#<- writing without polls just to show consequences and further the story

[hidden-by-obvious-truths]

Well hello there...

This is the introduction of the delightful world We have crafted for you all! Hello and welcome!

As stated by the blog description, this blog is actually an interactive life series story! What this means is that you, the reader, will get to decide all the player's fates in a series of polls.

But what game will the players be playing, you ask? Well, allow me to introduce...

"Which Life?"

Quite unlike all the other life games, "Which Life?" has a premise that shakes the life series down to its very core: nobody knows what life they're on. Not the players, and not you, dear reader! Death messages are also disabled, and the tablist doesn't show if someone's a spectator (ghost) or not.

On top of that, there will be a life-trading system like Last Life, and special occurrences that happen every time a player makes a kill.

Interesting, right? (We certainly hope so)

Anyways, there are going to be 17 players total, are they are as followed:

Grian

Scar

Scott

Jimmy

Bigb

Tango

Martyn

Ren

Impulse

Cleo

Bdubs

Skizz

Joel

Etho

Pearl

Mumbo

Lizzie

And as this post is being typed, these 17 players have already their number of initial lives chosen.

Oh, wait, you didn't know? An honest mistake, sorry: Everyone starts with a randomized number of lives. It could be as low as 2 or as high as 5, but nobody knows how many lives anyone has except for the three Watchers pulling the strings behind the scenes of this game (who will be introduced later, in a separate post)

Now, in order for this fic to work, there will have to be people voting in the upcoming polls. Your answers will be incorporated into the futures of these players. If nobody votes, then you will change nothing.

That being said, the Watchers are begging for people interested in this premise to reblog this post, so that more people can see it and follow it as they please. They want to show everyone a spectacle, but that can't happen if nobody has their eyes open.

So, what do you say?

(P.S. official release date is currently unknown as things are still being ironed out, this post is mainly to spread awareness and hopefully hype)

#life series smp #traffic smp #trafficblr #life series fic #also here are the following tags that will be used: #behind the scenes #<- posts such as this one or other bts posts #spinning the threads #<- writings containing polls that will affect the fic #cutting the threads #<- writing without polls just to show consequences and further the story #most of the chapters/sessions will contain at least 1 poll tho #ask and you shall receive #<- ask tag #measuring the threads #<- art tag

[just-like-playing-tag]

aaaaaaa okay i just watched the new episode and im so curious about how theyre going to handle the rest of this arc? you always have really good takes so i was wondering what your thoughts were!! bunkerman is such an important character in this part of the story, it seems like they cant cut him out entirely????so where is he!!!

~ Sorry for the late answer, I kept procrastinating writing my thoughts because I knew this would have turned out to be long ahah ~

Thank you for the compliments, I'm flattered!!! Tho I doubt I will be of great help, I feel like I'm lost at sea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I'll do my best!!!

First of all, I'd want to point out that, as of now, I'm confident they will not cut Bunkerman and Goldy Pond off the plot. Goldy Pond is a strong and solid arc that I'm sure received a positive response from SJ readers while it was on going; once it's animated, the anime will be completed of the action that has so far been lacking. As for Bunkerman, in the Shounen Jump's tpn popularity polls he earned 16th and 7th place, which makes me think he's fairly popular. His presence adds a very nice twist to the plot: not only he's the first male adult we see; even though he doesn't side with demons, he's still hostile to the children, which comes off as very surprising to the reader / watcher (and builds up to how Andrew and later the whole Ratri clan will persecute them, introducing the aspect that not all humans on the outside are their friends). Additionally, he is the first character to help build up the theme that Emma is not only going to help her friends and family, but also her enemies, which puts the basis of her character development and her decision to save all the demons and mamas. Moreover: how people have already pointed out, Bunkerman has also a very important role as representing the “what-if” version of the children, as showed in chapter 177:

His character has a very poignant role, as he's revealed to have a very tragic backstory: his story consolidates the cruelty of the world they live in, which is a main theme of tpn, and the way it's ultimately revealed how the children saved his life and gave him the chance to start living again comes to the viewer as extremely moving.

To sum up, he's too much of a great character to be omitted- they're not going to have all that great potential go to waste. His character development and personal growth is too powerful to be thrown away, and I refuse to believe they will (I'm going through chapter 109 again after a long time and I'm getting a little emotional :')

So next up is when we're going to see him, right? I doubt it is going to be soon. My guesses are that he'll show up either in the second half of the season, or even at the very end as teasing for an eventual following season.

The conditions in which the children have found the shelter unsettle me. The shelter confuses me so much, because things simply don't add up. If Bunkerman and his friends have already been there, then why Minerva's letter is still hanging there, unopened. On the opposite, if they have never been there, then that doesn't explain the cookies, which are a clear wink to manga readers, nor the scratched room. I'm confused, because these elements just aren't coherent with each other, and that makes me uneasy. I'd exclude that the Glory Bell escapees didn't open the letter, or that a Minerva supporter came back and placed a new one, but then again those elements really don't make any sense? Any that I can understand anyway- I hope they'll come up with a good explanation in the next episosodes.

Back to why I don't think Bunkerman will show up in the next episodes: several elements from the shelter make me think that. The most evident is obviously the rotten cookies. If he's just out hunting, and he usually lives in the shelter, then I don't see why he would keep those moldy biscuits (if not to commemorate his comrades? Dunnot). Besides, the shelter as for how it's been displayed seems to have not been inhabited for a long time: all the crockery was neatly placed; besides from the biscuits, there was not a single hint of people living or having lived there like the food we saw in the manga- if there had been, the children would have surely noticed. Again, that confuses me. Everything is perfectly tidy and clean, making it more similar to the untouched, neat shelter the Glory Bell escapees found when they arrived there for the first time- except for a conveniently scratched room? Isn't that weird that the room and the biscuits are the very only hint that somebody has been there before? But I'm digressing.

Other things that make me think Bunkerman is not going to show up: the children are learning everything on their own. There won't be Bunkerman to show them the armory, to talk about the limited resources and stuff. I believe that them finding about all these things on their own is a further proof that the kids aren't going to meet him soon.

I don't know how the children are going to meet Bunkerman. I'll be frank, I'm very worried, because for the way the children meet Bunkerman to be as it is is of great importance for his character and character development; I worry to make them meet in a different context is likely to have negative consequences to his character growth.

Shifting back to Goldy Pond, I don't think we're getting there any time soon either? There was no hint to A08-63 in the letter. My personal guess is that the "Poachers" skretch was replaced with "help" because we're not getting any poacher this season, and they didn't want to introduce so early an element that is not going to be explained in this season. Of course "Minerva" could reveal it in their phone call- but then why not mention it at all in the letter, besides from ending the episode with a cliff hanger? Furthermore: would it make sense to introduce Goldy Pond before Bunkerman? Goldy Pond wouldn't be the same without him- besides the fact that it would be hard to integrate the story of Lucas and the other Glory Bell escapees, this is a friendly reminder that it's Bunkerman to both break Lewis' mask and later kill him.

Now, as for my personal guess? I think the children are going to leave the shelter and look for Minerva. First of all, that would explain why, in the opening, everyone has the go-out-shelter-coats:

That's the outfit Emma, Ray and later Gilda and Don wear when going out; it's an outfit we never saw the younger children wear in the manga. Another reason why I think that all the children are going to leave together is because it's the only way to protect them: they still can't be sure the shelter is a safe place (the manga reveals it isn't), so they can't leave the children alone in it. In the manga, they divide in two groups: Emma, Ray and Bunkerman leave the shelter, and Gilda and Don would have stayed to keep the children safe. For how things are in the anime, this becomes a problem. Let's say they decide to leave the shelter (and like, they will, otherwise the plot can't move on lol): Emma and Ray can't leave on their own, without Bunkerman to both guide and protect them; at the same time, they can't leave with the support of Gilda and Don, for that would mean leaving the children alone in the shelter. It's not only because leaving a group of less then nines alone would normally not be a good idea (these children are very smart, so maybe they'd manage to go on?), but they can't really know if the shelter will continue being a safe place: only because the demons haven't found it so far, that doesn't mean they can be sure they won't find it at some point; additionally, for what they know poachers are still after them. That's why I think the most logic progress of events will be for the children to leave the shelter together. Which, even though I stand for what I've said... Sounds like a very bad idea??? Not only the children keep travelling in this demon world- they also don't have weapons besides from bow and arrow? That's why I find the armory being empty one of the most senseless things- of course I want the children to be safe, but for the children to survive in demon forests completely unarmored sounds extremely unrealistic. I just hope they aren't going to kill one of the "irrelevant children" to prove how dangerous the world is, that would destroy me.

(I'm Chris.)

Ok, I think I covered everything! Thanks for asking! Let's hope together they won't mess this up for us :))

#If you don't feel like reading this: totally understandable. #I need to reread this before posting and I don't want either. #tpn bunkerman #tpn #the promised neverland #tpn manga spoilers #mine #tpn analysis #tpn theory #people asks me stuff #Thanks for asking :D

[laveritaswoman]

On Tans, Hawaii, Gaslighting, and Narrative Fatigue ...

Well, with the farcical “Kona-gate” developments of the last few weeks surrounding trips to Hawaii, the comedy/tragedy that is S and C’s “authentic” lives just keeps getting more and more entertaining (pass the popcorn). The funny (sad) thing is that this is entertainment for us, while C and S live the lie, gaslighting and hiding and ducking and lying and asking others to lie on their behalf. 

S was the first participant in the Kona-gate Hawaii deception, but shippers and tuna lovers harpooned his apparent attempt to introduce a new potential SO to the “not together” narrative just before the GGs, since C already had a +1 in fake fiance Stickman (S ended up taking former OL employee Marina as his “date” to avoid tuna fallout). C’s Kona-gate commenced when she posted a pic this week thanking the Four Seasons in Kona for a room upgrade. She posted this on her public IG for 800,000 + followers. To avoid any speculation from fans, “private” C could have instead posted this on her private IG for her rich and fashionable “inner circle,” just the people the Four Seasons would like to target market (and she could have sent the Four Seasons a personal note saying she recommended the hotel to her well-connected friends who love to vacation at high-end resorts). Apparently, after anticipating that there would be questions about what a coincidence it was that both she and S had vacationed on the same island, in the same location, in the same resort, at nearly the same time, C must have decided to enlist some “gaslight control.” C used to have her friends back up her fake narratives, but most of them have gone “private” or “C-silent” on SM, so now it appears C is using Audi employees (offering “early honeymoon” congratulations) and a “salad lady” random-sighting fan to resolutely place her in Kona at the same time S was in Las Vegas (and “salad lady” has been potentially “outed” as a Hawaiian tourism agent who may have helped with S/C vacation planning). Shippers did not buy it and still believe S and C spent part of the Hawaiian vacation together before the GGs (both had tans at the GGs -- S posted about getting a sunburn while in Hawaii so his was legitimate; C never explained how she got hers because she was supposedly in cloudy, cold LA with mid to high 50s while S was in Aloha-land). 

The problem with C and S is that they highly underestimate the intelligence, memories, attention to detail, and professional talents of those in the shipper fandom (including experts in PR and marketing and psychology and writing and statistics and media; artists with an eye for Photoshopping; and intrepid researchers, among others). Shippers are like elephants ... We. Never. Forget. And on the rare occasion when one of us does have a memory lapse, we have 10 other shippers to fill in the details. Shippers. Are. Not. Going. Away. and like any other fandom, we have the right to ship as long as we’re staying in our own lane. Most shippers ship respectfully and in our own corner of the fandom. It’s the anti and samonly and mommy screencappers who take our comments out of our personal blogs and put them on blast to S or C or Shamuso or the showrunners, or harass S and C with fake shipper troll accounts. 

For whatever reason the IFH was conceived, it was a colossal mistake which gave the relentless S/C gaslighting beast life (although S was prescient enough to caution against doing the IFH, he said in a later interview that C pushed for it). It’s a beast of their own conjuring, not shippers’. I can’t even imagine how S and C, if they’re together, could enjoy living a life lying, hiding, denying, and pulling friends and coworkers and business acquaintances into a web of deceit. What does that do to your integrity and self-respect? How can you ever ask/expect others to be honest and tell the truth when you don’t (how will they justify their lies to any children they have either together or separately?). How can that be living your authentic life? And to what end? To hide a love and real-life relationship that the majority of fans would wholeheartedly support (just look at the W poll and IG likes when S/C pics are posted by S on his IG) and that other co-stars of TV and film happily embrace with no consequences to their “professionalism” as respectable actors? 

Karma has a way of humbling even those who think they’re above it all. No matter what their truth, this gaslighting and fan abuse has become so pervasive that no outcome will be without some backlash to C and S. Once their truth is out, many once-supportive fans and shippers will shake their heads at the outcome, be thankful it’s over, and walk away with no further investment because of the way they were treated. Because hey, what reason is there to stay? C and S and the showrunners and writers have destroyed a once-groundbreaking TV show and replaced it with a passionless and scowling interpretation of the J/C love story in S4. And once OL is no more, S and C will need the financial support of fans and viewers for their new acting roles and projects — but many of those fans and their money will be gone, due to fatigue from “fake narratives” and “bullying” and “gaslighting.” Maybe then they’ll ask themselves whether it was all worth it. 

[oumakokichi]

Hello! I hope this is not too much to ask, but would it be okay to ask for a brief description of your thoughts on all the V3 girls? As in, strong points (as characters), weak points, how the narrative treats them...

Sure anon, I don’t mind! This is a really fun question,actually. I really love the ndrv3 girls, and it’s interesting because I’d saythe strengths and weaknesses of them are pretty varied.

I’ll try and write a little bit about each girl in detail,but it’ll involve discussing pretty much the entire game so there’ll bespoilers under the read more! Only read if you’re comfortable with that!

I suppose the easiest one to start with would be Kaede, asshe’s our fake-out protagonist. Her strengths are pretty easy to see: she’scharismatic, likable, go-getting, and would’ve made a really excellentprotagonist for all these reasons, especially as her charisma in particularsets her apart from characters like Naegi or Hinata who weren’t especiallycharismatic or influential among the group at first.

