Danielle – 00:00:03:
Welcome to Email After Hours by Sender Score, powered by Validity. We’re your hosts.
Guy – 00:00:09:
My name is Guy Hanson.
Danielle – 00:00:10:
And I’m Danielle Gallant. And this is Email After Hours.
Danielle – 00:00:20:
The immortalized lyrics of Guy’s favorite band, the Spice Girls. Tell me what you want, what you really, really want. It’s getting harder than ever for brands to know what their email subscribers really want. Just a decade ago, businesses relied on broad email marketing campaigns and generalized messaging to reach a wide audience. But nowadays, this strategy is unrewarding at best. Today, consumers expect a more personalized and targeted way of communication from brands, one that speaks to their specific needs and interests. Failure to deliver may result in customers disengaging, hitting the spam button, or unsubscribing. But luckily, we have brand new research from the DMA, the Data and Marketing Association, that reveals what subscribers want, what they really, really want from email in 2023.
Guy – 00:01:12:
No, I can’t let that go unchallenged, Danielle. I’m more of a Bon Jovi listener than a Spice Girls fan, so maybe it’s more a case of email marketers living on a prayer. And I’m so excited about today’s episode. The piece of research which we’re going to be talking about is one of only a very few that considers the subject of email marketing effectiveness through the eyes of the people who probably matter the most. Consumers, the people that receive the damn things. And it’s a real pleasure to welcome Komal Helyer and Ian Gibbs to talk through this report with us. And let’s start with a couple of quick introductions. Komal, you first. You actually wear at least two different hats in the context of this conversation. So tell us a little bit about your day job, but also about your relationship with the DMA, the Data and Marketing Association.
Komal – 00:02:07:
Absolutely. Thanks, Guy, for the intro. So I do wear two hats, probably multiple hats, actually, but two I will talk to you about today. So I run my own fractional CMO business where I support B, two B agencies and tech businesses with their business growth, helping them align sales and marketing and their marketing strategy. But also, I’m the chair of the Email Council at the DMA, and the Email Council pride ourselves of being the hub of email intelligence in the UK, and our aim is to bring some clarity and some simplicity to marketers on all things email marketing and also its role within the bigger marketing mix. And I’d like to say, in the words of Madonna, I am very much a material girl. So email marketing is absolutely crucial to me and how brands communicate with their consumers.
Guy – 00:03:03:
That’s fantastic. And Ian, you’re relatively recently installed at the DMA, so tell us about your role with them. And no pressure, are you going to find a set of song lyrics to describe email marketing as well?
Ian – 00:03:18:
I was going to say, Guys, I did not get this memo. Seriously, this is band made music puns don’t expect me to think of my feet here, honestly. So my name is Ian Gibbs. I’m insightful. Director DMA As I said, I’ve been in this role since October last year, but I’ve been working with them on various projects for many years before that. So for those of you who don’t know, I mean, the DMA is one of the largest marketing trade bodies in the UK with members spanning agencies, advertisers, and all sorts of marketing technology businesses as well. And the DMA kind of does a few things. It sort of promotes best practice when it comes to campaign measurement and planning. It advises on regulatory and sort of data specific affairs, of course, the application of data in the marketing world. And it also trains up the next generation of talent as well through its institute, the IDM. So that’s us. And yeah, we have this kind of independent, sort of trusted, credible voice when it comes to launching these types of research projects. And yeah, it’s been an absolute sort of pleasure to work on it this year.
Guy – 00:04:16:
Brilliant. And staying with you in I mean, both of you, like myself, have been involved in this kind of world. For Whisper, it has been quietly the best part of 20 years now. But thinking specifically about email marketing, what’s your views in terms of how it compares today with the journey that it’s been over the last two decades?
Ian – 00:04:35:
To be honest, I think the big thing for me now is just like email is just now, it is just competing for consumer attention in this age of mass distraction with so many more channels than it used to have to. That’s not to say it still isn’t fulfilling an important role because the research is suggesting it’s fulfilling a very important role just like every other channel. It’s just got to fight a lot harder in this sort of age of mass distraction to try and gather consumers’ attention.
Guy – 00:05:04:
Yeah, I’m with you there. Komal. What about you? Have you seen it change over the years?
