• by Kara Trivunovic , Op-Ed Contributor, March 9, 2015

Back in January, I posted the first in a seriesof email tips filtered through the lens of advice I give my nine-year-old daughter. The first piece of advice was focused on the fact that not everyone is going to like you. Today, I want to focus on an extension of that advice with tip No. 2: You only need a few good friends.

My daughter is the eldest and a people-pleaser.  She wants everyone to like her -- and when someone doesn’t, her natural reaction is to try harder, which ultimately results in even greater discontent for everyone. The real takeaway I try to teach her is that to be truly happy in life, you only need a few good friends supporting you, which is also true for advancing your email program inside your organization.

During a recent conference, I had the opportunity to connect with a number of folks from different brands. One topic that kept bubbling to the surface of our conversations was the visibility of the email channel inside their companies. How can those representing email make others care about the channel as much as they do? Understanding email’s importance is a key factor in marketing success, given that a customer’s email address is now often the identifying data point for all marketing interactions,

Identify Your Allies
There are likely natural allies for you inside your organization. These are the few friends you really need, who will align with your goals and stand strong alongside you. Start with channels that key off email address, or can benefit from information you may have about a customer via engagement with an email address.

Most all digital interactions today (and even many offline interactions as well) can be aligned with email, so find a friend on each of three teams to start: display, social and mobile. While your circumstances may be different, there is a complementary integration that everyone is striving for: omnichannel messaging. If you can befriend one another, you will be better aligned to tell a cohesive story.

Tell a Story People Want to Hear
As email marketers, we tend to look at measures of success specific only to the channel. When you are trying to identify and gain those few good friends, be sure to translate what you do effectively into things they care about: site traffic you can drive, data you can provide for display retargeting efforts, and how email and social can help each other provide relevance, targeting and customer insights.

Clearly there is a lot more to be said about complementary interaction among departments, but this idea will get you rolling. The  takeaway is that in order to really drive success for your program internally, you shouldn’t be a lone wolf  -- but you aren’t going to get everyone on your side, either. Firm up your expectations, know that not everyone is going to agree, and find a few good friends.

Next post, we will look at how to handle negative feedback internally with tip #3: Stand up for yourself, but don’t be the mean kid.