Live text. Accessibility. The original Star Wars trilogy. These are just a few things that inspired the vision behind Really Good Emails and sharing our love for great email designs with the world. Matthew from our team sat down with Doug Dennison, CEO of MailNinja and Owner of Chimp Essentials, to chat about pizza, whales, the infamous Really Good Emails submissions queue, and the inspiration behind RGE.

So, what is a Really Good Email anyway? Doug & Friends x Really Good Emails

Some people might think of the North Star as the guiding light home, taking us back to days of navigating our way home on the ships. When it comes to reports, a North Star Metric goes beyond a clickthrough rate to measure what’s working in your customer journey experience and what you need to work on. So, how can a North Star Metric help you keep your campaign goals focused, and where does A/B testing (with control groups) come into play? <h2>A North Star Metric gives your company a focus</h2>When it comes to campaigns, a North Star Metric might be something beyond a clickthrough rate or a read rate. This metric guides us in achieving long-term goals and long-term company improvement. Examples of this starry-eyed metric:<ul><li><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/airbnb" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Airbnb</a>: Number of stays booked</li><li><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/figma" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Figma</a>: Time spent designing</li><li><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/headspace" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Headspace</a>: Number of meditation sessions</li><li><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/jenis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jeni’s</a>: Number of ice cream boxes ordered (or number of Everything Bagel orders)</li><li><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/slack" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Slack</a>: Daily active users</li><li><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/spotify" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Spotify</a>: Time spent listening on the platform</li></ul> Ad:<a href="https://www.omnisend.com/?utm_source=RGE&amp;utm_medium=prodban&amp;utm_campaign=reporting" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/41875e0d94f34fdeb80dd6c4775a924c"></a> <h2>A/B tests campaigns</h2>Creating an A/B test campaign can help you learn more about what your audience likes, dislikes, where they’re at in their lives right now (like if they really want the extra guac or if they’re more apt to go for the double protein...or maybe both), and what metric to focus on. There’s the standard A/B test where you send one email to 50% of your audience (Test A) and another email to the other 50% of your audience (Test B). You might send a different subject line to each group, a different email from name, or an entirely different message and design to see which email performs better. For example, in e-commerce:<ul><li>10,000 subscribers in the audience</li><li>3% conversion</li><li>300 orders</li><li>Average order value (AOV) = $50</li><li>Revenue = $15,000</li></ul> Then, there’s the A/B test with a control group added to the mix. Adam Bianco, The Beard Club’s previous Director of Customer Marketing, dove into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgIeV_kyUzA&amp;t=1761s" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the value of adding a control group to A/B tests at UNSPAM 2020</a>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UgIeV_kyUzA&nbsp;" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/UgIeV_kyUzA&nbsp;</a> <h2>What’s a control group got to do with it?</h2>Adding a control group to the A/B test campaign means that your audience will be split into three groups: Test A, Test B, and the control group. The control group will not receive any email OR the group will be excluded from receiving certain emails in an email series. So, 45% of your audience will be in Test A receiving one email, 45% of your audience will be in Test B receiving another email, and 10% of your audience will be the control group where they do not receive an email (or the control group receives a portion of the emails in a series and are excluded from other emails in the series). With onboarding emails, the control group might receive transactional emails (order confirmations, shipping, refer a friend), but they’ll be excluded from receiving alerts about promos, rewards, or abandoned cart reminders. In this case, the North Star Metric could be the number of friends referred, number of orders placed, or post-purchase actions (such as upgrading an order within 2 hours). <h2>Measuring email lift</h2>The control group helps measure the value of your email marketing efforts more accurately while connecting revenue to email marketing for non-opens. Since <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/school/apple-email-privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">some open rates might be up in the air</a>, look for different Metrics and strategies to account for the value of the emails you’re sending to customers. Another example campaign:<ul><li>The marketable audience has 9,000 subscribers, conversion rate - 3%, number of orders - 270, AOV - $50, revenue - $13,500</li><li>The control group has 1,000 subscribers, conversion rate - 1%, number of orders - 10, AOV - $50, revenue - $500</li><li>The email lift = 9,000 subscribers with a 2% conversion rate, 180 orders, AOV of $50, generating $9,000 in revenue</li></ul> Adding controls can help you better understand how many people converted even if they didn’t open the email. If a subscriber sees a subject line in their inbox with something straightforward and urgent (“Shop now! 24-hour sale”), that subscriber might go right to the website in their browser without opening the email so they can shop the sale ASAP. They’re included in the conversion rate without being included in the email open rate. Measuring the customer journey experience with control groups can help you nurture relationships and understand what resonates with your audience. <h2>How do you get your whole team to get behind finding that North Star Metric (and maybe even A/B testing with a control group)?</h2>Look at your company’s goals from a birds-eye view. What can help the company grow in the long term? Brainstorm who your audiences would be for Test A, Test B, and the control group. Write down how they would benefit from split testing (and how the company would benefit from this). If you’re talking to your boss about figuring out or adjusting that North Star Metric, go in with the facts, the numbers, the customer focus, and the strategy behind building and nurturing those customer relationships. At the end of the day, <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/school/mental-inbox-with-matthew-smith-from-really-good-emails" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">email is relationship designed</a>. Ad:<a href="https://www.omnisend.com/?utm_source=RGE&amp;utm_medium=tanban&amp;utm_campaign=reporting" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/73ecdfc28faa4ce78a71002b1ecc632d"></a>

Some people might think of the North Star as the guiding light home, taking us back to days of navigating our way home on the ships. When it comes to reports, a North Star Metric goes beyond a clickthrough rate to measure what’s working in your customer journey experience and what you need to work on. So, how can a North Star Metric help you keep your campaign goals focused, and where does A/B testing (with control groups) come into play?

What’s a North Star metric, and how can a control group help in A/B testing?