One of her other biggest strengths in my opinion though isher distrust of people. Her paranoia itself is what makes her character themost interesting in hindsight; there’s something very chilling about going backand re-reading Chapter 1 realizing exactly how little Kaede could actuallybring herself to trust others.

Despite wanting tobelieve the best in people, she wasn’t someone who could actually do so, and itshows. This trait is something that humanizes her and makes her go from “relativelylikable self-insert protagonist” to “incredibly interesting protagonist wholies to the player and other characters and even herself.” I know it soundscontradictory, but that particular flaw of Kaede is one of the things I likebest about her, and what would’ve made her the most interesting had she stuckaround for longer, in my opinion.

Her weaknesses are… well, she’s mostly just limited to thepotential she could have had, rather than what we actually got to see. Bykilling her off so early, the narrative limits her autonomy and mostly treatsher like an object to be used for Saihara’s development. Even her flaws,including both her skepticism of other people and her willingness to kill aperson, are completely brushed under the rug by Chapter 6. By focusing only onwhat she meant to Saihara, and notwhat Saihara or anyone else in the group actually meant to her, the narrativeacts as though that’s pretty much the only important thing about her, leavingme rather… unsatisfied, in the end.

Next up, there’s Maki. Again with Maki, I feel like thethings I actually came to like about her the best are the things that make herflawed as a character. But those flaws are themselves interesting. I like thatMaki is cold, antisocial, and… well, for lack of a better way to put it, notthat bright. Maki has had all the compassion and kindness stomped right out ofher at an early age due to her assassin training; it makes sense that shewouldn’t necessarily be the nicest.

I like that shegets to display flaws more typically found in male characters—including Kuzuryuuand Togami. I like the fact that she’s an easily manipulated pawn in the grandscheme of things, because that makes perfect sense thematically with herbackstory as an assassin who has only ever been trained and pointed at targetsand told to kill without questioning it. Female characters should be allowed tobe cold, to be standoffish. They don’t have to be nice or even good peoplenecessarily, and the fact that Maki is arguably neither of these things issomething I really do like about her, since it’s such a break away from themold with main girls in DR.

Unfortunately, her weaknesses are along the same lines asKaede. The biggest flaw to Maki being regarded as her own character is, sadly,Momota. Everything about her character revolves around Momota. Every singlestep of development she makes is never attributed to her own doing, but toMomota, be it through direct or indirect intervention.

While I very much like the fact that Maki claiming herfeelings for herself is an important part of her making her own choices andrefusing to be manipulated by Chapter 6, the narrative really drops the ball bytrying to make Maki into this cute, tsundere, “shy, blushing maiden in love”every time the subject of her feelings for Momota come up. All her complexitygoes out the window in favor of playing right into tropes without any interestingsubversion at all. Not even to mention all the added layers of misogyny thatcome with their dynamic. What could have been a very compelling story aboutself-love instead boils down to a shounen protagonist guy telling a tsunderegirl that “girls shouldn’t use weapons, they’re better-suited looking cute andtaking care of children.”

And like Kaede, all of Maki’s biggest mistakes get brushedunder the rug by later chapters. I’ve mentioned it before, but Maki facesalmost no consequences at all for her reckless impulsivity. Not only does noone in the group bring up her attempt to kill Ouma; they don’t even bring upher attempt to murder all of them.Maki’s harsh, ruthless treatment of the entire group doesn’t even wedge so muchas a temporary hurdle into their friendship with one another, she neverapologizes, and it’s never addressed as any kind of issue or flaw by thenarrative. Most of the reason why it never comes up is because the charactersmostly act like “she was in love with Momota, so it’s okay.” I hope if we seemore of Maki as a survivor in any future installments, this kind of pitfallwill be avoided again.

Next up, Himiko. Himiko is perhaps one of the best-writtenfemale characters in all of ndrv3, in my opinion anyway. As a dark horsesurvivor who no one was really expecting, she displays tremendous character development, is funny and compelling, and ishonestly one of the characters you root for the most by the end of the game.Because her character arc has to do with her feelings towards Tenko, herautonomy is never limited to existing for the sake of a male character. She’sfeisty and likable, her FTEs are good, and she reaches just the right pointbetween comic relief and a genuine character in her own right who you want tosee more of.

She probably has the fewest weaknesses out of any of the ndrv3girls, too. Unlike Maki and Kaede, whose biggest weaknesses involve gettingwritten to help further either Saihara or Momota’s development, this neverhappens with Himiko. Beyond the occasional joke in poor taste (there’s a reallygross joke in Chapter 5 where Himiko mentions liking the soap opera-likedevelopment where Monotarou thinks he’s Monofunny’s abusive husband and startsbeating her), there really aren’t any bad scenes with Himiko in them. She’spresent in most chapters, especially Chapters 2 and 3, her characterdevelopment is gradual and well-written, and she’s just generally strong allaround.

Then there’s Miu. Honestly, I was not expecting Miu to windup being one of my favorite ndrv3 girls by the end of the game, but, well, hereI am. There’s something about Miu that I find so genuinely likable even whenshe’s being horrible as a person. Again, I think one of her flaws is the factthat she’s written to be so irredeemably awful, gross, and mean all around, forthe most part. She’s allowed to be crass in a way typically reserved only formale characters, something I like about her even when it gets a littleexasperating.

Not only that, but the biggest thing Miu has going for heris how incredibly plot-relevant she is by the end of the game. I would stillput her as one of my top picks for a character I wish had been a survivor. Hertalent is incredibly useful, on par with Alter Ego in terms of outsmarting theringleader and helping everyone to stay alive. Miu’s genuine, honest-to-godlove to invent and to create things that can “change the world” is one of themost interesting things about her, since it’s a stark contrast with hergenerally selfish and cowardly personality.

Her weakness is… well, there’s a fine line between crass andjust gross, and Miu often crosses it. Her love hotel scene is a prime exampleof this, since she pretty much just forces herself on Saihara and it’s playedfor romantic comedy. But this is a flaw I have with quite a few of the girls’love hotel scenes, really. If anything, Miu gets far more called out for hercrassness and gross comments than other characters of a similar variety (suchas Teruteru), because her low-standing within the group is lampshaded onseveral occasions.

Next, there’s Tenko. Tenko is a wonderful character,compelling and lovable and genuinely good as a person. It’s easy to see why shescored so high on the Japanese popularity poll. Like Himiko, she was anotherdark horse pick who I don’t think many people expected to get as attached toprior to the game’s release. But after the game came out, her strengths wereeasy to see: she’s brave, self-sacrificing, and wears her heart on her sleeve.Her genuine wish for Himiko’s happiness and development, as well as theprotector-type role she plays for most of the group, makes her extremelylikable, despite people’s fears about the whole “menace” thing.

