The first morning of the Digital Summit Detroit started with familiar faces and coffee with some of our favorite partners. We spent the morning learning the latest in email marketing with Michael Barber from barber&hewitt. Here is the recap:

For the Love of All Things Email: How to Build Effective Email Programs for the Modern Consumer

Session Description: http://digitalsummitdetroit.com/precon/

While we (marketers) were shoring up our social and mobile strategies over the last 5+ years, something happened: Email had a renaissance. Driven largely by our always present smartphones and Inbox FOMO (fear-of-missing-out), we are consuming more email at all times of day in all sorts of places.

These trends provide massive opportunities for marketers to capitalize on this tried and true digital tactic, but most brands are still doing the same old one-size-fits-all campaign.

In this half-day workshop, you’ll learn how to ask the right questions related to your strategy, generate insights for effective campaigns and additional marketing channels, and deliver great campaigns for our subscribers.

Key takeaways include:

• Latest trends and stats on email marketing.
• How to perform effective email audits.
• How to select email marketing/marketing automation providers.
• How to build effective email workflows with your organization/agency.
• How to leverage modern web tools to create kickass emails.
• How to develop short and long-term communications plans with subscribers.
• How to determine the email metrics that matter.
• What does the future look like for email?

If there is one thing that is certain it is that email and mobile are growing, and so is the ROI from them. Here are some fun stats we learned:

• 4.1 billion email accounts across the globe and growing.
• Email delivers the highest ROI for marketers.
• Regardless of industry – this channel generates significant ROI numbers.
• Email beats social by 40x for customer acquisition.
• Emails will continue to grow over the next 10 years.
• Mobile shift is important to consider – More mobile than desktop.
  
• Desktop open rates decreasing, while mobile increases.
  
• We read emails all the time:
  • 70% of us are multitasking all the time
    
  • 50% are reading emails in bed
  • 42% in the bathroom
  • 48% while on the phone
  • 18% while driving
• 78% of email is spam.

You can legitimately send an email one time and then ask for them to opt-in. Canada you must ask to opt-in first. Some things to consider:

• You have limited mobile space, tell people what they actually care about.
• People will not pinch and zoom on anything but images.
• Testing is caring – Test, and test again.
• 360 call to actions not it… tell them what you actually want them to do – 1 call to action.
• If the from name on your emails is “do not reply” – Just don’t.
• Don’t just send emails just to send emails – people are already flooded, make them count.
• In the mobile world – Thumb is king.
• When it comes to designing emails, a one column design that is easy to read and scroll through will have the best results.
  • Make sure you are using large enough font, and a good CTA.
• Speaking of fonts if you are using bigger fonts and better buttons, 95% of the time you will see better response rates.
• Here’s some font size best practices:
  • Headlines – 30 pixels
  • Body – 16 pixels
    • Low as 15 – DO NOT GO LOWER
  • Buttons – 44×44 points (10 – 20 pixels around the button to avoid fat thumb issues).
• Generic “click here” does not work anymore – Tell people where they are going.
• Interactive ads – Use things like countdown clocks for coupons.
• 90% of B2B organizations are driven by sales teams.
• Preheaders for everyone – Do not have the “are you having trouble reading the email below” as your preheader.
• After call to action – second most clicked on item is the social media icons.
  • It’s where they spend the most time clicking
  • Make sure you’re driving additional touch points from your customers
• Location matters for seasonal call to actions, make sure you consider it in your strategies.
• Personalize and segment your messages.
• Send a welcome email once someone subscribes – Welcome series – 10x more transaction rate per email. Increase sales with welcome series that are immediate, do not wait to send.
  • Welcome letters from CEO have large impact on revenue
  • 43% increase in revenue
• Doesn’t have to be an offer or a discount, can do something as a welcome to our business as a recognition.
• If people are subscribing we need to make sure we are engaging because they will forget about us.

Email Tools You Can Use

• Litmus
• Targeted.io
• Email on Acid
• Invision App – Use this for design collaboration within your teams
• Smart Focus
• Autopilot
• Movable Ink
• Vero
• StoryPorts
• Strongview
• FullContact
• Janrain

We learned so much about emails this morning! Lots of great new tools and tips to think about. We are wrapping up the morning with a quick lunch call, keep up with us for the rest of the event!