In 2020, email open rates, conversion rates, and revenue per recipient saw a <a href="https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/ecommerce-benchmarks-2020-email-marketing" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">significant increase</a> from the prior year in health and beauty and apparel and accessories, the two largest e-commerce industries. With an estimated <a href="https://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Email-Statistics-Report-2018-2022-Executive-Summary.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">4.1 billion email users</a> (including test accounts, real accounts, and other accounts we created years ago for Neopets) and <a href="https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/knowledge-base/how-many-emails-does-the-average-person-receive-per-day/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">120+ business emails</a> being sent and received every day, how can you stand out with your e-commerce email marketing? Understand what the email’s job is, who your audience is, and how you can set up e-commerce automation campaigns to serve up really good emails for your customers and save yourself time. Let’s jump into a few e-commerce automations&nbsp;you can brainstorm to create or to tweak existing campaigns. <h2><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/search/emails/e-commerce%20welcome" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Welcome Emails</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/welcome-to-commonry" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/076b241ad3ac4d03818289589bbb7c68"></a> The welcome email is your virtual handshake, your, “Welcome to the party!” for your customers to get to know your company, your products, and your services. Make it count by showing off your company’s best pair of shoes, your favorite socks, and maybe even a photo of your dog if that sort of thing is on-brand. The key here is to introduce who you are, what problem your products or services solve, and why your audience should care. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/9846d04453e846d39efa2421d9265628"> Introduce your company colors, work in your company values, and add some smart copywriting with minimal design. Focus on the email messaging to connect with your customers one-on-one. You can create a series of welcome emails to introduce different product lines or services, or keep it simple with a single welcome email. Either way, update these welcome emails frequently to reflect new logos, branding colors, verbiage, and other details. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/looking-for-an-outdoor-sofa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/d82777f31d614e08bd215d7c06cbee8c"></a> <h2><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/discount" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Discounts</a></h2>What do customers love more than buying that candle that’s been sitting in their Wish List for a few weeks? Discounts. Saving money, coupon clipping, promo codes, cash back. Customers might wait for a sale, an email nudge, or sign up for a newsletter to get an extra 10%+ off on their order because it feels good to save money. Set up an abandoned cart series. For example, after Smiles Davis walked away from his computer after browsing Molekule purifiers, he received an email nudging him to buy that purifier with a percentage discount. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/you-left-something-behind-molekule" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/4465cbd6ae604dd8b99d991af1e15e00"></a> Setting up a discount email trigger can create a sense of urgency and show your customers that you appreciate them. The email encourages them to buy something now or sign up for your email list since they're showing an interest by interacting with your website.<a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/discount-code-inside-" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/a02751ba1c64496b94ddd495ccdd0a5c"></a> Ad:<a href="https://www.omnisend.com/?utm_source=RGE&amp;utm_medium=grnban&amp;utm_campaign=automation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/2dd88eba9c784b74ae4af85ae31061ae"></a> <h2><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/review-testimonial" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Reviews &amp; User-Generated Content</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/transparency-is-kind-of-our-thing" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/7c3d42765c12481ba225b71195f4ae5f"></a> Search social media to see what people are saying about your products, and request permission to use customer testimonials in your marketing emails. Sprinkling reviews in your emails - welcome emails, thank you emails, and more - shows that real people are using and reacting to your products. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/how-one-skincare-lover-spfs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/d9776939cdef4d45a4fa0ed8d75da8d1"></a> Keep an eye out for customer emails too. No matter how big or small a business is, customer support emails can be some of the most important emails with the best feedback. These emails usually come from loyal customers who write in unpromptedly, or enthusiastically fill out your surveys, and these might be the best reviews to feature. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/c2f3c6b054874df4940b314569eb6c4d"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/cfbd254dd00f41cdae4d53e02a2c1ba3"> <h2><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/abandoned-cart" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Abandoned Cart</a></h2>One of the last things you want is for customers to leave something that they love in their cart.Maybe they got busy. Maybe they’re waiting for payday. Or, maybe they really don’t want that thing that’s in their cart. (But we’re gonna stick with the reasoning that maybe they were busy...) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/your-basket-is-having-abandonment-issues" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/eba2162ea37a42c1b8d36730a0859647"></a> Set up a series of e-commerce automation emails to tell the customer how they'll be missing out if they don’t purchase the item. <a href="https://www.omnisend.com/blog/cart-abandonment-emails-the-best-practices-and-stats-infographic/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Be strategic</a> with the amount of time between each email send (ex: 12 hours after cart abandonment). Also, look past the sale - what’s the human element? What will hook them to where they’ll need to complete the purchase? Give them an incentive, such as <a href="https://www.omnisend.com/blog/cart-abandonment-incentives/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">free shipping</a>, a free gift, or a discount on the entire order, and remind customers of how this product or service will solve a problem for them. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/youve-looked-at-some-great-lego-sets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/d64672030dae4b449f4a3d1504154267"></a> <h2>Post-Purchase E-Commerce Automation</h2>Think of the post-purchase process like you’re saying goodbye to a friend. You wouldn’t just leave them hanging when you walk away or log off, right? You’d probably give them an elbow bump, send them a text when you get home, or give them a slightly awkward wave on the screen. The post-purchase process should focus on maintaining that very relationship. The next time the customer sees your name pop up in their inbox, you won’t be strangers but you'll be familiar.<h2> </h2><h2><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/confirmation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Order Confirmation</a> &amp; <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/shipping" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Purchase Tracking</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/eero-order-confirmation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/ec6d770ca52c437786589a7b34241bff"></a> Create a series of emails to be triggered after a purchase. This might include an order confirmation/thank you email, a shipping confirmation email with the estimated delivery date, a delivery confirmation email, and then a follow-up email to make sure the customer has everything that they need.<a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/meundies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/9e5806ad9f954aed917aae5dc4ef462b"></a>You can also start this experience on the order confirmation page like Kohl's did here with information such as the order number, amount of money the customer saved, and rewards they earned.<img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/69c7884c7b8746a29b918bf0aea776c9"> <h2><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/survey-feedback" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Surveys</a></h2>Once the customer receives the item, ask for feedback with a short survey. Asking for quick feedback - something that won't take more than 2 - 3 minutes to fill out - will give you content for future email campaigns, along with information on how you can improve your product or reassurance with what's working. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/day-30-what-s-happened-so-far" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/b9e350e09c75440e963d7a8b0db4d592"></a> <h2>SMS&nbsp;</h2>Take the e-commerce automation a step further with <a href="https://www.omnisend.com/blog/abandonment-sms/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">SMS messaging</a>. Personalize the messaging using first name, information about the order, related products, and what the customer can expect to be up next on deck. <a href="https://fantastictexts.com/cross-upsell/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/fced116f88334c6ab6f4fba79519806f"></a>Photo from <a href="https://fantastictexts.com/cross-upsell/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Fantastic Texts</a> <h2>Remember: Automation is More than Set It and Forget It</h2>Test your <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/school/keep-email-automations-in-check" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">email automations</a> on an ongoing basis. Make sure triggers are working and signup bars are set up correctly. Adjust the email content according to the season, sales prices, customer feedback, and company updates to keep the messaging and design fresh for your audience. <h2>Make Your Customers Feel Valued with E-Commerce Automation</h2>Need more e-commerce email inspiration to get started or to adjust existing campaigns? <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/signup" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up</a> for a Really Good Emails account or <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/signin" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sign in</a> and <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/collections" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">start collecting</a> your favorite emails. Save 'em for later to collaborate with your team. Ad:<a href="https://www.omnisend.com/?utm_source=RGE&amp;utm_medium=prodban&amp;utm_campaign=automation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/1e1870650ea74d6486c001bcdd39eb57"></a>

In 2020, email open rates, conversion rates, and revenue per recipient saw a significant increase from the prior year in health and beauty and apparel and accessories, the two largest e-commerce industries. How can you stand out with your e-commerce email marketing? Understand what the email’s job is, who your audience is, and how you can set up e-commerce automation campaigns to serve up really good emails for your customers and save yourself time.