The biggest weaknessTenko has though is the fact that it’s very difficult to separate her fromHimiko’s character sometimes. I love himitenko as a ship, including all theflaws and the potential for growth and development between them, but it’s truethat Tenko doesn’t really have the same level of depth to her that Himiko does.Looked at separately from her relationship with Himiko, there’s not really adefinite role for her within the group, and she suffers from similar problemsas Kaede and Maki in that sense, mostly being written to further anothercharacter’s development. But we actually get to see the bond explored betweenthem a little better than we do with Saihara and Kaede, or even with Maki andMomota, so I have fewer problems with this on Tenko’s front.

Next up is Angie. It’s kind of hard to know where to startwith Angie, considering what a mess Chapter 3 was in so many ways. But I’lladmit that I quite liked her as a force of chaos and “mid-boss” of sorts. Herself-serving interest in a “peaceful school life,” and the fact that she was willingto go on quite a power trip in order to enforce it, was a first in any DR game.Angie does and says extremely mean, self-serving things with a smile on herface, and that would’ve been a lot more fun if only she’d been written better.

Her weaknesses are… well, there are a lot. She’s a prettystraightforward racist depiction of what Japanese people think the “quirky,exotic foreign girl” trope is all about, not helped along by NISA inadvertentlymaking it like 10 times more racist by actually putting a name to her religionand god when there isn’t one in the original game. Most of the genuinelyterrifying things about her character, including the brainwashing implicationsin both the plot and her FTEs, never actually serve any kind of narrativepurpose, making me wonder why the narrative even brought it up in the firstplace if there were no consequences for it and no point.

Next, there’s Kirumi. Kirumi’s stone cold emotionalmanipulation in Chapter 2 is perhaps my favorite quality about her. The factthat she can be genuinely caring as a person, constantly putting others’welfare above herself, and cold enough to lie to people’s faces and makehorrible, awful sacrifices, is an extremely compelling trait. She has a greatdesign, she’s smart, and she’s formidable, much better at lying and attemptingto tug at people’s heartstrings than someone like Celes ever was.

Unfortunately, her biggest weakness is simply that she’s notvery relevant in the grand scheme of things. By getting killed off so early,Kirumi’s character never really gets brought up to serve a bigger purpose lateron. Many of the things in her backstory are overwhelmingly contradictory withother points of the plot—that’s the point, of course, since their backstoriesare all made up, but it’s still true that putting her as “the shadow PrimeMinister of Japan” was perhaps going a bit overboard compared to everyone else’sfictional backstories.

Kirumi mostly just lacks any real growth or development,again because she was killed so early on. She could have very well worked as aMaki figure, someone who thinks of herself as a tool and therefore neverprioritizes her own wants or emotions, but this isn’t something the narrativeever particularly addresses. So sadly, her long-term relevance is prettyminimal, and even though she had great potential as a female character with noties to any of the male characters, she never gets a chance to shine in thespotlight.

Lastly, there’s Tsumugi. I saved her for last because, ofcourse, it’s impossible to talk about her strengths without including the factthat she’s the ringleader. And she’s funas an antagonist. She’s smart, incredibly quick at adapting her story or makingup new lies on the spot, her ability to fly under people’s radars and hide inplain sight is fascinating, and it’s generally just a blast to go back on areread and see all the foreshadowing that was there the entire time.

One of Tsumugi’s biggest strengths is still, in my opinion,the fact that she’s not Junko. Forthe first time, Kodaka successfully pulled off a really greatmastermind/ringleader twist that didn’t involve falling back on Junko or herAIs. And all the red herrings and bait to make the player think that Junkowould be involved was just spectacular; you can really see why a lot of peoplewould fall for the Hope’s Peak remember light in Chapter 5, hook, line, andsinker, because it’s something the characters themselves fall for so easily.

As for her weaknesses, mostly it’s extremely hard toevaluate her as a character at all if you take her ringleader position away.That’s deliberate, of course, but it’s still true that where Junko reallyshines right now because of all we know about her from dr0 and other sidematerial, we know virtually nothing about Tsumugi at all beyond what we see inChapter 6, and even then we know she was lying about quite a lot. Tsumugi isspectacular as an antagonist, but it’s hard to evaluate “Tsumugi Shirogane” thecharacter without including her role as an antagonist, and that’s because sheintentionally made herself act as plain, boring, and uninteresting as possible.

Anyway, this got very long, but I think I covered all thegirls with this. I hope this answers your question, anon! I really like thendrv3 cast in general, so getting to talk about the girls in particular was alot of fun!

#ndrv3 #kaede akamatsu #maki harukawa #himiko yumeno #miu iruma #tenko chabashira #angie yonaga #kirumi toujou #tsumugi shirogane #ndrv3 spoilers // #my meta #okay to reblog #anonymous

[premimtimes]

Author: Simbo Olorunfemi

Reviewer: Emman Shehu

Column writing in newspapers, magazines or the social media beyond the entertainment aspect should be a platform not just for sharing knowledge but also a place for interrogating important issues. Everyday for the Goliaths: What Manner of Democracy is this ?, The Devil is not in the Politics and Politics is not a Game for Gentlemen are primarily collections of articles written by Simbo Olorunfemi over a period of five years, from 2014 to 2019.

These 131 articles of varying length including a poem, showcase the prodigious capacity of the author and how he is able to use his background in Political Science, International Law and Diplomacy as well as Journalism to closely appraise a panoply of issues that affect Nigeria.

So in one sense these three books reflect our recent political history from the events that undermined the Jonathan Administration leading to his historic defeat at the polls, and the problematic change under Buhari’s tenure.

Olorunfemi has two quotes that preface Everyday for the Goliaths. One reads:

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless.

Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

These are the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of what was termed the Confessing Church.

His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship has been described as a modern classic. Bonhoeffer’s stance against the Nazis led to his being hanged in 1945.

The other quote is from Proverbs 31: 8-9 and reads: Speak up for the people who have no voice, for the rights of the down and outers. Speak out for justice. Stand up for the poor and destitute.

Olorunfemi’s position is that Nigeria’s history for sixty years has been dominated by Goliaths who have succeeded in undermining the system . Lofty policies are circumvented, governance is incapacitated and politics becomes a tool for mindless power grab.

The consequence is that there is a loss of sense of values which works to the advantage of the Goliaths. In his words: But beyond the incompetence on the part of our leadership and the systemic failure so apparent, the greatest challenge facing our nation today is the lack of an agreed code of conduct. We have lost a sense of appreciation for the right values. We are no longer able to tell apart what is right from what is wrong. Declaration for political office takes precedence over sobriety over loss of lives. Yet in the face of evil staring us all in the face, it is difficult to rally popular support for change among Nigerians. Ethnic and religious bigotry now dominate our thought, discourse and relationships. Pseudo-intellectuals deploy manipulation and fear, across the media, to engineer hatred among the people. The country sits on tenterhooks, rocked to and fro by those bent on pulling it further apart. (EFTG pp 3-4.)

Everyday Goliaths

The manipulations have also ensured that strong institutions which should be the pillars of the society and the support structure of democracy are grossly weakened and rendered ineffective.

All through the three books, detailed examples are given of how these institutions have been sabotaged. These are presented with convincing clarity.

