3 Takeaways from the Email Insider Summit

Last week, I spent some time at the annual Email Insider Summit in Deer Valley, Utah, where everyone geeked out on the trends and challenges of the customer experience evolution with other marketers. The center of gravity this year was the dramatic shift from simply dabbling in personalization-lite, to delving into advanced personalization to improve the customer experience. The presentations and discussions were clustered around three general pillars: data, operations, and content.

Of these three, the biggest advance has been in data, especially with the advent of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs). So much so that companies like Salesforce have repositioned the center of their world from its legacy CRM to its much-touted CDP. These data platforms allow marketers to build “identity graphs,” a buzzword for an obvious necessity: a unified view of each customer across your entire business. Gaining this visibility of each customer requires breaking down data silos so that all of your behavioral and transactional data can sit in one place to drive insights and advanced personalization. There was clear evidence at the conference that brands have finally begun to embrace the need to harness data with a CDP, or something extremely close to it, for a better customer experience. 

The next stage with data will be tapping into the blue-sky opportunities for predictive modeling, and I suspect next year’s conference will showcase some great case studies of brands that have cracked this egg. Currently, there is a lack of qualified talent at scale to do this.

The second area of improvement has been with operations. This stems from the recognition that despite the flood of ESPs in the marketplace with different bells and whistles, there really is no magic bullet. MarTech provides the framework the way steel beams hold a skyscraper together, but there is much, much more to robust marketing operations. I wish I had a dollar for every blue-chip brand that implemented software—or switched ESPs—with the expectation that doing so would solve everything. But, it never works out that way. It takes a ton of smart thinking and planning for how you organize your data, structure your campaigns, manage your workflow, and perform QA/QC testing. 

In reality, brands can either iterate their way through this or work with a professional service provider that has best practices to bypass the pain that comes with trial and error. But last week, there were some case studies from marketers like Nikki Snowhite at OpenTable, Kevin Hickey at Delta Air Lines, and Donna Lyon at Ally Financial Inc. who have all dug in with their teams, done the hard operational work, and are showing impressive results. 

This leads me to the third pillar: content. This area is sorely lagging behind and is holding advanced personalization back. 

For decades, the email industry has been prophesizing dynamic modular email to activate a myriad of different data elements on each customer. As we’re all now finally embarking on the ability to compile customer profiles, or identity graphs with rich data about consumer needs, wants, and interests, marketers are keenly aware of the lack of equally rich content to marry into individual email experiences. 

Yet, we’re not there with any meaningful scale yet. In fact, during two highly spirited personalization roundtable discussions last week, marketers seemed blocked. In each group, I asked if they were starting to use a Modular Content Design System. Most said no, because Creative Directors, or by extension, their agencies, are still clinging to designing single bespoke emails. This is a very limiting way of thinking about modern email. At ERGO, which is now a part of Shift Paradigm, we had great success changing that way of thinking with creative people. We asked people to consider Instagram, which has an extremely simple, massively templatized UX, but offers a limitless level of creativity inside its frames. So if that can be constantly fresh and engaging, imagine what something that’s far less rigid could do. Emails compiled under a Modular Content Design System do not have to feel like an Erector Set. Instead, when you empower your Creative Director or agency to rise above and think about a holistic system, the quality of CX improves because it incorporates best practices and brings continuity rather than constantly introducing a learning curve for your customers with each new design pattern. 

The future of advanced email personalization should feel like an app right in your customer's  inbox. I look forward to seeing more of this take root in the coming year.