Komal – 00:05:10:
Oh, gosh, I’ve been in it since the inception from when even before brands realized that they could be emailing their database, it’s changed immensely, I think from GDPR to market automation, new channels, emerging multichannel approaches, then omnichannel machine learning to AI, and then we’ve got new emerging capabilities such as Chat, GPT now that are just changing. But then you put that against the landscape of huge onslaught of new technology that’s available to marketers, and then you put a dash of a global crisis every now and then, and suddenly you’ve got consumer behavior changing left, right and center and what consumers want, then the fighting for attention, it can get messy. And I think the challenges are there and the pressures are there for marketers. How do you cut through that noise? But I think that makes our role so much more exciting and also it makes it so much more important in the whole sort of marketing mix, but also the business mix marketing’s role has a huge part to play in business growth and I think that’s very exciting for marketers today and going forward as well.
Danielle – 00:06:35:
Well, the Consumer Email Tracker Report is one of my absolute favorites. Every year it comes out, I rely on it so heavily and the DMA just recently released the 2023 Consumer Email Tracker Report. So Ian, I’m going to throw this one to you. Can you tell us more about how this report measures consumer preferences for email throughout the customer journey?
Ian – 00:06:58:
Yeah, sure. It’s a nationally representative survey of 2000 UK consumers and I think it just explores a number of themes relating to, I suppose how consumers interact with the channel, why they do what they want to see more of what they want to see less of how many brands emails they specifically remember signing up to, how many they don’t remember signing up to receive emails from as well. So yeah, it’s very much the sort of classic how, what, why, when of email marketing.
Guy – 00:07:25:
Let’s dig into some of the key findings. So Komal, in your opinion, what do you think was the biggest takeaway from this year’s report? And also was there a sort of stat that stood out in terms of being the one that surprised you the most?
Komal – 00:07:41:
Yeah, I think there were some real surprises actually, not just one, I think there were a few marketing assumptions that the data showed us that maybe things are a little bit different. What surprised me the most was actually did you even know that over 50% of consumers are checking their spam boxes at least once a day? I mean, who would have thought that? So it’s almost as if we, as consumers, can see humans evolving here. It’s just the way we use our fingers and our thumbs or the way we use it. How are we using the inbox in our mailboxes? And I think we’re using them very differently, we’re triaging differently, but we’re also going out and seeking those emails that we might not have had in our inbox, in our spam boxes. That’s one of the things that I found really surprising. And great, that’s great for brands, but it’s still important to get into the inbox. But great that consumers are going inside and looking for what they might have lost. But the insight I love the most is that actually double the number of people in last year are finding their emails useful. I think it went from I can’t remember the exact stats, but it was 15 to 30. I think percent of consumers are finding their emails useful. That’s amazing. Useful means maybe they’re finding them more relevant, maybe they’re supporting the buying journey a little bit more, so we’re seeing more replenishment campaigns or that emails are supporting consumers’ post purchase as well. So I think that’s a great number just to keep an eye on and to track over time because I think that that number is a great barometer for us to really see how we are succeeding as marketers and if consumers are finding them useful then we’ve done our first job.
Guy – 00:09:40:
I agree, it’s a great news story and just sort of developing that sort of answer a little bit Komal. Do you think there’s any AHA, moments for senders in terms of actually we’re going to have to change the way we do things a little bit sort of based on what we’ve learned from this year’s report?
Komal – 00:09:57:
Absolutely, I think there’s lots of different insights. I think this whole piece is based on assumptions. We as marketers should be really data driven, but I think we do go by Gut and we do go by data we might have learned about two or three years ago. Because of those small incremental changes that you’re making here and there for example, logos for example, people open their emails more likely to open their emails if they recognize the logo in the inbox. That might make a little incremental difference. If you’re, you know, you’re personalizing a little bit more if you’re now all these little things that you’re doing make a big difference. I don’t think there’s one start, I think it’s taking all of those and applying it to your business and making those optimizing changes.
Danielle – 00:10:47:
We already touched on the economy and how that can influence subscriber behavior. And this report mentions how the current cost of living crisis has negatively affected marketing in terms of effectiveness, I guess, but also it’s created opportunities for marketers. Ian, how can the email channel be effective in nurturing customers during difficult times?