The banking system is characterised by gross violations, so too the judiciary and all the other public institutions. An immediate consequence is that well-thought out policies are distorted to make room for inefficiency which benefits only the manipulators to the detriment of the larger populace.

Fuel subsidy provides a glaring example as as tool for shaping positive economic impact, yet the Goliaths and their allies are able to turn it into “a rent-seeking system fashioned to benefit banks, traders, government officials and all sorts of middlemen.”

At every turn policies and regulations are deliberately rigged without a care so that the public institutions become anti-people every step of the away even in such things as responding to official letters or in registering a trademark or patent.

Olorunfemi highlights the situation with several examples including these personal experiences in The Devil is not in the Politics in the article “Nigeria’s Anti-People Public Institutions and the ‘ise-ijoba’ Syndrome”.

A services platform was set up by the Federal Government not too long ago. It is a month since we engaged with them to register a trademark. No response has come, beyond the initial acknowledgement of receipt of application. How does anyone do business in an environment where the rule of law is away on vacation ? To get justice in the court requires a lot of prayer and fastng – a case we instituted in court against a bank since 2012 is yet to commence hearing even with the front-loading system in Lagos. (TDINITP p203)

These deliberate distortions and manipulations have become cancerous to the extent that they have affected the mindset of the citizenry.

Thus the Goliaths are able to continue to exploit the system and even when there is a semblance of change, they so easily change the narrative and work against anything that would render them irrelevant.

A case in point is the 2015 general elections where the incumbent lost for the time in Nigeria’s political history. The author provides a compelling background for this historic outcome and explains that it was a reaction to the accumulation of the ills that had become untenable within the system. So the eventual winner merely provided a rallying point for the collective expression of angst.

Yet the new path envisaged by that electoral victory has been strewn with serious obstacles because on the one hand those who lost out and in collaboration with the Goliaths are untiring in frustrating the possibilities of change.

Unfortunately, per contra, those who propel the new direction are not doing enough to overcome the hurdles being thrown at them.

So the point is that tough decisions need to be made and followed through with all the commitment necessary because in reality, politics is not a game for gentlemen. In the Biblical narrative featuring Goliath, the giant is eventually vanquished by a determined minnow called David.

Olorunfemi appears to argue that genuine change is possible through a renewed mindset and a willingness to engage the forces of distortion and manipulation. For such a situation to arise, generality of the populace must come to an understanding that change begins with the individual.

We must also begin to question the seeming established nomenclatures that have become vehicles of manipulation. Is there anything like true Federalism ? Is there a perfect constitution? Are strong institutions possible?

The success story of Cadbury is featured in an article and is clearly intended to show that with proper vision and planning and willing adherents, a strong institution can be created with benefits that can be transposed to the larger society thereby creating a ripple effect of progress.

But achieving such success and progress requires a positive vision, the appropriate determination and will to overcome the established system of the Goliaths. There is no place for fence sitting. No place for a negative mindset.

No place for allowing the old ways of emtrenched marginalisation to continue unhindered. The June 12 experience is highlighted as an example of a collectivisation that can work .

In what can pass for a manifesto Olorunfemi propounds in Politics is not a Game for Gentlemen what he terms “16 Random Laws of Politics” and these are:

1. Never underestimate the power of silence.

2. Never forget the base.

3. Never underestimate the power of influence.

4. Never forget that politics is a contest.

5. Get your timing right.

6. Know when to strike,

7. There is a time to sow and a time to reap.

8. You must serve your way up.

9. The end of politics is action.

10. Play with emotion, but don’t get emotional.

11. Know when to pull back, never lose sight of tomorrow.

12. Disruption is not by mouth.

13. What you are seeing is not what you are seeing.

14. Never forget to carry your people along.

15. Politics is essentially not about right or wrong.

16. Know the laws so that you can know how to break them.

In these three books, Olorunfemi establishes himself as one willing to think out of the box as some of his positions clearly show. One would , for instance, expect that given his South West origin and attachment for June 12 and the current crop of progressives, he would align himself with their perception of federalism, fuel subsidy, and constitutional change.

That, however, is not the case as he appears willing to buck the trend but in a pragmatic and well-reasoned manner.

Everyday Goliaths

His passion for changing the fortunes of the downtrodden and marginalised shines through from article to article. He is also able to present his position convincingly not just with detailed facts, but also with engaging witticisms and fresh metaphors earthed in current situations and drawing from his Yoruba heritage.

One comes away seeing a genuine believer in the Nigerian project, determined to sling devastating shots at our Goliaths.

*Dr Shehu is a Nigerian activist, public intellectual and writer who has received education in literature and communication. He is also the director, International Institute of Journalism (IIJ). He has written several press articles, literary books, contributed chapters to books, edited books and journals. His main areas of interest are literature, communication and development, globalisation, African studies and creative writing.

Book Review: Contending with a nation’s goliaths Author: Simbo Olorunfemi Reviewer: Emman Shehu Column writing in newspapers, magazines or the social media beyond the entertainment aspect should be a platform not just for sharing knowledge but also a place for interrogating important issues.

#Goliaths #International Law and Diplomacy #Jonathan Administration #Political Science

[a-breton]

Why You Need Vertical Visuals If Your Audience is Mobile

A decade ago, nobody mentioned vertical content. Then again, back then smartphones were something new.

Today, smartphones are ubiquitous and vertical content is a must-have. The two are inseparable. One cannot mention vertical content without using the term “mobile” in the same sentence.

Why vertical

Before getting too far into the topic, vertical content is content that can be easily read on a rectangular, elongated device such as a smartphone or tablet.

According to Mary Meeker’s global trend study published by KPCB, Americans spend 29% of their free time watching video content vertically.

Americans spend 29% of free time watching #video content vertically, @kpcb #research. Click To Tweet

Most people find it natural to hold their phones in a vertical position. While they sometimes need to turn them sideways to watch a feature movie or play games, upright is the default.

As a consequence, you need to think mobile to be a successful marketer and adapt to the behavior of at least half of your potential audience.

How vertical content began

Remember the days when Pinterest launched? March 2010 were the first days of vertical content as a concept.

If we look to today’s online context, vertical content really went mainstream with Snapchat Stories, a feature later copied by Instagram. Stories allowed users to consume mobile social content in a natural way.

Snapchat also introduced the first vertical advertising concept, “3V – Vertical Video Views,” a concept later embraced by Instagram for its advertising services and, a few months ago, its IGTV platform.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Stories, Filters, and Bots: What You Need to Know Now

How vertical content differs

Observe the following image for a a few seconds:

You may have noticed two kinds of content are featured. The one on the left shows how vertical content looks on a mobile device. The screen on the right shows how traditional content looks on a mobile device.

As you can see, the right screen shares the screen with another user’s post. As a consequence, the primary image may not receive the viewer’s full attention like the image on the left screen could.

Now, how do you incorporate vertical content into your strategy to ensure that you create a better experience for your audience and your brand?

While there is no single answer, let’s go through three of the most valuable types that can help you achieve your goals.

1. Infographics

Infographics may be considered the oldest type of vertical visual content. Originally, they were not created for mobile users, but they are the perfect format for vertical content.

