Consulting). “It spurred adoption, but it set horrible expectations for how to maximize the effectiveness of these living campaigns.”
Marketers need to provide ongoing care for triggered campaigns: review your campaign performance regularly, conduct A/B tests, frequently QA test, and make seasonal updates, every six months. Don’t just “set it and forget it.”
“Set it and forget it” 🚩🚩🚩
📌 Remember: As popular as the “set it and forget it” slogan is, email marketers need to provide ongoing care for automated campaigns (at least every 6 months).@chadswhite #LitmusLive2022 pic.twitter.com/WfZSw6Ge16
— Litmus (@litmusapp) October 26, 2022
23 Ways to Use Litmus Personalize to Enhance Your Emails
Jordan Sawyer (Head of Account Management, Litmus Personalize) and Jessica Horn (Senior Account Manager, Litmus Personalize) shared a selection of their favorite emails that feature Litmus Personalize.
“When it comes to standing out of the inbox, relevant, personalized experiences are essential to a successful modern email strategy,” said Sawyer and Horn.
- 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides a personalized experience.
- 83% of customers are willing to share their data to create a more personalized experience.
- 76% of buyers expect more personalized attention from marketers to develop an intimate relationship with your brand.
With Litmus Personalize, quick personalization wins that make a big impact include countdown timers, timed images, device targeting, weather-based content, location targeting, social signals, and live polling/voting.
See you next year!
Already feeling nostalgic for Litmus Live 2022? Good news: you can still upgrade your ticket to rewatch your favorite sessions (or catch up on the ones you missed!). With a Litmus Live MAX ticket, you’ll get post-event access to all live and on-demand sessions—and even Litmus Live 2021 sessions.
Stay tuned as we share our key takeaways from the entire event.