Ian – 00:11:13:
Yeah, it’s a funny one, I mean, I think people turn to channels that they trust the most in difficult times. I think the thing that I quite liked about this report is this finding that consumers are increasingly using one email address for personal and one email address for market emails and actually it really sort of speaks to this wider trend. I think that what people like about email is just the level of control that you don’t necessarily get with other marketing channels. It is up to the consumer how often they log in and out of their email inbox and it is up to them whether or not they read emails. It’s not necessarily dictated by they’re not seeing these ads appearing around content and getting the way the rest of the rest of their lives. And so I think this whole element of control does elicit a sense of trust which helps. But I think broadly there are two things which brands can do in the current environment. There are two things that consumers want. Obviously depressed economic growth is reducing demand for consumers, inflation is affecting profits. What can we do for consumers? Well, from a purely transactional basis we can offer them things like discounts that’s quite useful, and helps them during difficult times. I think actually more importantly, it’s the broader customer service messaging. This is the sort of stuff which affects emotional connections with brands. This is the brand building stuff and actually that’s more important in the long run as we come out of these difficult economic times. Because really if we want to protect our margins and get people less hooked on discounts and sort of less promiscuous, we need to be focusing on other areas like growing the customer experience. So arguably that second point is more important.
Guy – 00:12:46:
I think that’s right, and it kind of leads to my next question because I think probably the four of us and our industry peers have this sort of misplaced sense that a typical subscriber receives emails from hundreds of different brands. But the report sort of buries that thought a little bit because a typical respondent was saying we’re signed up to about ten email programs and I think what came through loud and clear from their responses was very much this principle of best friend brands. And Komal, do you think consumers are actually becoming more selective about the brands they engage with via email and are there any particular differentiators that they’re looking for before they’ll even consider engaging?
Komal – 00:13:33:
Yeah, so there’s this stat that says that consumers have approximately ten best friend brands or that they remember that they received ten best friend brand emails and so in reality is that a very different picture and that actually they might be signed up to 20 or 30, but when you ask them, they only really remember ten. So actually I think the challenge is for marketers to be one of those best friend brands, be the brand that they remember. So when they’re thinking through and they’re asked that question, okay, yes, you’re memorable. So I think tying back to my answer earlier, which was around the insights, I think this report is a really great resource to understand more about what consumers want from emails and how to become a best friend brand. You take the insights and you take the learnings from this report, then how can you recognize loyal customers? Customers want to be recognized as a loyal customer. So making sure that you’re doing that, I think nearly 60% of consumers want emails that are relevant to them, but they also want offers that are relevant to them at the right time. They want content that’s useful. We talked about usefulness and they also want to see your logo in the inbox because that’s how they’re opening or that’s one of the drivers towards opening the email and maybe you will become one of those ten best friend brands in the future. And I think that’s what it is. It’s about being memorable and to cut through the noise. And I think in reality they’re probably signed up to more, but they actually only remember about ten.
Ian – 00:15:36:
Well, I think that’s it. I think that Ten number it’s become a bit of a golden number over the last few years and I think what it really affects is people’s mental capacity for a certain number of brands. And actually I think most of the findings I think in the report will refer to people who will be thinking about their best friend brands when they’re thinking about all the other metrics. So when we have seen, for example, click through rates, I mean in many instances more than double year on year, which has been amazing really, I think that is probably in relation to those best friend brands that people are thinking about.
Danielle – 00:16:10:
I’m going through my mind right now thinking about who my test’s ten best friend brands are and I’m ticking them off. I think that is definitely my capacity. That’s ten for sure because anybody in email has signed up to, I don’t know, 50, 60 brands or something, but I can remember ten. And I think another important factor in establishing your brand as a best friend is transparency. Right? We know that customers’ attitudes are changing in terms of the personal information they’re willing to share. Ian, before you mentioned one email address for your personal stuff, maybe another one for your promos that you want to receive. So what steps should companies take to ensure that they are communicating transparently?