To successfully incorporate this type of vertical content, you need to consider a few things:

Make sure your infographics are branded. You want your audience to associate the valuable information with your brand or business.

Use infographics for storytelling.

Make sure all the data in your infographics is useful to your audience. Valuable content is the key to any successful marketing program.

When making a website or a blog from scratch, build a visual-rich content calendar from the get-go. This saves you an inordinate amount of time having to go back and retroactively add infographics to your posts.

Make it easy for people to share your content. Publish the infographics along with embed codes or sharing buttons.

Take a look at this case study for Seiko. According to Mojo Media Labs, Seiko increased its marketing-qualified leads by 945% through this simple yet informative infographic.

Seiko increased MQLs by 945% with simple vertical infographic, according to @MojoMediaLabs. @katairobi Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: The One Thing That Can Make a Big Difference in Your Infographics

2. Stories

Another great vertical content choice is to publish stories on Snapchat and Instagram. The latter likely will be more effective given that it has 400 million users who read and publish stories. Instagram Stories are exclusively vertical.

To use stories successfully, remember to:

Use stickers. It may not be enough to capture the best set of photos or an inspirational video. Stickers allow you to customize one or more slides with information that your audience may find valuable or entertaining. Stickers also can add to the overall design or the attractiveness of the story.

Customize the stickers. Change the size of a sticker to custom fit your story. Add a location, hashtag or poll sticker to better connect with your target audience. And don’t forget to explore your sticker options as new stickers are added over time.

Allow people to share your stories. Go to “Story Setting” on your Instagram profiles and toggle “allow sharing” to allow your followers to broaden the reach of your story.

Use the “mention” option to get the attention of an influencer. The option is available on the main screen. Just tap the “square A” icon and write down the name of the account you want to mention.

A lot of brands are using Instagram Stories. In fact, the top three based on number of fans and stories are from three popular brands – National Geographic, Nike, and Victoria’s Secret.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

Instagram Marketing: 4 Features You Should Be Using [Examples]

7 Instagram Stickers That Can Make Your Stories Even Better

3. Videos and livestreaming

While YouTube is still top among internet users from all around the world, it lacks the ability to deliver vertical content.

YouTube lacks the ability to deliver vertical #content, says @katairobi. Click To Tweet

To create mobile-ready content, you need to shoot and publish vertical content. Facebook and Instagram favor this type of content, particularly after the launch of IGTV, which is only suitable for vertical videos. Snapchat is also a good platform for video, with over 10 billion clips watched each day.

Here are some useful tips regarding video content:

Tell a story and focus on it instead of your product or service.

Take special care of the first 10 seconds of the video. They can make the difference and convince the viewer to watch further or abandon the content. One in five viewers will move on if the first 10 seconds doesn’t motivate them to continue watching.

Invest in original content. Tailor your content to entertain and/or inform your followers or other target audience.

Be creative. Facebook offers its guide on how to get creative with vertical video. As Digital Daily News reports, 65% of respondents in a recent survey say vertical video is “more innovative.”

In this example, Bacardi goes vertical with a video from Diplo of Major Lazer explaining a user-generated content contest in which the winner will have a video (presumably a vertical video) produced by Bacardi.

  View this post on Instagram

We’re partnering with @majorlazer to support new music! Submit a Sound of Rum inspired track for the chance to get feedback from @majorlazer and to win a music video. Musicliberatesmusic.soundcloud.com #DoWhatMovesYou #MusicLiberatesMusic #SoundofRum

A post shared by bacardiusa (@bacardiusa) on Aug 14, 2018 at 11:15am PDT

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Video Marketing Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know

Conclusion

Going vertical with your video addresses a necessary step in all good content – it makes the content readable. Considering that at least half of people access brand-provided content via smartphone or tablet, successful marketers will quickly adapt to the vertical video environment.

What other types of vertical content are you using? To what success?

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Set Your Content Free for a Mobile, Voice, Ready-for-Anything Future

Stay on top of the trending topics in content marketing to make your content marketing even more successful. Sign up today for the free CMI weekday newsletter.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

from http://bit.ly/2NtXX44

#Online Marketing

[citizentruth-blog]

In a Growing Economy, Why Are Workers Falling Further Behind? - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/in-a-growing-economy-why-are-workers-falling-further-behind/

In a Growing Economy, Why Are Workers Falling Further Behind?

Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez spearheaded a resolution to allow fossil fuel PACs to donate to the Democratic National Committee, a reversal of a June vote banning such contributions. Despite the notion, this is meant to be a defense of union workers, activists and other advocates have recognized this as an excuse to allow fossil fuel executives to donate and buy influence within the Democratic Party. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Jobs, jobs, jobs! Growth, growth, growth! Winning, winning, winning!

That’s the story we get from our beloved president, Donald J. Trump, at least. As many of us can attest to, though, what he says may not be (or is rarely) the gospel truth.

In an August 13 post in his nascent online newsletter, Popular Information, journalist Jedd Legum discusses how, indeed, GDP growth is strong and unemployment is low. Sounds great, right? While not to discount these trends, the issue is that wages aren’t rising to accompany them. Legum writes:

There is something fundamentally broken about the United States economy and no one is doing anything about it.

Unemployment is low. GDP growth is strong. But official government data released on Friday show that real wages for American workers have gone down over the last year.

Nominal wages, the dollar amount workers see in their paychecks, have slowly crept up, increasing 2.7% between July 2017 and July 2018. But that has not kept up with inflation, which rose 2.9% over the same period.

The economy is growing. Workers, however, are falling further behind.

This sounds awfully doom-and-gloom coming from Legum, but as he indicates, he has the data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to back him up. What’s more, he identifies key reasons why workers aren’t reaping the benefits of a robust economy through their take-home pay.

First of all, before we get to why wages are stagnant or declining, there’s the matter of the Trump tax cuts. After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law, the White House promised that “the median U.S. household would get a $4,000 real income raise.” That hasn’t happened, though.

To make matters worse, Trump and his advisers are apparently not interested in revisiting their policies to assess their potential flaws. Instead, Trump has—in characteristic fashion—doubled down on his assertions. He has ignored any evidence to the contrary, boasting that our paychecks are bigger and America is booming like never before. That’s especially not true in the case of our “booming” nation, but why let facts get in the way of a good story?

As Legum is keen to point out, however, trends in wage stagnation relative to inflation are bigger than Donald Trump. (But shh—don’t tell Trump that. In his mind, he is the sun around which we revolve.) Regardless of who is president or which party is in power, wages have been effectively stagnant for decades.

Based on this phenomenon, Legum insists that if people are complaining of an economy “rigged” against them, they are, well, right. Despite America’s status as one of the richest countries in the world and in an era of increasing profits, fewer people are enjoying those additional rewards. Cue the conversation about the 99% versus the 1%.

Accordingly, as Legum asks in his introduction, what gives? The answer is a complicated one, though there are some major culprits in the eyes of economic analysts. The first is employer-based health insurance, of which costs are on the rise. Because of escalating health care expenses, employers are less likely to raise wages. Because they are concerned about coverage and costs, employees are less likely to seek employment elsewhere. Consequently, employers are less inclined to negotiate on wages for fear of a departure. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that lower-wage workers also are disproportionately affected by these rising health care costs.

Speaking of negotiating for higher wages, a decline in union membership mediated by deliberate attempts to undermine organized labor has weakened the bargaining power and wages of union and non-union workers alike. Without significant union membership, there is insufficient reason for non-union employers to raise wages to compete with those of union firms. This is to say that it is not a zero-sum game involving the wages of union and non-union workers.

Compounding the problem of wages in America is that productivity is lagging despite advancements in technology. Legum speaks to the theory that American companies are simply not investing enough for the long term, instead opting to turn revenues into dividends or stock buybacks that inflate stock prices. Meanwhile, as he also indicates, wages have increased more slowly than productivity, so this is “only a piece of the puzzle.”

All of these factors lead up to Legum’s central point. While wage stagnation is obviously complex, there are yet remedies which can be effected. On the health care front, Medicare-for-all and other single-payer models at the state level have been suggested as ways to make employer costs more manageable. For unions, there are possible interventions like majority sign-up or multi-employer bargaining. For productivity’s sake, where private organizations fail, public investments in infrastructure can help pick up the slack.

The problem with these remedies is that they aren’t being implemented, or as Legum puts it, “no one is working to fix the problem.” Re the Trump administration, in many cases, these solutions aren’t just being ignored—they are forsaken for policies that deliberately move us backward.

We all remember the attempts by the president and a Republican-led Congress to kill the Affordable Care Act. They haven’t yet proven wholly successful, though this doesn’t mean the GOP will stop trying. Trump also celebrated the ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, characterized by many as a major blow to public-sector unions. As for infrastructure, Trump promised it would be a priority of his tenure in office. Heretofore, like most of Trump’s promises, it has yet to come to fruition.

In closing, Legum writes, “Politicians of all stripes speak incessantly about the American worker. But until they tackle the wage crisis head-on, it’s hard to take them seriously.” The absence of references to a specific political party here implies that both Republicans and Democrats should be taken to task for their role in subverting the wage growth of the labor force in the United States.

For the GOP, which has long kept the interests of big business close to heart, this is no big surprise. On the other hand, for the Democrats, the putative party of the people, the charge is that they have failed workers by not more vigorously defending organized labor, not to mention too eagerly embracing corporate lobbies/wealthy donors and their influence. This is the sort of inaction from lawmakers that the average voter is arguably justified in raging against. With the criticism from the left, there is an added sense of disappointment that a party which traditionally has embraced working-class Americans appears to have so readily abandoned them.

As Judd Legum underscores, these trends which have contributed to wage stagnation amid a growing economy were in motion before the rise of Donald Trump. His ascendancy is perhaps an all-too-logical consequence of their elaboration. As numerous publications and pundits observed, working-class whites, who came out in force for the business tycoon in 2016, were a key source of his support.

Before the election, the voting bloc of whites without a college degree was reportedly shrinking, and polling data had Hillary Clinton with one foot in the White House. Meanwhile, a group of individuals who disdain professionals because they perceive themselves to be disdained, while holding fast to the aspirational model embodied by Trump, was instrumental in swinging the election to the Republican presidential nominee. If Democratic strategists were convinced they could all but ignore this subset of the electorate (and key segments of the Rust Belt), it turned out they were wrong.

It’s political realities like this which make the recent decision by Tom Perez and the Democratic National Committee to reverse a ban on donations from fossil fuel companies rather alarming. Ostensibly, this was a move made because input from labor suggested a ban on fossil fuel money was an “attack” on workers. In reality, and as the activist community has observed, this 180 is designed to allow fossil fuel executives to keep donating to (and buying influence within) the Democratic Party.

The DNC’s about-face is particularly galling given that the prohibition on fossil fuel contributions—which specifically targeted corporate PAC donations—only came about this past June. Defenders of Perez’s proposal might be wont to point out that the Republican Party accepts substantially higher amounts of cash from the fossil fuel industry than the Dems do. There’s also the aspect that Democrats in contested districts/states feel they need to take a more moderate stance when it comes to energy production.

Still, as Kate Aronoff, contributor to The Intercept, quipped, “There are no jobs on a dead planet.” The DNC’s recommitment to an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy is a regressive turn of events at a time when more urgent action on climate change is needed, and when the Trump administration is doing its part to reverse as many regulations designed to safeguard the environment as possible (see also Scott Pruitt as the original pick for the EP-freaking-A).

Moreover, the rationalization of taking fossil fuel PAC money as a defense of organized labor is an altogether cynical one. Apparently, being a rank-and-file worker/Democratic Party supporter and having enthusiasm for an energy plan based on renewable sources are mutually exclusive. If you care about your job, evidently you give f**k-all about the planet.

To reiterate, the problem of stagnant and declining wages in America is a complex one mediated by a number of factors. At the same time, a little leadership from our elected representatives could go a long way in convincing us we are on the right track in trying to ameliorate the situation. Unfortunately, legislative gridlock and intentional concessions to corporate interests inspire little confidence we’re moving in the right direction on this issue.

  Why Donald Trump Will Be The Greatest Jobs President of All TIme

#economy #Jobs #labor #Labor Unions #middle class #Unions #US Economy #working class

[conniecogeie]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[kraussoutene]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[mariasolemarionqi]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[dainiaolivahm]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[maryhare96]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[byronheeutgm]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[christinesumpmg]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[rodneyevesuarywk]

8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

We have two recently released, well-authored research reports on email marketing that provide some very different—not contradictory, but different—assessments of email marketing as it stands today and where we’re headed. In this article, we’ll give you a concise look at each and the most relevant takeaways from each report, as they pertain to you and your business. Presumptuous of us? Nah. We know how marketers—and their extended teams—tend to think about such things.

You can access the full reports from the Litmus 2018 State of Email and the Campaign Monitor 2018 Email Predictions.

What makes this mash-up so interesting is that one is based on a great deal of quantifiable backward-looking data, and the other is based on predictions from a number of experts in the field. Does the analytical data support the forward-looking recommendations? Read on.

We’re big fans of Litmus and the services they provide, yet we’re not a shill for their services or offerings. They just provide really good and essential services to email marketers. So, it will not come as a surprise their report is chock full of solid insights, technological changes across the entire email client spectrum, marketing trends, and (understandably) a regular cadence of CTAs to learn more and engage with their brand. We’ve got four major takeaways for you on this report.

1. The 3 Audiences in Your Organization Who Need to See This Report

Those audiences are:

Developers: The people who are hand-coding or tweaking in-platform templates with stuff like this: @media screen and (max-device-width: 320px) and (max-device-height: 568px) { /* Insert styles here */ } Scary! That is apparently important when viewing an email on an iPhone 8 in zoom mode.

Marketing Managers, Strategists, CMOs: Anyone responsible for email results.

Your In-House Council, Attorney, and CEO: Anyone who doesn’t want a massive fine or legal entanglement over your use of private data.