How to Create a Really Good Customer Experience with E-Commerce Automation

We’re still riding the wave of speculation from Apple’s Privacy Protection announcement made two weeks ago. In the past week, we’ve come across more than a dozen articles citing how the update this fall to iOS 15 and macOS Monterey will either kill off email marketing as we know it, will be a benefit to customer loyalty, or land somewhere in the middle. That’s a wide range of opinions, so here’s what we know and some ideas of what you should do about it. <h2>What is Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection?</h2>Essentially, what Apple is doing is creating a feature that stops senders from gleaning information from those big brother tracking pixels that are inserted into their emails (either by choice or be default). In the words of <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/06/apple-advances-its-privacy-leadership-with-ios-15-ipados-15-macos-monterey-and-watchos-8/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Apple’s snappy PR team</a>: “The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when [users] open an email, and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.” This is done by automatically loading the content of the email once it is delivered to Apple Mail, which ultimately means that opens and IP address will be useless because it isn’t tied to the individual. But that also means that time stamps, forwarding, device identifiers, and even live content (like the cool countdown timers we use) will become useless too. <h2>The Negative Nancy Perspective</h2>Since we can remember, people have been saying that email is dead. For those who still believe that lie, the Apple Mail update is going to be the nail in the coffin because marketers will no longer know who opened the email. Their logic follows the line that everything is tied to opens, stating that if you don’t receive open information, then:<ul><li>Your reputation score will decrease and spam rates will increase (because you don’t know who is not opening)</li><li>Your customer base won’t receive information based on things near them</li><li>Your content that revolves around live content (eg. stock tickers) will be incorrect</li><li>You can’t target the best time to send an email based on optimization algorithms</li><li>You can’t use open-to-click rates as a key performance metric to determine the persuasiveness of the copy</li><li>Some organizations that have relied heavily on open and location metrics will not see the value in continuing to email</li></ul> There’s merit to what they say. We know that the data is very clear: to maintain great inbox placement, you must only send to the subscribers who will engage with you and stop sending to people who don’t. For newsletter-only publishers, who run 100% on read rates and not clicks (because all of their content is within the email), this will be very difficult for them to swallow. They are not accustomed to getting other actions out of their readers other than getting them to open it. This will be a shift in how their business outcomes are valued. Even worse than those are spam traps. Spam traps are email addresses that don’t belong to real people but instead are used by inbox filters and blocklist providers to find senders who aren’t following best practices. Since the best way of finding a spam trap is by filtering out subscribers who consistently don’t open, keeping spam traps off your list will become very difficult. <h2>The Cheery Charlie Perspective</h2>Email is all about relationships, not open rates. Sure, open rates can tell you something about how effective your subject line copy skills are, but it doesn’t indicate how successful you are with connecting with your readers. Opens rates and list size are two metrics that are known as vanity metrics, and the new Apple Privacy Protection will force people and organizations to focus on:<ul><li>Deeper-impact metrics like click-to-convert, revenue per subscriber, or increased LTV</li><li>Getting to know your subscribers better and use their profile data more</li><li>Using actions as engagement metrics which are a better indicator of intent</li><li>Finding new subscribers who act like engaged users rather than just getting anyone to sign up</li><li>Actively unsubscribing people who are not adding any value to the email program</li><li>Building a trustworthy channel so that emails stay in the inbox unlike organizations who don’t focus on the reader’s interests</li></ul> When email creators focus on the myopic approach of opens, they miss the bigger picture and potential. When a sender optimizes for clicks, they need to continue to be valuable for the reader with every campaign. And that means that the emails that land in our inbox will continue to be ones that we want to engage with over time. <h2>Ways to prep</h2>You have until at least September (when the update is likely to hit devices) to make some moves. If you are only looking at open rates, then take this time to jump into your other data like the ball pits of your childhood. Here are some things to start doing now:<ul><li>Dust off your statistics skills and track important metrics. Keeping a log of how well you do on average will give you an indicator of how well you are doing compared to prior periods. What is good or bad compared to your median and standard deviations of those metrics? When you get some outliers in your data, what is your hypothesis regarding what moved the needle? You should also start tracking unsubscribes and spam complaints more closely as negative indicators, but also keep an eye on Lifetime Value or Return Visitors from Email Source.</li><li>Optimize your re-engagement campaigns. Since we usually use an open as an indicator that someone is still interested, we will need to move past that metric to some other kind of action. This doesn’t mean that you should trash what you have been doing, but knowing that re-engagement will be more than an open will mean that you should be tying success to new copy, buttons, offers, lapsed time, etc. Now is the time to start testing to see what works, such as giveaways, mystery coupon codes, surveys, or profile preference updates.</li><li>Use a control group. As we discussed at UNSPAM last year, you can siphon off an entire group of random people to see how effective your emails are by not sending to the control group at all. There’s a lot about how this works, which <a href="https://youtu.be/UgIeV_kyUzA?t=1749" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">you can watch here</a>. The gist is that you’ll see how important your emails really are by observing a subset of users who do not receive them at all. You may want to even segment your readers into most engaged (people who click 50% more than average readers) and average readers to see if you can influence the clicks from your average group more.</li><li>Actively promote readers to update their profiles and preferences. The more data you have on an individual, especially what interests they have or how often they would like to receive your emails, the more likely it is that you’ll have an engaged reader. Use this data, such as birthdays, locations, company info, past purchase history, likes, and more to tailor your message that gets them to click. This also means that you may need to create a preference center.</li><li>Encourage a click. We aren’t saying to game the system with empty promises or use link bait tactics, but there are other ways to get people to click more often. The best way is to make your email interesting and your copy compelling, but you can also try things like “share this unique code with friends” or “rate this email.” We envision that some senders will get creative and gamify the click process (much like they have for referrals) so that readers can keep track of points earned by clicking through or earn rewards for doing things to keep them in the “engaged” category.</li></ul>

We’re still riding the wave of speculation from Apple’s Privacy Protection announcement made two weeks ago. In the past week, we’ve come across more than a dozen articles citing how the update this fall to iOS 15 and macOS Monterey will either kill off email marketing as we know it, will be a benefit to customer loyalty, or land somewhere in the middle. That’s a wide range of opinions, so here’s what we know and some ideas of what you should do about it.

Apple’s new email privacy: What you need to know

On Email and Coffee, host/email marketing specialist Joi Brooks and Matthew from our team chat about how to address people's well-being from a visual design perspective. Think about the evolutionary picture of humankind and provide clarity in your emails. Confusion can feel dangerous, so the key here is to create simplicity for your audience.

Email and Coffee x Really Good Emails

Your boss tells you they're planning to switch ESPs. Do you have all your ducks in a row for the migration or do you split to fly back up north for the summer? Mike from our team chatted with Bailey Busch, senior client success manager at Cordial, about the good, the bad, and the beautiful parts of migrating ESPs. At the end of the day, don't sweat it. It's all about what matters most in your company, how to work with different messaging platforms, and viewing your ESP as your partner in crime.

Really Good Migrations Webinar with Cordial

Data-driven email marketing begins with a reliable CRM system. But when it comes to how a CRM is built, customized, and maintained, marketers often don’t know what to ask for. This workshop is designed to teach email marketers and data-driven marketers how to navigate CRM systems so that they can have access to the data they need to successfully segment, trigger, and personalize their email campaigns. You’ll learn how to:· Understand CRM fields in terms of their purpose and your marketing goals· Ask for integrations to make CRM the single source of truth· Use CRM data to trigger automated marketing campaigns· Easily prove the ROI of marketing campaigns Who should come?Email marketers, data-driven marketers, B2B marketers Who should maybe skip this one?Designers, copywriters, email newbies Natalie Jackson is the Marketing Director for the emfluence Marketing Platform and for emfluence's Digital Marketing. She has nearly a decade of experience in B2B marketing and in digital marketing, including more than eight years of geeking out over all things email and marketing automation strategy. Natalie has spoken on email marketing, CRM strategy, and content marketing for storytellers at Digital Summit Kansas City and Digital Summit At Home, Microsoft Dynamics CRMUG Summit, emfluence’s And Then Some Conference, and for countless local marketing organizations. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Emfluence (if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

For data-driven marketers to learn how to navigate CRM systems in order to successfully segment, trigger, and personalize campaigns.

The 7 Things That Belong on Every Email Marketer’s CRM Wish List

When building a first-class customer experience, every little detail counts. Leaders like Spotify, Amazon and Netflix have ushered in a new era of convenience and personalization we didn’t know was possible. Now it’s on all brands to live up to these high standards. Though challenging, there’s hope—83% of consumers will share their data in return for more personalized experiences. This where Iterable can help! In this class, experts from the Iterable team will reveal how to achieve advanced cross-channel personalization by building individualized recommendations and dynamic content based on product metadata. You’ll learn how to:<ul><li>Sort and filter dynamic content groupings using multi-attribute criteria</li><li>Create localized recommendations, like “5-star restaurants, in my price range, near me”</li><li>Use Iterable Catalog to build personalized content collections and automate messages in real time</li></ul> Who should come?B2C marketers that focus on customer lifecycle / retention / CRM Email, mobile and cross-channel strategists Verticals: retail/e-commerce, subscription services, media &amp; entertainment, food &amp; beverage, travel, consumer tech Enterprise businesses looking to replace a legacy marketing cloud People looking to see what Iterable is capable of Who should maybe skip this one?B2B marketers, Small businesses, Marketers in highly regulated industries (healthcare, finance, etc.), developers and designers who strictly write code and design from scratch Note:This class is part 3 in a 3-part series. While you're encouraged to attend all 3 classes, each class stands well on its own. Choose 1, 2, or all 3! Alyssa Jarrett is Head of Brand &amp; Content at Iterable, where she specializes in creating data-driven content to educate growth marketers on how to develop world-class customer engagement. She has previously served in marketing roles for companies in SaaS and big data, including Ripple, Objectivity, Splice Machine, and Cray. Katie Barends is a New Jersey native turned California girl now living in Denver (with a few years in Florida along the way). Katie got her start in journalism, focusing on communicating and storytelling in every interaction. She has a knack for strategic conversations and helping others realize and achieve their goals. She's been in the tech world for the last 5 years working with Fortune 100 and C-Suite decision-makers across all industries. In that time, Katie has held a variety of roles in solutions consulting, sales coaching, and product and customer marketing to support both not only customers and prospects but also internal partners. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Iterable(if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

In part 3 of this 3-part series, you'll learn advanced personalization using product metadata.

Metadata: A 3-Step Plan to Cross-Channel Personalization (3 of 3)

Email campaigns are an exercise in relationship building. When done right, a well-mapped email program can bring in more sales and help you transform your existing client base into a community. But building a successful email strategy isn’t just selling things—by applying analytics to your customer journey, you can gather valuable intelligence about your prospect and customer base that can help you transform how clients experience your brand.In this class, we’ll talk about how to build targeted email campaigns for every step of the customer journey, with hands-on tips for deciding who to nurture, when to nurture them, what to say in your messaging, and how to measure email success. You’ll learn how to:· Map your email strategy to your customer journey· Grow beyond sales-oriented emails and into relationship nurtures· Use CRM data to determine who should receive which emails and when Who should come?Email marketers, data-driven marketers, client success teams Who should maybe skip this one?Designers, coders Natalie Jackson is the Marketing Director for the emfluence Marketing Platform and for emfluence's Digital Marketing. She has nearly a decade of experience in B2B marketing and in digital marketing, including more than eight years of geeking out over all things email and marketing automation strategy. Natalie has spoken on email marketing, CRM strategy, and content marketing for storytellers at Digital Summit Kansas City and Digital Summit At Home, Microsoft Dynamics CRMUG Summit, emfluence’s And Then Some Conference, and for countless local marketing organizations. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Emfluence (if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

Building a successful email strategy isn’t just selling things—you have the power to transform how clients experience your brand.

Building Better Relationships with Email

B2B email doesn’t have to be boring. In this workshop, we’ll talk about how to jazz up your B2B email strategy and better leverage your CRM data to improve your recipient relationships. We’ll take lessons from B2C email strategies and discuss how they can be applied to B2B relationships, see what B2B marketers can learn from ecommerce email, and open up the possibilities of B2B email beyond the standard newsletter. You’ll learn how to:· Explore new ways to use email as a B2B relationship tool· Experiment with fresh email designs, strategies, and messaging for the B2B inbox· Work within the Outlook inbox Who should come?Email marketers, data-driven marketers, B2B marketers Who should maybe skip this one?B2C email marketers Natalie Jackson is the Marketing Director for the emfluence Marketing Platform and for emfluence's Digital Marketing. She has nearly a decade of experience in B2B marketing and in digital marketing, including more than eight years of geeking out over all things email and marketing automation strategy. Natalie has spoken on email marketing, CRM strategy, and content marketing for storytellers at Digital Summit Kansas City and Digital Summit At Home, Microsoft Dynamics CRMUG Summit, emfluence’s And Then Some Conference, and for countless local marketing organizations. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Emfluence (if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

B2B email doesn’t have to be boring. It's time to open up the possibilities of B2B email beyond the standard newsletter.

The B2B Marketer’s Guide to Better Email

When building a first-class customer experience, every little detail counts. Leaders like Spotify, Amazon and Netflix have ushered in a new era of convenience and personalization we didn’t know was possible. Now it’s on all brands to live up to these high standards. Though challenging, there’s hope—83% of consumers will share their data in return for more personalized experiences. This is where Iterable can help! In this class, experts from the Iterable team will dive deep into all things data feeds between your ESP and outside sources. By mastering data feeds, you’ll be able to send time-sensitive content at the perfect moment for each customer. You’ll learn how to:<ul><li>Use data feeds to personalize campaigns, like active offers and blog newsletters</li><li>Differentiate public and managed data feeds and how to leverage them</li><li>Create individualized email templates using Iterable’s handlebars logic</li></ul> Who should come?B2C marketers that focus on customer lifecycle / retention / CRMEmail, mobile and cross-channel strategistsVerticals: retail/e-commerce, subscription services, media &amp; entertainment, food &amp; beverage, travel, consumer techEnterprise businesses looking to replace a legacy marketing cloudPeople looking to see what Iterable is capable of Who should maybe skip this one?B2B marketers, Small businesses, Marketers in highly regulated industries (healthcare, finance, etc.), developers and designers who strictly write code and design from scratch Note:This class is part 2 in a 3-part series. While you're encouraged to attend all 3 classes, each class stands well on its own. Choose 1, 2, or all 3! Alyssa Jarrett is Head of Brand &amp; Content at Iterable, where she specializes in creating data-driven content to educate growth marketers on how to develop world-class customer engagement. She has previously served in marketing roles for companies in SaaS and big data, including Ripple, Objectivity, Splice Machine, and Cray. Katie Barends is a New Jersey native turned California girl now living in Denver (with a few years in Florida along the way). Katie got her start in journalism, focusing on communicating and storytelling in every interaction. She has a knack for strategic conversations and helping others realize and achieve their goals. She's been in the tech world for the last 5 years working with Fortune 100 and C-Suite decision-makers across all industries. In that time, Katie has held a variety of roles in solutions consulting, sales coaching, and product and customer marketing to support both not only customers and prospects but also internal partners. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Iterable(if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

In part 2 of this 3-part series, you'll learn intermediate personalization using data feeds and other 3rd-party integrations.

Data Feeds: A 3-Step Plan to Cross-Channel Personalization (2 of 3)

When building a first-class customer experience, every little detail counts. Leaders like Spotify, Amazon and Netflix have ushered in a new era of convenience and personalization we didn’t know was possible. Now it’s on all brands to live up to these high standards. Though challenging, there’s hope—83% of consumers will share their data in return for more personalized experiences.In this class, experts from the Iterable team will cover the basics of how to user profile and event data to create personalized email and cross-channel messaging that supports a best-in-class customer experience. You’ll learn how to:<ul><li>Create custom events for lifecycle milestones, like downloading an app or visiting a high-intent webpage</li><li>Build the perfect email template that incorporates hyper-specific user profile data</li><li>Launch a foolproof campaign that delivers individualized customer messaging</li></ul> Who should come?B2C marketers that focus on customer lifecycle / retention / CRM Email, mobile and cross-channel strategists Verticals: retail/e-commerce, subscription services, media &amp; entertainment, food &amp; beverage, travel, consumer tech Enterprise businesses looking to replace a legacy marketing cloud People looking to see what Iterable is capable of Who should maybe skip this one?B2B marketers, Small businesses, Marketers in highly regulated industries (healthcare, finance, etc.), developers and designers who strictly write code and design from scratch Note:This class is part 1 in a 3-part series. While you're encouraged to attend all 3 classes, each class stands well on its own. Choose 1, 2, or all 3! Alyssa Jarrett is Head of Brand &amp; Content at Iterable, where she specializes in creating data-driven content to educate growth marketers on how to develop world-class customer engagement. She has previously served in marketing roles for companies in SaaS and big data, including Ripple, Objectivity, Splice Machine, and Cray. Katie Barends is a New Jersey native turned California girl now living in Denver (with a few years in Florida along the way). Katie got her start in journalism, focusing on communicating and storytelling in every interaction. She has a knack for strategic conversations and helping others realize and achieve their goals. She's been in the tech world for the last 5 years working with Fortune 100 and C-Suite decision-makers across all industries. In that time, Katie has held a variety of roles in solutions consulting, sales coaching, and product and customer marketing to support both not only customers and prospects but also internal partners. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Iterable(if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

In part 1 of this 3-part series, you'll learn basic personalization using user profile and demographic data!

User & Event Data: A 3-Step Plan to Cross-Channel Personalization (1 of 3)

There’s a lot more to consider about pop-up designs and strategy, but it all comes back to serving the end-user. One of our mantras at RGE is to build relationships, not lists. We chatted with Olivia Stapp, Customer Success Strategy Manager at Justuno, about some really good pop-up strategies. When thinking about why you want people to give you their information, thinking in this context should guide you better than anything else.