Ian – 00:16:59:
I think consumers are actually more aware of the data value exchange than people give them credit for. I mean, that’s certainly the suggestion from the DMA data privacy research released last year. They do understand that in a modern digital economy that you don’t necessarily get something for free inverted ecommerce in terms of how that should be communicated. I think it’s just about offering clarity at absolutely every stage of the customer journey. So from pre purchase to purchase to post purchase to all the value adds every time you have a piece of communication in each different stage. We just need to be transparent with consumers as to what’s going to happen. I think what you don’t want to do is get a customer who gets a nasty surprise so they’ve negotiated with you, they’ve made a purchase, they’re suddenly surprised, they get a marketing email off the back of it. Do they understand that that is what is going to happen and it’s vital again that we just have that conversation. Every single stage of the journey is mapped out and you’re being as transparent as possible at each stage.
Guy – 00:17:55:
Equally important is where consumers are engaging with their emails. And I think what came across loud and clear from this year’s report was that about 70% of all email marketing interactions are on a mobile device and that’s predominantly mobile phones, but even sort of newer devices like smartwatches smart speakers starting to get a bit of usage share going on there, but Komal. What does this mean in terms of how senders need to be thinking about current trends in mobile usage when it comes to email marketing?
Komal – 00:18:33:
Yeah, Guy, I think you just said it. Mobile is actually just now digital, its web, it’s ubiquitous, it’s not something that we need to be thinking or be telling marketers. We shouldn’t be still saying you need to design for mobile and so on. But actually as email marketers, we need to be thinking about it’s not just about the email, we need to be thinking about the full end to end journey. So from the email through to the checkout, but also we need to now be thinking about the nuances of mobile. So checking on different screen sizes, like you said, your screen size might be from an iPad all the way down to a watch. Let’s think about what that is and how that looks and the subject line is really important if you’re on a watch and so on. We need to be testing for mobile accessibility. So how when we receive those emails, how easy is it to navigate that email all the way through? And then other things like doc mode. I would say that for most brands, we’ve gone beyond telling brands, speaking to brands about mobile is important. But actually where I see brand emails really failing today is when they’re not thinking about if you’ve got it switched on dark mode and you see a lot of creatives being let down. So checking your emails and making sure you use the right tools to enable you to check in dark mode because so many people want to extend the life of their battery on a mobile these days and so have dark mode switched on as default. And I think for me, that’s where I think brands really need to be focusing on, if there’s nothing else that you focus on is just check your email for dark mode because it lets the whole thing down if it’s not optimized for that.
Guy – 00:20:32:
Absolutely. And then that also talks to the underlying technology because although the report is the consumer email tracker, it spends quite a lot of time considering email’s role in an omnichannel environment. And I think the sort of days of omnichannel being it’s no longer a nice to have, it’s essential, it’s business critical. So the technology, the platform that underpins that is also critical, isn’t it?
Ian – 00:20:58:
Absolutely. I mean the whole sort of advent of UX CSAT, it’s all based on removing friction between consumers and where they need to get to. We used to physically walk into banks and stores, we don’t have to do that anymore. Email is an absolutely vital part of that process. I think it’s interesting when you look at emerging trends and people talk about the Metaverse, for example, perhaps the reason that people are perhaps slightly sort of dialing back their expectation of that is that it just seems to be introducing more friction. Why would you want to get someone to physically wander somewhere online when we’ve been trying to do our damnedest to get rid of that process? But I think email absolutely has a role in this sort of frictionless sort of consumer experience. And again, the point is, it can do at each stage of the customer journey in perhaps a way in which many other channels can’t. So, yeah, that’s the important thing there for sure.
Danielle – 00:21:52:
We’ve asked this question in different ways and it’s certainly come up in client calls. And that is the balance that’s critical to strike between personalizing messages effectively and not being frankly creepy when you’re being very specific or creating that one on one experience between brand and subscriber Komal. How do subscribers want brands to personalize their email marketing without being invasive?
Komal – 00:22:24:
It’s so funny. This whole notion of over personalization being creepy is so true. We’ve talked about it for many years. Going back to Ian’s point around transparency. I think if you hold data and you’re collecting data, then be transparent about how you’re going to use it. If you’re going to collect data, then use it wisely and use it. So don’t collect data about my gender, my age or my geographic area if you’re not going to use it for my value, for my use as well. So that’s absolutely crucial. Being useful, using personalization to support the customer in its journey from a customer’s perspective rather than from the brand perspective. So really understanding the full end to end journey and how you can support the customer being useful, but then also little things like don’t drop an offer. We talked about it just now when I’ve already purchased something. Don’t send me a 20-30% offer off a kitchen when I’ve just purchased that kitchen, because that’s just going to really upset me. And then you’re going to get an email from me probably saying, please apply this offer. So think about how you’re using personalization and use it wisely.
