Our February 3 State of Email Live featured two special guests! We start with our own Sridhar Chandran, solutions architect, sat down to discuss the latest email data we have, while later, Sarah Jones, senior CRM manager at Auto Trader UK, shared her email expertise with the class.
First, some interesting data to share.
Email volume is stabilizing. Though, to be clear, it is still wildly higher than email volume this time last year…which was just one month before the pandemic reared its ugly head. We keep hearing about “the new normal,” and perhaps, this is it for us email geeks.
Finally, here are my favorite learnings from Sarah. I don’t want to steal her thunder, though, so please watch the recording below. There’s so much you can get from her conversation with Guy!
Their messaging changed from suggesting active buying and selling to researching and saving for later.
This seemingly small pivot makes a world of a difference. By acknowledging the changes in consumer behavior during the pandemic, they’ve created a relatable persona, becoming a brand who is in touch with their audience and not focused entirely on sales and revenue at all times. Genius.
They changed their frequency from less, to more!
This felt counter-intuitive to me, knowing the data we’ve seen from the last year. However, Sarah reported their engagement went up! Auto Trader UK sent one email per week or two, then increased their frequency to two or three emails per week, which is a significant increase in attempts to connect with their subscribers. This is a really important takeaway for email marketers: You cannot make assumptions about your consumers, you need to test to confirm (or disprove) your hunches.
Here’s the full video. I only shared two things out of more than a dozen, so get your notetaking tools in gear and speed off to watch: