Email Marketing Nightmares: The Journey: Season 2 Episode 13

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Email Marketing Nightmares: The Journey: Season 2, Episode 13

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Are your email marketing messages working as well they used to? Then watch the Journey, Social Media Examiner’s episodic video documentary that shows you what really happens inside a growing business.

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This episode of the Journey explores what happened when the Social Media Examiner team was faced with a dilemma. Delete 150,000 email subscribers or have their account shut down. Watch as they form a new plan that doesn’t rely on email.

VIDEO

The show opens with Mike and the marketing team discussing the company’s email marketing. Daily articles and periodic marketing messages are sent via email, so deliverability is key.

Mike simplifies the email cycle. “If it doesn’t get delivered, it doesn’t get opened. And if it doesn’t get opened, it doesn’t get clicked.”

The issue? Deliverability is definitely down.

Marketing Manager, Jennifer Ballard, remarks that a good email used to bring 40 to 45 sales. Now she’s happy if sales from an email reach double digits.

Later that day, another front in the email battle opens up. Mike shares the details with Jennifer.

The company’s ESP sent an email titled “Urgent: Deliverability Concerns.” The core message is that the email list is hitting a large number of spam traps, and the ESP is requesting action.

Suggested solutions from the ESP? Pay $2,500 to reveal incorrect email addresses. Remove all subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked on an email in the last 90 days. Introduce double opt in.

Mike estimates these measures will affect 200k subscribers. The email list will be cut in half. Further, new opt ins will also be halved.

After meeting with Mike, Jennifer shares her thoughts.

Her team spends considerable time composing and testing email copy against spam filters and Gmail’s Promotions tab. They don’t use any images and often modify the language in marketing messages to satisfy email filters. She’s frustrated and concerned about future deliverability.

It’s 3:34am the next morning. Mike is up to send an email to inform 139k subscribers that they could be removed from the email list on Thursday.

Later in the week, Mike reveals that he ultimately deleted 150k emails from the subscriber list. The price is high. Will it help recover deliverability and opens?

He estimates a year will pass before the subscriber numbers recover.

Recognizing people simply don’t open and read emails like they used to, Mike recalls the adage, “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.” He knows that if all the company’s eggs are in the email basket, he’s not in good shape. What will he do about it?

Later, there’s some good news! Mike calls in the marketing team to share how a simple change to the conference site has impacted sales. He’s added ‘Tickets’ to the navigation bar.

In just a week, revenue is up 18.62%, conversions are up 12.6%, and both transactions and average order value are up 9%!

Finally, Mike and Managing Editor, Lisa Jenkins, are on a call with Natasha Takahashi from the School of Bots. Natasha is helping the company build its first Messenger bot.

Similar to the newsletter, this bot will deliver content to subscribers. Mike is also hopeful that a bot can replace email forms as the primary acquisition vehicle on the website and that there’s a future use for marketing, as well.

The prospect of reducing the company’s reliance on email as a delivery channel for daily articles has both Mike and Lisa excited and ready to get to work with Natasha.

Is your email marketing working like it used to? Let us know in the comments below.

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December 13, 2018 at 05:07AM