Ian – 00:23:57:
Yeah, it’s more about what you don’t do than what you do sometimes. And actually just don’t do that stuff. Be very clever with it and actually that’s not going to creep people out and they’re going to appreciate it rather than the stuff that you do, which is just overly creepy and personal and familiar.
Komal – 00:24:11:
Yeah, and it’s aligned to your tone. What is the brand tone? Are you going to use a first name? Is that in line with my brand tone? Am I that friendly as a brand? Are you confident about the data that you hold using a first name? That’s one of the biggest pet peeves, I think, for most people is that actually they might have typed their name incorrectly, which is probably what’s happened. But if you continue to send me that email without giving me the opportunity to update my details with my name spelled incorrectly, that’s just going to get on my nerves after a few times. So, yeah, think wisely, but use it to the consumer’s value rather than your own valuing. And like Ian says, just think about when not to do it as well.
Guy – 00:25:05:
I agree. And I think that user experience that we’re talking about is also a function of the creative that we’re asking those subscribers to engage with. And over the last few years, accessibility has become such an important topic and the report asked a few questions this year designed to tease out a little bit more on that topic. So what were our learnings in terms of what subscribers are most responsive to, just in terms of that sort of look and feel of the email?
Ian – 00:25:38:
I think layout in terms of where stuff is positioned is important, but also it’s also just reducing clutter. I think that’s absolutely essential. You got to think about what that means as well. I suppose in a mobile first world as well, you got to just think a little bit more cleverly about how you reduce clutter on a smaller screen. I think there is a temptation when we’re trying to deliver sort of rich content messages. What are you going to do there? Well, often those messages can appear quite cluttered and quite text heavy, so I think what are we trying to do to capture it? Capturing attention? Again, less is more. It’s a bit like the stuff we were just saying. It’s about what you don’t do there. Definitely less is more important. That said, with email, we actually found with a new question, you do have about 11 seconds to get your message across with email, which isn’t bad, actually, considering the average desktop display ad is looked at for like one and a half seconds on average. It’s a pretty chunky amount of time in the digital world, so you do have a bit of space to play with, but you gotta make it easy. You gotta make it easy for consumers, particularly with accessibility needs. So I think reducing the clutter has to be the main takeout and just.
Guy – 00:26:47:
Extending on that very quickly. But there was also a slightly surprising learning, which was subscribers do scroll down below the fold, don’t they?
Ian – 00:26:55:
Yeah, I think we found two thirds suggested they do that as well, so it doesn’t always have to be crammed into the top half of the screen. It’s a bit like finding people checking their junk boxes. People are willing to get bored exploring their emails, particularly if they’re looking for something, if they’re expecting something, if they’ve already delivered and delivered lots of useful messages from a particular best friend brand, they’re going to go looking for more.
Danielle – 00:27:18:
So, yeah, speaking of checking your spam folder, I’ve allegedly won $1,000 from McDonald’s this morning, so yay me, guys, what.
Komal – 00:27:29:
Are you here?
Danielle – 00:27:33:
I did not click on it, so we’re still safe anyway, so, as in everything with email and retail and consumerism in general, we’ve got the 2023 report out and we’re moving on. We’re looking to what’s next, of course. So, Komal looking ahead, what are the biggest trends email marketers should really start to pay attention to and master now, to be ahead of the game and of the curve and these evolving consumer expectations.
Komal – 00:28:09:
I think for me, I’m not going to go for the shiny things, I’m going to go twofold. And it’s the same as we’ve been saying for a long time. Understand your customer better. Find out what they want, what are their needs, listen to the data, read these reports. Treat your loyal customers differently to how you’re treating your prospects, reward them for staying, but then, you know, understand your customers better. But then on the flip side is for email marketers and marketers in general, don’t be anxious about automation. AI chat, GP Team these things are here to make us stronger, not replace us. But it is really important that we as marketers do understand our tech better. So get inside your tech, understand how it can help you achieve your marketing goals, because that’s really crucial for marketing teams going forward is understanding how you can bring all the different tech pieces together to help you deliver a great customer journey, but really seamlessly all integrated into one another. And I think that’s one of the biggest challenges. And that’s where we’re going to see marketers really improve as well on how they use their technology to deliver on their business goals.