Strategizing Pop-Up Designs with Justuno

This FF episode was sponsored by <a href="https://us.netcorecloud.com/superior-email-delivery" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Netcore</a>. Revolutionize email experiences with the only email delivery platform that leverages AI to power deliverability and increased customer engagement. <hr> Matt Helbig: What's up, Email Geeks? Welcome back to another episode of Feedback Friday, this week with an amazing guest. How's it going, Andy? Andy McCutcheon: Hey, it's going well, happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Matt Helbig: Your <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/vacasa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Vacasa</a> emails caught our eye on <a href="https://www.reallygoodemails.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reallygoodemails.com</a>. Could you tell us a little bit about your background and maybe a little bit about this brand? Andy McCutcheon: I'm the Email Marketing Manager at Vacasa, which is North America's largest vacation rental management platform. We manage 30,000 homes across 400 different markets as well as rent out the homes that we manage for homeowners. I am the Email Marketing Manager, touching everything from marketing to transactional emails and everything in between. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NU4a_k0YvfM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/NU4a_k0YvfM</a> Matt Helbig: I was hoping that we could walk through some of these and maybe talk about what you like. Andy McCutcheon: Yeah. This was a little bit of a different kind of promotional email that we sent. All of our promotional marketing emails go out to previous reservation guests, so they are folks who are fairly knowledgeable or at least aware of Vacasa as a brand and have had a previous stay with us. We do a lot of unit personalization, pulling in dynamic unit recommendations into emails.&nbsp; <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/your-highway-101-road-trip-atlas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/be140421ac814f6abe88fd258ccc584d"></a> With this one, we wanted to do something a little bit different and really lean into one of the biggest travel trends of the last year, which is driving to destinations. Driving has been super popular with everything happening and folks being hesitant to fly and being able to go somewhere that they can hop in their car and have a little bit more control over their destination and how they get there. Rather than packing this full of personalized unit recommendations and things like that, we wanted to do something a little bit more fun, and softer, and a little bit broader. We tried to kind of recreate this road trip down the West Coast, highlighting a few of our favorite markets that we have homes to rent in. Matt Helbig: Even at this top section, a lot of things are standing out to me, a nice color palette, great use of live text. I even noticed on mobile that you left-aligned this content soit's a lot easier to read on that smaller screen.&nbsp; Andy McCutcheon: One of my biggest collaborators at Vacasa is a developer, Taylor Campbell, and he built the email workflow that we use. It's incredibly reusable and customizable with huge base components that we can use and then customize as needed. Then, it's got tons of styles and classes built into it as well, so doing things like taking text from center to left-aligned on desktop and mobile is really, really easy. We've also tried to be really strong advocates of accessibility in email, and always rely on live text as much as possible. Matt Helbig: Is there anything you might want to improve on this email? I know it's pretty polished. It's kind of a long scroll, but I do like how you use these graphics to bring your eye down the email. Andy McCutcheon: Yeah, I’m super happy with how this came out. One of the tricky parts was navigating how much white space we've generated around the dashed lines with the icons. Especially on desktop, I feel like they almost look like they're floating. In a perfect world, we could tuck those dashed lines up underneath the sections above and below them. However, wanting to keep live text and all of those kinds of things in space and consistent, we had to keep them above the sections. Overall, I'm super happy with how this came out. Matt Helbig: Nice. Could you tell me a little bit about this one? <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/beverlys-oasis-is-still-available" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/5ab79c024148455fb6044f31ed23e0b9"></a> Andy McCutcheon: This is our checkout abandonment email. This is one of a couple of different checkout abandonment emails we have. This is a user who starts the checkout process for a particular unit and then abandons it before completing. We resurface that unit that they were looking at and link back to it in a few different places, trying to encourage them to complete that reservation. We've done a lot of testing on the CTA. “Make it Yours” is the current CTA. Previously, we were just doing “Book Now.” We've tried a few different variants, and “Make it Yours” was the highest performer of the last round of testing that we did.&nbsp; Then, we recently onboarded a firm as a payment method partner, and we're all super excited about offering that. That was something that we felt made a lot of sense to surface in this email where somebody possibly got to the payment screen and felt a little bit unsure about making that last click. So, we surface this as a flexible payment option. I think this was a great recent addition that's only been in this template for a couple of months. Matt Helbig: Yeah, I like bringing in that level of personalization, and utilizing that live text to maybe do that as well. It’s cool to see. Then whenever you can use, I'm guessing these great images or things like that, especially with travel emails, it's nice to see, bringing those in and letting them go full width on mobile and stuff. I think on mobile, this one's optimized and would definitely catch my attention in the inbox. Andy McCutcheon: It makes our job a lot easier when we have phenomenal images of homes like this one. It makes it easy for us to pull in the primary image of the unit that they were looking at and make it pop. We make sure to use the default image for that home so that it's instantly recognizable from that session that they had on the site so they’ll know what we're reaching back out to them about. Matt Helbig: I'm curious, is there a reason why you don't show prices in this email? Andy McCutcheon: Yeah, that's a good point. We did an A/B test last year. It's been probably about six months so it might be time to revisit, but we did have a version of this that had the reservation details with the home’s name, the check-in, and check-out dates, as well as the price that they were seeing in their cart when they abandoned. We had a couple of different breakdowns of just the total price, and then, the rent plus fees, plus tax, and then a subtotal. We had the highest click-through rate and the highest post-click conversion rate from this one, that was a little bit more simple and clean so that's what we ended up going with. Matt Helbig: Thanks for sharing those learnings. It’s super cool to see testing emails like this that are maybe a more triggered email that can make you a lot of money long term.&nbsp; Then this last one caught my eye with this wave breaking up the color here. Great photography, great use of live text. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/time-to-start-planning-that-oregon-coast-trip" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/04cc87a6fad1478da07cbdeda4b96cd1"></a> Andy McCutcheon: This was something where again we're trying to lead into accessible destinations for folks. This was sent to users in our database that live in Washington, Oregon, or Idaho, where traveling to the Oregon coast is pretty accessible. Obviously, the waves, trying to be on theme with the Oregon coast. Our email designer and developer, Rachel, came up with this design and the waves to break up the depth of field almost in the header. That was something I saw on <a href="https://www.reallygoodemails.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Really Good Emails</a> that stood out to me. I shared it with the team as an example of how we could use live text as the main header title of the email and then have the image below it, and then do something underneath the image to break it up and give a little bit of a sense of depth to it, while still making my main image pop. Matt Helbig: It definitely stands out to me. I’m a big fan of these colors working together. It's cool to see a ghost button test to see if that would maybe perform a little bit better than an all-white button. However, I think it works for something like this, where there's a little bit more text leading you into that CTA. Andy McCutcheon: I think if we had gone with our traditional yellow CTA with that accent line directly beneath it, it might have been a little bit overpowering. I like the ghost button for this section as well and had I been thinking a little bit more strategically at the time, I probably would have liked to have done a direct A/B test, but something to think about for the future.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Anything else with these emails? Anything that's exciting with email? Anything upcoming? Andy McCutcheon: We're trying to keep being innovative and keep trying to take advantage of a lot of the great visual assets that we, as a vacation rental company, have access to.&nbsp; It makes our job easier when we have great assets, but then it's also on us to take it to the next level. That's always a challenge with email because you want it to be easily scrollable and not be visually overwhelming and not get in the way of the objective of the email. That's something that I think that we're constantly striving for, is how can we make this visual and really pop to the recipient, but also not be overwhelming and be clean, easy to scroll through, and easy to navigate. Matt Helbig: Amazing work. I like experimenting with these different layouts and designs. They all still feel like they're part of the same brand and the same design system. Thanks for jumping on and walking through these with us! Andy McCutcheon: Cool, thank you. It's so good to talk to you.

Do you map out every single step of a trip right down to the rest stops, or are you up for randomly stopping off at a local diner for some good and greasy food to pull an all-night drive? (Yeah, us too.) While emails should be more planned out than late-night road trip stops, you can easily customize your message by pulling in dynamic content. Andy McCutcheon, email marketing manager at Vacasa, walks us through some customized email templates with built-in styles, classes, and our favorite: live text.

