7 Lessons Learned at Marketing Sherpa Summit ‘16

Last week our team attended Marketing Sherpa Summit 2016, held February 22-24 in Las Vegas. What a great event! We had the opportunity to meet and interact with a variety of marketers to share strategies and techniques for improving email and digital marketing results, review successful customer-centric marketing campaigns and, last but not least, network with friends, customers and colleagues.

As a sponsor, we took advantage of the venue to preview our new eBook, “The Executive’s 5-Minute Guide to Building an Effective Email Marketing Database,” which will be available for download soon. The e-book comes on the heels of “140 Reasons Email Marketing is Not Dead: Building Success around Email Marketing,” a book I co-authored with a fabulous team of top marketing experts. From best practices for email testing, to segmentation, click-through rates, conversion rates and more, it is packed with information and is now available on Amazon. The content is also available at no charge on the Aha Amplifier website.

Back to Sherpa Summit...here are a 7 quick observations and takeaways, including insight adapted from the Marketing Sherpa blog:

1. Email marketers are spending the least amount of time optimizing the first thing subscribers see in their inboxes: the “from” email address, the subject line and the preview text. They would be wise (and more successful) to invest more time, development and testing in these three key areas.

2. The goal of an email should only be one thing: to sell (and collect) a click.

3. Video continues to grow in importance in B2B marketing to help prospects progress along their buying journey. One presenter claimed that 72% of B2B buyers watch videos throughout their entire path to purchase.

4. It’s important to use language familiar to your prospects in their terms – and not rely on industry jargon and “assume” your targets know all this. Jargon may vary in use, may not be known to newbies (who need your help), and may not align with popular search terms. Bottom line: if prospects are not able to communicate with you, they’ll quickly go somewhere else.

5. Gaining internal recognition for your/your team’s success should not be underestimated. In fact, one marketer took his team’s success story to a new level, approaching it as a film studio would by creating and promoting a movie. To tell your story, use these steps: 1) First, know your audience by selecting a “genre,” 2) write your story, obtaining the ideal metrics that support it, 3) get feedback and 4) publish your accomplishments for others to see. This innovative story approach increased this marketer’s engagement with internal stakeholders three-fold, and enabled him to double the size of his team.

6. Email testing continues to be a worthwhile effort for B2B marketers. One company at the event, Humana, showed how their testing efforts with different messages and graphics led to a 433% (!) increase in click-through. Including local location photos increased click-through 31%.

7. Use email to encourage and enable your customers to share their experiences with your products or services. One food company, Door-to-Door Organics, did this by getting their customers to submit pictures of their families with their food products, which the company then promoted on its social media channels.

Those who attended this year’s Marketing Sherpa event know how valuable it was, not only for gaining best-practice insight into email marketing, but also for building and strengthening their careers. For those who haven’t attended, I highly recommend it next year.

I’ll include more information and guidance from what we observed at this event in upcoming blog posts. Stay tuned! 

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