Danielle – 00:29:44:
When you said, don’t be anxious about this new technology, I felt myself, okay, I’m going to follow along with that one.
Guy – 00:29:55:
Yes, this has been such a good conversation and I feel like we could go on for at least another half an hour, but unfortunately we need to start wrapping up. But before we let you go, millennial and we like to finish up with a couple of quick fire questions which are a little bit off topic. So Ian, you get to go first. And in the report, consumers are asked what makes you leave an email program? And the vast majority of them, head and shoulders above any other response was simply, I get too many of the damn things. So what is it that makes you complain about an email or marketer spam?
Komal – 00:30:44:
Yeah, good question. What’s it that makes me complain about it? Yeah, I think for me it’s more about the personalization thing. It’s just what annoys this irrelevance? What should we really be aspiring to as advertisers? It should really be about fewer, better ads. I know it’s kind of a hard thing to say for marketers, but the world should really have fewer, better ads and I think they can be higher value ads. So irrelevant is what irritates me for sure.
Danielle – 00:31:14:
Can I answer this one, Guy?
Guy – 00:31:15:
Sure.
Danielle – 00:31:16:
Because this past, obviously, Mother’s Day, different date in the UK versus here in North America, but I got an email from a brand, a subscription brand I’ve purchased. I mopped it in, but I got an email from them the day before. Mother’s Day and the friendly form, was your mom like your mom? You are mom. And I was just like, oh man, I cannot complain on this one. Onto a sunnier topic. Komal, this one’s for you. Do you have a favorite marketing campaign of like, all time? Maybe that’s email, maybe it’s just marketing more broadly.
Komal – 00:31:59:
It may be a bit random. I was on channel a channel for a documentary talking about it, so it’s not that random. You may not know Guy and Ian, but Daniel, I don’t need to know if this is in the US. But beauty calendars. Have you ever heard of a beauty calendar? So it’s an Advent calendar with beautiful little mini beauty products. It’s coming to the US. We got it first, Danielle.
Danielle – 00:32:27:
My jaw just dropped open, which is why Komal was like, don’t worry, it’s coming.
Komal – 00:32:31:
I shall share with you. So this is an industry sort of campaign that I have watched over the years, and I think they do it absolutely marvelously. So in probably June, July, they start creating a little bit of a hype and they start talking about the Advent calendars coming. Sign up, add yourself to the newsletter or to the waiting list and then slowly over. They use all the different channels. They’ll use email, they use social media, they use any channel that they can. And they just build this great momentum of, I’ve got to have this Advent calendar because if it comes out, because there’s only a limited number every year, so they create this wave of excitement within beauty fans and you sign up. And then in September it releases and it just knocks the internet down for whether it’s Space, NK, cult beauty or wherever. And it’s just caused this really great momentum and people just and it sells out within hours, even if you get to that hour, but it doesn’t end there. So you get your Advent calendar, but you’ve got all this lovely data about the consumer, what they like, what they don’t like. But also you got a bunch of products as well that they’ve just been invited to test, and they’re all little samples. So post Christmas, you suddenly start getting all these lovely emails saying, what did you think of X product? Would you like to purchase it? And so on. And it continues probably until March, giving you a little bit of a break. And then it comes around again in June. And for me, it’s a perfect example of the use of email to sort of continue the conversation throughout the year, but to create an absolute momentum of excitement. So I love it and I’ll share it with you, Danielle, because I think it please do.
Guy – 00:34:49:
And let it be said, not just for the ladies, I bought my wife an Advent calendar from the body shop and my credit as a good husband was off the scale for weeks after that. So I’m with you, Komal. We need to call it a day for today, but Komal Helyer and Ian Gibbs, it’s been such a pleasure having you join myself and Danielle on email after hours today. Such a fascinating set of findings from the report and thank you for sharing your sort of insights and analysis with us. Just to finish up. We’ll be back in another two weeks. You be sure to tune in next time and hit subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes. And don’t forget to visit Senderscore.com for loads more great resources to help you become a stronger sender to all you.
Danielle – 00:35:37:
And to all you sleepless senders out there. Thank you for joining us after hours and see you next time.