How to Personalize the Travel Experience with Vacasa

This FF episode was sponsored by <a href="https://us.netcorecloud.com/superior-email-delivery" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Netcore</a>. Revolutionize email experiences with the only email delivery platform that leverages AI to power deliverability and increased customer engagement.<hr> Matt Helbig: What's up Email Geeks? Welcome back to another episode of Feedback Friday, this week with a special guest. How's it going?&nbsp; Avi Goldman: I'm doing alright. How are you doing?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Good. We've been a big fan of <a href="https://useparcel.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Parcel</a>, so I was interested a little bit about this tool and your background Avi. Avi Goldman: For sure. I’m an Email Geek, first and foremost, that's kind of where I've been for the past five years. I've done some software engineering, marketing, product management, and everything that I do, I love to tie back into email. That's kind of who I am at this point.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: We have some <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/poolside-fm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Poolside FM</a> emails today, a very nice chill vacation vibe for the summer. I'm excited to walk through these and get your opinions on them.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: These are gorgeous.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: We're actually in Parcel right now. It's a pretty interesting, cool text editor for HTML, email development. I’m digging the scalable windows here and the different viewports. I think we can go to the desktop view, and we can walk through this one.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: Let's do it.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ayhFSwABBSU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/ayhFSwABBSU</a> Matt Helbig: Sweet. What stood out to you on some of these? Avi Goldman: The thing that first struck me was just the colors, they fit so well with what I expect from the brand. They feel calming, that blue, and think about the colors, we'll see, they just feel like a vacation to me. That was the biggest thing for me, was just that it covers the entire screen, they don't have any width of 600, they filled up the entire email. They still have a really good text width, which is really important since they’re using that monospace. It creates a gorgeous feeling when I open the email, that was the biggest thing for me.&nbsp; <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/poolside-fm-launches-sunscreen-company-vacation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/a55eebbfeeb848bdbf018b9fb7cbdfc6"></a> Matt Helbig: I'm liking how the colors are working together with this nice, big sort of eye-catching GIF. It’s sort of a one-column email using some live text here, with that custom font for the intro. I like the reverse-pyramid right down into this copy. Yeah, we don't see a lot of mono type space like this. (Monospace font is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space.) Matt Helbig: It fits their brand, more like a code-y developer sort of vibe. I'm a fan.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: Me too. Also, it's the 80’s feel too. The graphic at the top of the 80’s typeface too, like a no-text terminal kind of computer.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Yeah, and then right into that “Reserve Yours” CTA. I'm also a fan of how these colors are working together. Scrolling down to the second section, there is a fun little GIF talking about an honorary position at “Vacation Inc.” Avi Goldman: Amazing. It's fun. They've put a little bit of a game inside the email to engage you. It catches your eye.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Going down into this bottom section with the social, I think this is something that we call out a lot, sort of having a preview of these Instagram posts. I think it works pretty well here, just giving you a little teaser about content that they're sharing on Instagram. Then, there are some simple icons on the bottom. I was interested actually in some of these accessibility tools that you've built into Parcel here like we had blurred vision. Avi Goldman: The goal was to cover a wide range of accessibility issues. The first one that I wanted to tackle was visual impairments. My dad and my brother are both colorblind, I have really bad vision, and my apartment has windows that get glare all the time. There's both the situational disability as well as one that you just have. It's really important to keep that sort of thing in mind and that's kind of what I want to cover here.&nbsp; My vision tends to be almost black and white, especially when I have a glare on my laptop, so that one was important to me, even though it is probably the least common visual accessibility issue. Personally, the blurred screens, without my glasses, tend to be like that as well. I wanted to make it easy to see what that was like. Then, we can kind of see what that looks like here with blurred vision, that monospace font and at that 14 point font, it does make it difficult to see. Definitely, without my glasses, I wouldn't be reading this email. Matt Helbig: I know there are some tools out there that simulate this for you, for the web, but it's nice to have something like this built-in with that accessibility in mind. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/mixtapes-poolchat-keychains" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/81096e1f483d4f78b14f347ac9642269"></a> This is an ad for a mixtape. I like this throwback window here, and again, with that monotype, some interesting background colors, and just being consistent. I guess these GIFs specifically stand out to me.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: The thing that stood out for me in this email was their brand voice. It fits so well with their website, and with the design of it, it's a very fun, free flow, kind of human voice. It's easy to connect with it, it's easy to see that. If you're listening through to the mixtape, you will probably relate to the way they’re talking to you. They’ve tailored their brand voice to their audience well.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I think some of these headlines could be a little larger to break up these sections. I think the bold is an indicator of that, maybe on mobile, it's a little clearer. Overall, I think they could make that a tad bit bigger here to break up these sections. I’m a fan of how this one goes through, and it's a rare strike through which I always like. It's a weird thing to include in email. With the all caps too, they're bringing in that fun tone voice as you said. I think this one's a pretty fun little newsletter. I guess I might have a problem with all this stuff being centered text, especially on some of these longer sections, it might get a little bit hard to read. I'd be interested in seeing this left-aligned, just on the accessibility side.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: Actually, can we try toggling the images off to see what their alt text looks like?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Sure. Not the best, or at all. Avi Goldman: Yeah, I think that was something that jumped out at me when I was looking at these emails earlier. A lot of their headings are well designed with the typography, and they’ve used images to keep that, which is a totally valid thing to do, but when you have images off, when you're using a screen reader, and there's nothing there, that makes it hard to use for some folks. I think it's a really important, and pretty straightforward, step especially when the entire image is just a piece of text. Matt Helbig: Having this text be alt tags, you could even do a fun-styled alt text. You could probably create something a little bit similar to this in the email so that if those images are turned off, or are loading a little slow, you can get something with this before everything loads.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: I think mixing both an image CTA with a completely coated live text CTA at the bottom there. If you use the second item, over the little crosshairs, and go ahead and click on that, it makes it easy to see that, and the beauty of live text makes it easy to change. It’s really easy to jump in and pull that over. There are a few other tools up there on the right that make it easy to just go ahead and make the changes to your email right there.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Even this hover is impressive and useful.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: Another nice thing that we could do with this email, is this one is most definitely going to get clipped in Gmail with the current size of it. However, there's a lot of whitespace in this email, a lot of bad formatting. If you click on the “zero transformers” at the bottom left, head over to formatting, and go ahead and minify it, then, we can see in the bottom left now that it dropped 38%, from 122 kilobytes to 76. Now, this email is almost definitely not going to get clipped down. By turning that on, we can save ourselves from potentially not letting our subscribers see our full message. If you want to see the minified version, you can click on “source” next to “preview”. There is all the spacing, any unnecessary new lines, any HTML comments that aren’t MSO comments, all get stripped out. You're good to grab this code and send it off. This email is now safe, and it's going to fall under that Gmail limit. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/poolside-fm-for-mac-out-now" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/29cf400a6c7d49b0af10b8a5d8b3e7e5"></a> Matt Helbig: Another 80’s themed image here. Avi Goldman: Again with that consistency. Matt Helbig: Nice, they're just going again with these really large headlines with that type. I like how big this App Store button is. Usually, you see it sort of tucked away at the bottom, but I like that being the main CTA. For some reason, it's more fun or on-brand for me, than just a “download now” CTA. Avi Goldman: It feels integrated with the Apple system, it’s using their CTA as your CTA.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Again, a fun little GIF driving into that “App Store” CTA. Avi Goldman: A small thing that I liked that they did here is near the bottom, when they say, “Follow us on Insta”, they've got the link bolded, there’s a color change, and it’s underlined so it’s really clear that that's a link. We as the industry will sometimes hide links, the unsubscribe link, or something like that, and that can sometimes bleed over into link fatality. Having that small, that secondary CTA, of following them on Instagram, but still making it clear that you can click there, I think is nice.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: When I try to create links, I always think about if someone clicks this, will they be surprised? When I land on a page, I don't like being surprised. This is very clear that this is a link, it’s going to their Instagram, and this is their handle. Even though it's a small thing, I think it does help you eliminate that confusion of knowing when you click on something exactly where you're going to land. Tell me why I'm clicking this link and where I'm going to go.&nbsp; Then, you've also launched <a href="https://emailresourc.es/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Email Resources</a>, which is a very comprehensive list of email resources. What made you want to put all this together?&nbsp; Avi Goldman: With Email Resources, the name kind of explains what it is, right? It's a list of resources focused on email. What it was, is that I had a big spreadsheet myself of email resources that I’ve collected, it was probably 100+ resources, and I have people asking me for recommendations and suggestions all the time. I figured why not share the list directly? I figured it would be a great place for adult people to find the tools that will do the job that they have, and also learn about categories of tools that they might not have known existed. If you don't know that there are minifiers, discovery is a big thing.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: This is my favorite one right here, I think. Avi Goldman: I agree that's marked as a favorite. Definitely top three.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I know we're always looking to send someone a link with all the resources that we've collected or looked at over the years. This is a lot of work and thank you for putting this together because it's a very comprehensive guide, especially for someone starting with email development or design or copywriting, or marketing. Even when I go through, I'm still finding out cool new things to try out and learn from. Thanks for putting this together.&nbsp; Avi Goldman: My absolute pleasure.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Where can we find you online?&nbsp; Avi Goldman: You can find me on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/theavigoldman" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@theavigoldman</a>. You can also check out the Parcel account, which is <a href="https://twitter.com/useparcel" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@useparcel</a>. I'm in the <a href="https://email.geeks.chat/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Email Geeks Slack</a> as AGoldman so if you've got any questions or you want to just chat, hit me up on any of those platforms.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Thanks for joining us this week. A big fan of these emails and a big fan of this tool. Avi Goldman: Thanks, Matt.

If an email is sent and no one added alt text, does it reach the inbox? Descriptive alt text is just one thing to keep in mind to serve up accessible emails. We talk mixtapes and Macintosh with Avi Goldman, founder of Parcel and curator of Email Resources, putting these e-commerce emails to the accessibility test in Parcel’s interface.

How to Bring Nostalgia and Accessibility to E-Commerce with Poolside FM

This FF episode was sponsored by&nbsp;<a href="https://us.netcorecloud.com/superior-email-delivery" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Netcore</a>. Revolutionize email experiences with the only email delivery platform that leverages AI to power deliverability and increased customer engagement. <hr> Kelly Lamano: Hey there Email Geeks! Welcome back to another episode of Feedback Friday. This week we've got a special guest, Aysha Marie Zouain. She's a senior consultant specializing in Salesforce Marketing Cloud at Deloitte Digital. Welcome, Aysha, how are you? Aysha Marie Zouain: Hi, doing good, doing good. Happy to be here.&nbsp; Kelly Lamano: Yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself. Aysha Marie Zouain: I am a designer-developer strategy combo. That’s what I do at Deloitte Digital currently. I play all day in Content Builder, but I also work with others and train them into doing awesome work all over the platform. Whether it's in automations, cloud pages, or anything else like that. Kelly Lamano: You're also involved in Women of Email too? Aysha Marie Zouain: Yes, I am now a board member, but I've been with Women of Email now for four years. I’ve been a board member for about three.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UuwNPsmxZpY" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/UuwNPsmxZpY</a> Kelly Lamano: That's great. Email is a great way to meet people and share different experiences too and different backgrounds. Today we're going to talk about some of your work as an email developer with Apartment Guide, which falls under RentPath. Tell us a little bit about your experience there and the different versions of the emails that you created. Aysha Marie Zouain: On a day-to-day basis, I would get different projects coming in from different departments, and they would send them via our project management software. I know that we hopped around several different ones and I think we were on Asana. We would get different requests from stakeholders. We had a very strict form that asked, ”How do you want this to look? What's the cadence? Do you have the art files? Do you want it to be done by the email developer?”. Generally, I didn't have enough time to do the design. Occasionally I did do it, but for the most part, I was far too busy to be doing any design work anymore.&nbsp; This one, I’ll be showing iteration number one, and then iteration number two. I believe now it is on iteration number three, I just haven't checked recently for Apartment Guide. Generally, I worked on three brands, but because RentPath itself had an overarching brand, I would say it was four brands within RentPath that I worked on. Kelly Lamano: Tell us a little bit about this first version here. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/fa9a6e57904c42b4979edc418d1efb7b"> Aysha Marie Zouain: For version one, if you look at the backend of the code, I based it out of Cerberus, and I learned quite a bit.&nbsp; We put different things in here. I like to start with a good base template, and then code it to make it my own. With this template, the ask was very little. This version was very basic. They wanted something like a cityscape. This content team requested a blog email that would be coming out as a newsletter every week, and this was the welcome series. The welcome series was only one email, and I hope that it expanded. If not, it was what it was, but this was the first version of it.&nbsp; It had different copy compared to version two, and a slightly different style. This version sets you up to know how the cadence is because it says, “Look for an email once a week”. We talk about what the subject is going to be about, besides just being a renter. We talk about amenities, smart apartments, and what kind of streaming services are the best. Also, this was before the site was redesigned. Once the site was redesigned and deployed, that’s why we did a second version. Kelly Lamano: Sounds like as the website was updated so were the email templates to keep it consistent across the channels. Aysha Marie Zouain: Yeah. We had something called “My Saved Places” and “Manage My Preferences”. I had just started learning how to do hover, so that was the first time I dipped my toes into doing more interesting stuff with my code. Kelly Lamano: Yeah, that's a nice effect there. A subtle sort of surprise for the subscriber. Aysha Marie Zouain: Yeah. I know that it changes significantly. At the bottom, you also have the Equal Opportunity Housing disclaimer. I think it's awesome and really important that companies like RentPath make sure that they show that they are because it kind of puts the user at ease to know they have an equal opportunity. The company itself was very much invested in us always needing to have that in our emails because we are always advocating for everyone to have an equal housing opportunity. RentPath has an arm for volunteering that I've always enjoyed, and it shows in some of the content that we post, or at least when I was a part of it. Kelly Lamano: Let's hop over to version two. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/c537f832472c43c7a570dd318aaefed4"> Aysha Marie Zouain: This one I feel is a lot stronger. I wanted to make it even fancier, it was my own idea to keep it updated. I told the team, “Hey guys, why don't we keep it more like the way that the site looks”, and they agreed. It's not the real money driver, it’s more just nice to have. The main driver was the transactional emails.&nbsp; Specifically, this was nice to have, but at the same time, this was also the unifying kind of codebase that you can see here. We had already done a design system with Trendline and this was using part of their base code. I customized it so if I ever did something cool, I could bring that over to other templates and swap in anything else I wanted. Everything was table-based, so it wasn't “TDTR”, it was “Table Table Table, Table”. You can easily make it modular and even though TDTR’s is modular, we had the preference to make it into tables. That's how I built this one out and customized it to make it look like the branding for the new site.&nbsp; We still kept the top, everything else from that logo down was of my own making, except for the footer, because the footer was the designers over at Trendline. Kelly Lamano: It looks like with the copy you also added in a couple of links. In the first version, it looked like it was more text-based, and it didn't link out, but here it's more specifically linking to “streaming services”, “smart apartments”, and “rent control”. It helps guide the subscriber in that sense. Aysha Marie Zouain: Yeah, I think the most important thing when you're working with teams is that not everyone's going to know as much as you, as the email marketer or email developer, or whatever your title is, or specialist. They're not quite going to know or appreciate as much as you so you're always the educator. Here I was like, “Hey let's link it back out to the site so people won't completely ignore this little welcome email. Let's keep it a little bit more entertaining.” Even though I didn't win out the battle of having cool graphics, at least I was able to win them over by saying, “Look, let's link out streaming services, smart apartments, and rent control” because those are things that are important to renters, at least in a cursory manner.&nbsp; Kelly Lamano: I think you made a great point about being an educator, and how sometimes when you're working with companies, they are really looking to you to be that guide, or maybe they don't know, “this should be the CTA” or “this is what should we be linking out to”. You come in as an expert saying, “Hey I think that renters would like this, and we might get more engagement” or something like that. In the instance of building these, what is something that you've carried with you, either something that you learned or something that you would change from building these? Aysha Marie Zouain: A lot of emails that I created at RentPath gave emails more breathing room than I did before. There's a lot more whitespace, but you can digest the content a lot better. Kelly Lamano: What are some of your favorite resources for coding? Aysha Marie Zouain: I'm following a bunch of people on Twitter, that's actually what's been helping me out more because I'm not on Email Geek’s Slack quite as much, but I also like to learn from my co-workers. A lot of us are stuck in the trenches and aren't famous for what we do, but we're still happy to share and learn what we've been experimenting with. Kelly Lamano: It's cool to see the different versions and then hearing the different resources that you use, even after building these, again with the progression of that, and how you learn from other people. I think that we are all in this to where we all share resources and we all kind of cheer each other on, or that's the goal. It's cool to hear the different resources that you use. Thanks for sharing everything today, Aysha. Where can we find you outside of Email Geeks and the email world? Aysha Marie Zouain: You can find my Twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/blackendhonesty" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@blackenedhonesty</a>. I'm always sharing either jobs or cool things I found out to do.&nbsp; Kelly Lamano: Everyone, go follow Ayesha, support her work. Check out Women of Email. Maybe we'll see you on a future episode! Aysha Marie Zouain: Definitely, and have a good one, everyone.&nbsp; Kelly Lamano: Happy Friday.&nbsp; Aysha Marie Zouain: Happy Friday.

