Litmus Live 2021: Top 10 Takeaways from Day 2
And just like that, Litmus Live 2021 is officially over! We recently wrapped up the second (and final) day of Litmus LiveâTHE conference for email marketers. Our notebooks are filled with takeaways from our phenomenal lineup of marketing leaders and email marketing experts.
Missed out on Litmus Live 2021? Read on for our top 10 takeaways from day 2:
- Subscribers want you to âshow me you know meâ
- Great marketing keeps âthe jaguar effectâ in mind
- You are so much more than your career
- Help other stakeholders understand how they can help email
- Test everything to drive engagement and ROI
- SMS won’t replace email, but theyâre a match made in heaven
- Audit your emails to uncover where you can advance DE&I
- Uplevel your emails in a progressive way
- Watch out for the HIPPO
- Put consumers at the center of the conversation
Letâs dive deeper into these takeaways, as told by email geeks on Twitter.
Looking for our top 10 takeaways from day 1? Check them out here.
Subscribers want you to âshow me you know meâ
Keynote speaker Angela Connor (Director of Internal Communications and Storytelling, Bandwidth, Inc. | Founder, Women Inspiring Women Conference) kicked off day 2 of Litmus Live 2021 for us.
Her session âOne Size Never Fits All: Delivering Messages that Matter to Manyâ shared how email marketers can maximize their communication impact. In particular, a phrase that resonated with many was, âShow me you know me.â
What does âShow me you know meâ mean? Think of it as âshow me why itâs relevant,â explains Angela. According to her, when you enter your subscriberâs inbox, you should behave like an invited guest. If you want to continually be invited and allowed to stay, then make sure your email is relevant to your subscribers.
Day 2 of #LitmusLive2021, our first guest @communitygirl reminds us the important of "Show me you know me" in #EmailMarketingđ
â Relevance is Holy Grail
â Do more with what you know
â Behave like a invited guest @litmusapp examples of emails that know â¤ľď¸ pic.twitter.com/RPe9Xy9hCQ— Nadja Cada (@NadjaCada) October 27, 2021
Great marketing keeps âthe jaguar effectâ in mind
Next was keynote speaker Shama Hyder (CEO of Zen Media). Her session âThe Future of Tech: How It Will Impact Your Business and Brandâ explored how marketing has evolved over the years and looked at the ways it will continue to evolve in years to come.
A concept she shared was âthe jaguar effect.â Jaguars are creatures of silence and stealth. But when they find the right opportunity, they pounce (and go in for their prey).
âThe role of great marketing is to continue to prime and be ready for when that opportunity comes,â shared Shama. Then, when the timing is right, youâll be ready to move forward and âpounceâ.
What is the jaguar effect? đđĄđ¤
As @shama shares, jaguars are creatures of silence and stealth. But when they find the right opportunity, they pounce.
âGreat marketing continues to prime, and when that opportunity comes, you run with itâ (and pounce). đž#LitmusLive2021 pic.twitter.com/Vj6H59hse0
— Litmus (@litmusapp) October 27, 2021
You are so much more than your career
A fan favorite among email geeks was âEmail Careers: How Did We Get Here (and Where Do We Go?).â This sessionâpresented by Kristin Bond (Co-founder, Women of Email)âdove deep into the ways âemail chose usâ along with advice on advancing your career in email.
The world of email is no easy feat. Kristinâs session was a gentle reminder that âYour careerâs important; itâs part of your life. But itâs not the only part of your life.â
She closes by saying, âEmail chose you for a reason. And itâs so lucky to have you.â So keep up the good work, email geeks (we see you)!
"Email chose you, and it's so lucky to have you"
– @EmailSnarketing @litmusapp #litmuslive2021 #EmailMarketing— Nadja Cada (@NadjaCada) October 27, 2021
Help other stakeholders understand how they can help email
Elliot Ross (CEO, Taxi for Email) gave a breakdown of email design systems and how they can help you scale your email operation. His session âCan you just send another email? How to scale your email operation the right wayâ talks about the challenges email designers and practitioners face in the workplace.
Email can often feel like a one man show, but with structure and process (or an email design system) in place, it can give you the freedom to do more and grow.
Elliot explains, âWhen you have a small team, you end up doing everything because thereâs 10-20 jobs you have to do. Bring people in and help them understand how they can help us help our world work better. And in turnârather than being the people who do absolutely everythingâwe become the superheroes.â
âAs practitioners, we need to grow from being an unwitting bottleneck to being custodians for a new world of email geeks,â shared Elliot. âI think we should welcome new people into our world within our business, and not be the one person in the corner who does email.â
đđđ @IAmElliot "An EDS is a living, breathing thing." đŻ Doesn't need to be fully finished – get started with your highest performing / most common modules. You'll want to constantly improve on it as you learn more about how your audience engage. #LitmusLive2021
— Rut Dawson | Email Marketing & Deliverability (@rutdawson) October 27, 2021
Test everything to drive engagement and ROI
Veronica Best (VP Product, Dyspatch) gave us her top tips for driving engagement and ROI in email. Her session â5 Ways to Increase Email Engagement and Conversionsâ covered tactics like dynamic and interactive email content, AMP for email, and new possibilities for personalization.
The key takeaway, from Veronica herself? âTest your emails, folks. If you take one takeaway from this talk, and I know everybody says this is important, but spending time to test and making it really easy for your team to do so is crucial.”
