Stress-Testing the Email Channel: Learning From A Crisis

In the current crisis, mail went from being a central channel to customers to being the ONLY one. From communicating essential information about sales policy to safety, store closings to special offers, email had to carry an unprecedented load in recent months. What did we learn? About our own infrastructure? About the limits and possibilities about this channel? About our own customers? We ask our marketers to reflect on what they learned, and what has the COVID-19 crisis changed our approach to email for good?

One size does not fit all when it comes to personalization. Our panel of marketers discuss how they avoid being led by the tech and try to build genuine personalization strategies that map against marketing goals. What brand relationship or set of behaviors are you trying to shape? How does the in-box relate to the other personalized touch-points in the customer journey? How did the crisis impact these tactics. Was this a time to speak individually to customers or en masse?

Personalization as a Strategy
Lessons from an Emergency
Managing Deliverability

The COVID-19 crisis forced all marketers to pivot their messaging sharply and quickly. For most brands, the usual sales pitch felt inappropriate, The email channel became critical to effecting the right tone, voice and information. How did brands meet the content challenge? What messaging is resonating best with customers now, and how does messaging unwind from crisis mode to a new normal?

Every marketing team has its own culture and approach to testing its email. Let's learn from each other. We invite two EIS guests to compare and contrast their styles of email testing. When and how are they choosing to test? With what variables and against what segments? Are tests being led by marketing goals or by the technology at hand? And how do different teams and brands set themselves up for success - to make the most of the exercise and emerge with multiple learnings?

We flip the script on EIS's traditional favorite - the Share Your Screw-Ups panel. This time we ask several of our email mavens to share their successes, especially the little wins in their email program that have rendered some of the biggest dividends and valuable lessons. What worked lately - in segmentation, in data handling, in tweaking deliverability, in messaging? Let's find the golden nuggets of insight and learn from our own successes.

Content and the Crisis
Testing Tactics
Success Story Singalong

While email remains the surest, most welcome point of contact with your customers, mobile and social messaging, apps, chat and more must be part of any one to one strategy. During the COVID-19 crisis especially, brands needed to coordinate and integrate their channels to ensure consistent messaging. Very few brands have mastered this multi-point messaging opportunity, but we ask several aspiring 360-degree messengers to show how they are walking before learning to run. Where do you get started?

Oh, the pitches, the promises, the predictions. Email managers field relentless bright shiny objects - tools, tricks and trends from every direction. We end Spring EIS asking several of our guest marketers to lead attendees in sharing their ideas for what will be hot, not-so-hot, over-hyped and overlooked in the messaging world in the coming year.

Cross-channel Messaging
Bright Shiny Object Hunting