• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 9, 2018

Heaven help all of us, the holidays are here. After months of talk, it’s time to send those emails -- before, during and after Black Friday.

The holidays are getting longer, says Len Shneyder, VP of industry relations at SendGrid. “We joke about the fact that we start advertising for Christmas before Halloween. There’s a steady drumbeat leading up to that day.”

Given the crowded inboxes in this third-quarter ramp-up, it’s not easy to stand out. So how do you deliver on the promise of Cyber Monday in what Shneyder calls Gray November?

One way is to segment your list based on what appeals to customers at the point-of-sale or online. Not all brands are good at harnessing data to achieve that.

“I get emails with irrelevant offers even though I’m a customer,” Shneyder laughs. “I bought a shirt from a clothier, and started receiving three offers a week. Why offer shoes when I am fan of the shirts?” 

Relevant offers are the main sales driver. Then there are the well-worn tricks that marketers use. Mentioning the holidays in subject lines doesn’t always work. “Everyone knows this is the holidays,” Shneyder argues. “What else can you offer them?

Similarly, Shneyder has seen the reported correlation between discounts and subject lines, and concedes that they lead to slightly better engagement. But he advises marketers to “be more clever — anyone can offer from 20% to 50%.” What do you do? “Link it to data from past behavior.” 

Also, avoid emjois: They don’t lead to high engagement, although there are probably micro-segments that like them.

"We all use storehouse of emojis in chat and person-to-person communications," Shneyder notes. "They're a pictographic form of communication closer to Egyptian hieroglyphs than marketing language."

When emailing customers or prospects you can try things that are “off the cadence of what you normally do” — with care, Shneyder adds. But test them first. 

“You can test every part of the email, from graphics to the pre-headers,” he says. “But keep in mind you should test one variable at a time. Doing too many becomes really complicated. Lay out a long-term testing plan, tracking that through a lifetime.”

Which metrics should you apply? Obviously, for subject-line tests, the open rate is the key measurement. When testing offers and the body content, conversions are the main factor. 

And transactional emails? “The most important thing is that it arrives — it has to be absolutely bulletproof,” Shneyder asserts. 

How much email should you send? It varies with the audience and the vertical sector. That’s where segmentation comes in again.

"I firmly believe less is more," Shneyder says. “There are segments that are going to be open to more emails. They’re your ultimate brand ambassadors.”

Shneyder says there is “a long chain of emails” in the inbox. “The average number is as much as 200 and as little a 50,” he says. “You’re going to be way down on that list. The ultimate advice is to put yourself in the shoes of the subscriber. What action would you take?” 

Asked about the future of email, Shneyder says: “It’s nothing but sunshine and rainbows.” For example, research shows that young people feel they will use email more as they get older. And “BIMI is going to be a great thing for marketers, giving them the ability to add extra branding to messaging and create trust and verification,” Shneyder says.

(BIMI, as we have reported, is Brand Indicators or Message Identification, an email authentication standard developed by a group including Agari, Valimail, Comcast, Google, Microsoft and Oath. The brand logo appears in the subject line if the email has been authenticated).

Is SendGrid working on BIMI? "We have clients that have been testing it and have been keenly following the standard's development," Shneyder answers.