â62% of people will delete an email if itâs hard to read,â shares Veronica. She expands by explaining itâs a combination of errors that can negatively impact subscriber experience. ââHard to readâ isnât just that you didnât test out [your email in] Dark Mode correctly, or there was a typo, or something was broken⌠itâs all of those things.â
â62% of people will delete an email if itâs hard to read.â @verobest_ #LitmusLive2021
— Beyond the Envelope⢠(@Paul_Airy) October 27, 2021
âIf you want to drive engagement from your customers and drive ROI, testing and previewing your emails before you send them is pivotal,â advises Veronica.
Investing time to create a positive subscriber experience will not only drive engagement but ultimately ROI. That means by testing and previewing your emails to ensure theyâre on-brand and error-free, you can boost ROI, too.
SMS won’t replace email, but theyâre a match made in heaven
Is text the new email? âData is suggesting that consumers are eager to interact with this channel, which is something we should not ignore as marketers,â shares Stephanie Griffith (Founder of emailpreview.io | Email + SMS Marketing Strategist).
In her session âSMS – Hot Channel on the Marketing Blockâ, Stephanie dives into SMS basics, the benefits, and how email and SMS can work in unison. Often seen as a controversial channel, she prompts us to see it as a conversational one instead.
âThere is no question that email isn’t dead, and itâs not going anywhere. But, we have the unique opportunity to leverage our expertise to tap into the power of SMS,â says Stephanie. âIf youâre wondering where to fit SMS into your lifecycle strategy, the clear answer is everywhere.â
SMS won't be replacing email, but they are a match made in marketing heaven.@cordialinc found that over 74% of respondents aged 18-44 aren't just communicating via text, they are also purchasing. This is HUGE!
Thanks to @brianrants and Cordial for the following slides â¤ď¸ pic.twitter.com/DtYYy6BHl9
— Stephanie Griffith (@QueenDTC) October 27, 2021
Audit your emails to uncover where you can advance DE&I
Two email geeks Shani Nestingen (Lead Product Designer/Developer [Email], Target) and Anne K. Tomlin (Founder & Responsive Email Developer, Emails Yâall) joined forces for their talk on âGreat Tips to Advance Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in Your Emails.â
@pompeii79 and I are up. Watch our talk about DEI & accessibility. Get actionable tips in for code, copy, images and everything that makes a good email #LitmusLive2021 pic.twitter.com/t2Myt3Dguj
— Shani Nestingen (@shanij) October 27, 2021
Their session covered accessibility, representation, and how to use your subscribersâ data to create more inclusive experiences. In particular, they recommend auditing your existing content with folks outside of your immediate team.
âLook at what you have, what youâre missing, and what you can improve on. And when youâre doing this, include all your partnersâleadership, your copywriters, designers, technology. It helps.â
Uplevel your emails in a progressive way
Looking to uplevel your emails, but not sure where to start? Alice Li (Staff Engineer, Squarespace) gave a thorough, step-by-step guide on how to do just that in âStep-by-Step Guide to Upleveling Your Email Code & Design.â
Alice đUnderstood đ the đ Assignment!#LitmusLive2021 #EmailGeek https://t.co/MLBtnbKq1G pic.twitter.com/XhH2fM3Yde
— Guilda (@justguilda) October 27, 2021
Alice breaks down a nine step process on âhow to progressively enhance a basic email and bring it to the next levelâ (as captured by Guilda above). She recommends starting with basic styling first, then working your way up to accessibility and eventually interactivity.
âIf you think of normal email as a set of regular stairs, itâs the foundation that these concepts are built on,â explains Alice. For more on this concept, head to Aliceâs blog post on why emails are like stairs and how you can take the next step today.
Watch out for the HIPPO
Jon May (Email Marketing Manager, RAC) shared the best practices for running A/B tests and analyzing results in his session âSimplifying A/B testing to make better data-led decisions.â
In particular, Jon advises us to âwatch out for the HIPPO (HIghest Paid Personâs Opinion).â Jon reminds us that a boss or client may have opinions that arenât necessarily supported by facts, so make sure theyâre confirmed with A/B testing before moving forward.
https://twitter.com/JonDoesEmails/status/1453433277981806593?s=20
Put consumers at the center of the conversation
We closed out Litmus Live 2021 with a panel on whatâs in store for the future of email. April Mullen (Director of Brand and Content Marketing, SparkPost), Chad S. White (Head of Research, Oracle Marketing Consulting), and Kara Trivunovic (Managing Director, Messaging, Epsilon) were joined by our CMO Melissa Sargeant for this roundtable discussion on where email is headed next.
What predictions do April, Chad, and Kara see for the future of email?
âPeople are focusing more and more on customer lifetime value,â shares Chad. April goes on to explain, âMarketing control is moving away from brands to consumers. Consumers hold the key.â
The top takeaway: Put consumers at the center of the conversation. Kara urges us to think, âYes, weâre starting to look at the longer, slower value of the customerâbut to truly get to that, what does the conversation you need to have with your consumer look like?â
3 big moves coming in email marketing from @aprildmullen, @ktrivunovic & @chadswhite:
đ¤ Better connected, cross-channel conversations
đ¤ Brands building more first-party data on customers
đ¤ Stronger loyalty programs#LitmusLive2021— SparkPost (@SparkPost) October 27, 2021
Join us next year!
We hope you had as much fun as we did learning from marketing experts and connecting with the email community.
Missed out? Good news: Litmus Live will return next year. Weâre looking forward to even more Litmus Live goodness in 2022. Subscribe to the Litmus newsletter for updates on future Litmus Live events, webinars, ebooks, and more.
Kimberly Huang
Kimberly Huang is a Content Marketing Manager at Litmus