When your newsletter isn't a top priority for your business, does that mean it isn't worth having one at all? We chatted with Aysha Marie Zouain, a senior email consultant specializing in Salesforce Marketing Cloud at Deloitte Digital, about why it's good to revisit older email strategies from time to time. Just like the housing market, a little remodeling can do wonders for your entire property value (even if all you remodel is your front door).

How Updating Welcome Emails Can Improve the Customer Experience with Apartment Guide

This FF episode was sponsored by <a href="https://more.emfluence.com/really-good-emails" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">emfluence</a>. Get paired with a marketer to see how your strategy will work in the emfluence Marketing Platform. <hr> Matt Helbig: What’s up, Email Geeks. Welcome back to another episode of Feedback Friday, this week with Kelly Lamano, content master of Really Good Emails, writer of newsletters. How's it going, Kelly? Kelly Lamano: Hey Matt, it’s going pretty great. That was quite the intro. Thank you. Matt Helbig: Do you have a better title for yourself? Kelly Lamano: No. I mean, that set the bar right there. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iK_MNbgr6ls" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/iK_MNbgr6ls</a>&nbsp; Matt Helbig: These are some Disney+ emails. These are Matthew's picks, and I thought we could walk through them and talk about what we like. So, this first one looks like an onboarding email, trying to get you to try this GroupWatch feature. And I really liked this layout. It's pretty unique from what we usually see. They're using live text here, which is really awesome to see. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/introducing-groupwatch" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/73861f5520d44dc4905e132085b92e2b"></a> Kelly Lamano: Yeah. I really liked that. They use a mix of live text and images. They could have just placed blocks of images for everything, but it's kind of unique how they have the CTA right at the top of the email. So it's kind of like, Hey, try GroupWatch…if you're not ready to try it, you can scroll down and see how it works. And then they have that consistent CTA at the bottom with Start GroupWatch. So, it's the same button at the top and the bottom, keeping it very consistent, but also walking you through the steps of how to use it. Matt Helbig: It looks like this is almost a mobile-first email in general, keeping everything pretty optimized for mobile, not having too long of a text leading people into that CTA.I think that they use a nice balance of colors to sort of break up the sections as well. Overall, I’m a fan of this one. Moving on to the next one, another Mandalorian GroupWatch email. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/groupwatch-the-mandalorian" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/e52a2cd7c77d47ddabd253699406298e"></a> Kelly Lamano: The Mandalorian was the reason why I tried Disney+. It was my intro to Star Wars, never watched the series until then, but I think it's really cool that they highlight that throughout the entire email. So, it's kind of like they're pushing Disney+ as a product, but they're also pushing The Mandalorian as a show. So, it's like double advertisement and it's kind of cool how they draw you into the email, even at the top with This is the Way, the motto of the Mandalorian. It's cool how they show you, you can watch the show together. I'm kind of curious to know the reasoning behind the side-by-side CTAs. That's kind of unique. So, the Start Streaming and the GroupWatch. I'd be interested to know what the results were behind that. Did they have more people click Start Streaming or did they have more for the GroupWatch? I’m definitely interested in the science behind that. Matt Helbig: I think we usually see these, what we call ghost buttons that are just an outline perform a little less when they're the main CTA, but as a secondary CTA, it works well if you really wanted to have these next together. I think the Start Streaming being that very clear CTA, that blue color stands out, and then the secondary GroupWatch matches the UI of the product, and it's more like a secondary CTA.I'm a fan of the gradient on the CTA. I'm sure this might just be an image and kind of hard to do with actual CSS, but I think this is a good solution to this problem of showing them next to each other, versus stacking them, they might look a little awkward. I liked this GIF. I think it is just the right amount of time. It's a little bit flashy, but it draws your eye in, very optimized for this mobile view. Again, pointing you toward that double CTA with the main CTA watching the trailer and that secondary, adding it to a Watchlist. It would be cool to see if they had a play button here that might make you want to watch this trailer, a little bit clearer if that's the main CTA they want to use. Kelly Lamano: I am curious about the Follow Us buttons. I noticed that on a lot of their emails toward the footer, they just have Follow Us and then the three buttons there. Like what you and Matthew have said before, I'd like to see more of why should we follow them? Continuing the conversation, or interacting with other viewers - why should we follow them? I’d want to see that in the future. Matt Helbig: These are sort of paired down. There aren't a hundred icons and they're pretty big, so they're pretty clickable on mobile. And then on desktop, it might be fun to add some hover effects on some of these CTAs, an opacity hover effect might be a cool little touch for those desktop users. Moving on to this next one, it’s more of an upsell email. They want you to buy into this package, upgrading your subscription. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/switch-to-the-disney-bundle-and-save" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/e52b7bed2210417d934ac6a3dcb259d7"></a> Kelly Lamano: I really like how they opened the email with a bunch of different titles, showcasing that in a visual way and that covers a wide variety of audiences. So, if you like sports, you might want to watch the Dwyane Wade documentary. If you like comedy or Disney films, you might want to watch Toy Story 4 or The Simpsons. I think it's cool how they kind of open that up, so they reach a broad audience. I like how, again, they use a lot of live text here and highlighting the logos of the companies that are partnering together, and then using that consistent CTA again. It seems like a lot of the time they have that blue button, and they keep it very consistent. So, it's teaching the reader what to look for. Matt Helbig: I also liked the very descriptive CTA copy and not repeating it here as well. I think that it's smart rather than a Buy Now. I think this Bundle and Save 25%, and Upgrade Your Subscription early are powerful CTAs. They are so close together that even if they're leading to the same page, updating the copy and targeting toward that section really supports that message. This next one has a very good use of GIFs. Some WandaVision. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/this-week-on-disney-wanda-vision" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/d6f969eb888c4f5cacf655bc7fea7645"></a> Kelly Lamano: Yeah, that one's a really cool GIF. I like how everything is kind of moving in that picture. It definitely catches your eye. I think that Disney really touches on how they can reach such a wide range of people, showing all the different movies, all the different TV shows, all the different ages that they reach. It's good to highlight different options. I think even in the future if they don't already do this, it'd be cool to see some sort of personalization. So, instead of seeing a bunch of different titles, maybe personalizing it to what's already on your Watchlist and then a follow-up to that would be cool to see. Matt Helbig: I think they really have to compete with some of these other streaming services like Netflix and Hulu who seem to do a lot of personalization when it comes to their emails, HBO Max as well. They've stood out to me on bringing a more simplistic, very friendly communication about focusing on these titles, having these nice, actionable Watchlist CTAs. I think they're trying to cater to a wide audience with their product and maybe even a younger audience. Hopefully, they can learn a little bit about your streaming preferences and try to personalize this when they can, but they do have a lot of content to serve you, and how they do that in these emails is cool. This last one really stood out to me. I really liked all the colors working together, leading down into this section with this GIF CTA. This one really caught my eye in the inbox. I think it stands out, and we don't really get to see a GIF CTA very often that's not totally crazy or annoying. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/get-early-access-to-mulan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/7a89cb9689124c54a8ebe39d4fbc8483"></a> Kelly Lamano: Yeah. I love that GIF CTA. That definitely drew me in. I don't see a lot of that. It's really cool to see that moving, and I feel like that pushes the audience to click even more because it’s like, Oh, this is nice. And it's really cool how everything is centered. I think it works well here because they don't have a ton of text on each line. They keep it simple, and I think it really works just drawing your eyes all the way down. Matt Helbig: Cool. Well, nice work Disney+, definitely a brand to follow. I'm going to have to watch some of these. Thanks for coming on, Kelly. Have a happy Friday. Kelly Lamano: Thanks, Matt. Happy Friday. Matt Helbig: See ya.

This week, we're diving into some entertainment emails from Disney+. Should you use side-by-side CTA buttons? GIFs in the header? What about a 50-year-old who’s a former Jedi youngling? Email marketing is a complicated profession. Disney+ simplifies how they promote their streaming services by highlighting titles to watch and balancing live text with images.

How to Promote Digital Services, plus Doubling Up on CTAs with Disney+

Do you remember your first letter? Maybe you found a pen pal across the world. Or you just got a letter from some guy in a green striped shirt with a bowl cut and wondered who it was from. We chatted about promotional emails from Postable with Emily Ryan, a Mailchimp Pro Partner, owner of the agency Westfield Creative, and taco lover.