We did not include analysts in there because they’re usually too busy looking at their own collected data. The point is, this research report is broad enough that it spans multiple types of stakeholders who touch email marketing.

Action Item: Highlight the essential parts of this report and share them with your colleagues on a need-to-know basis, especially the developers. Your analyst could completely misinterpret your subject-line test results based on the unknown number of recipients who couldn’t view the email correctly on a particular email client on a particular mobile device. Yes, it is that granular.

And if it hasn’t hit the inbox of C-level execs yet, the GDPR rules and consequences are real. At the time of this writing, in fact, it’s all over the news. Be sure your organization has it all together on the new data and privacy rules (see Takeaway #4 below).

2. It’s About Subscriber Engagement, Not List Size

If anyone within eyesight of this is still being graded on list size, stop it. Stop it now. A massive surge in list growth is not a key metric if those subscribers are not engaging, interacting, replying, sharing, or purchasing. It’s a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics.

Purge non-engagers, put them on a re-engagement campaign, implement ongoing automated list hygiene methods, and be aggressive in cutting the dead wood. If the boss doesn’t get it, forward this article, along with our contact info.

List size is a false metric—one that will absolutely skew your email marketing metrics. Click To Tweet Top Reasons Consumers Unsubscribe

The following graphic shows the percentage of consumers (out of 1,212 respondents) who have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails for the designated reasons.

Those first two reasons should come as no surprise. The third most common reason, “Brand’s emails or website don’t display or work well on subscriber’s smartphone,” is scary because that aspect of accessibility is largely under our control! (See Takeaway #3 below.)

Most interesting to us, however, is that fourth reason. 38 to 51 percent of subscribers unsubscribe due to a bad customer experience. If this is the case in your organization, it’s time to address and achieve best-in-class customer service, because that is also under our control.

Action Item: If you’re stuck in an environment in which list growth is a key metric, and your paycheck depends on it, you have three options:

Leave.

Teach the C-suite that list growth is significantly less important than engagement.

Hope for regime change, and hope you aren’t part of that change. (If yes, see #1.)

3. Email Marketing Is Way More Technical Now

How up-to-speed is your email/web developer? What’s the latest device’s screen size? How about its retina pixel count? How do you optimize for that? Should one optimize for that?

Here’s a quick test. Can your email/web developer tell you about at least four Samsung (not Android) mobile device rendering quirks that absolutely affect readability? (Pause for effect.)

(Still pausing.)

Knowledge like this plays a crucial role in generating engagement. Responsibility for that knowledge comes down to the person(s) dropping bits and pieces of code into your emails prior to sending. To be clear, we’re not shills for Litmus. But we do encourage you to adopt a tool like theirs to ensure your brilliantly crafted, written, and designed emails can actually be experienced as intended, on a plethora of ever-changing operating systems and devices.

Action Item: Continual training. Continual validation testing. It has to be part of the SOP for every email prior to scheduling. Invest time and money in your email developers, and provide them ongoing training.

4. The Rules of Compliance Have Changed

Data security, privacy, and transparency have become flashpoints for consumers, businesses, and governments thanks to both high-profile breaches and strict new laws that affect marketers worldwide. This goes beyond GDPR to include changes related to Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the FTC review of the 14-year-old CAN-SPAM laws, Net Neutrality, and salient examples of data breaches.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Highlights

GDPR will affect every company that uses personal data from EU citizens. If you collect email addresses from and send email to subscribers in the EU, you must comply with GDPR no matter where you’re based.

GDPR has stricter regulations around consent and the use of personal data. It also carries higher-than-ever penalties for businesses that don’t play by the rules. Non-compliance can lead to fines of up to €20 million or four percent of a brand’s total global revenue—whichever is higher.

Marketers who want to send email to EU citizens must review their email processes. Two options are creating separate sign-up processes for EU and non-EU subscribers and changing all opt-in practices to comply with GDPR.

Action Item: If you haven’t done so already, it’s time for your own internal data, privacy policies, and practices audit. Make any policy updates, and take any corrective action right away. (There’s sure to be some.)

There is a lot more covered in the report. It’s pretty granular and becomes more role-specific, so this is a good one to share with your extended team, especially the developers and implementers of your email assets. The assertions and recommendations in the report are based on data collected across their entire community of customers and practitioners.

Looking Forward

Both the Litmus and CampaignMonitor reports contain forward-looking predictions based on a combination of survey data and expert opinions. We’ve reviewed them using our own highly polished, critical prism and summarized the four most important ones below.

Which of These Will Be Big Email Design Trends In 2018?

Top Email Design Trends to Embrace. Source: Litmus poll of 524 visitors to its blog between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4,2017

Our take on it: As you can see from the survey responses above, we can no longer just talk at our subscribers. Interactivity has become the number one area of focus because it fosters engagement. These kinds of features allow subscribers to interact with an email directly in their inbox—opening a dropdown menu, revealing hidden images or text, or adding an item promoted in the email to a cart and then clicking directly to the checkout page.

Google is already folding interactivity into its platforms. Gmail has announced they will add support for dynamic content and interactive email through Google’s AMP technology. Although the move will have its own limitations and challenges, it’s a very strong sign that interactive email is going mainstream.

Further, we have to talk with our subscribers, using personalized, relevant, concise, and humanized stories and conversations. If your existing email content inventory or content plans aren’t addressing this, it’s time to make some changes.

Expert Prediction 1: A New Type of Combined Email Marketing Automation Is Rising

Expect the lines between marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM to blur as email and automation companies continue to expand their features. A new midfield of marketing technology players will emerge. This is great for marketers. It lowers the barrier to get more advanced functionality and start implementing smarter marketing.

Our take on it: Agreed. However, adoption and implementation of these new capabilities will not come without some effort, pain, and expense. You’ll likely need to make a continual investment (or perhaps a complete change) in your technology stack, content assets, CRM data profiles, training, and analytics. Be realistic and intentional as to how your teams will navigate this changing landscape, and get senior management on board too.

Expert Prediction 2: Marketers Will Covet Predictive Marketing Metrics

Right now, marketers are campaign-oriented. We focus on measuring the success of campaigns above measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV). But not for long. Soon, we’ll vastly improve upon predictive marketing metrics, such as CLV calculation. Machine learning and AI will predict individual and group customer lifetime value (called “predictive CLV”). Goodbye, historical CLV! Hello, predictive CLV.

Our take on it: Yes, it’s time to take the long view. This will be particularly hard for short-sighted and even sales-oriented businesses that tend to live month-to-month, without regard to the long game. Commissioned salespeople are not likely to embrace the notion of a customer’s lifetime value when their monthly sales quota is the only KPI they are concerned with. Yet most CEOs understand the idea of increasing shareholder value, and adopting a CLV approach dovetails nicely with that and, possibly, their stock options. Historical, CLV hasn’t been easy for a majority of companies. Predictive CLV might not be either. But it’s worth investigating, and once the case can be made, capitalize on it. Machine learning and AI are the keys here.

Expert Prediction 3:  The Race to One-to-One Personalization Is On

The ability to craft individualized experiences at scale has given email marketing huge leads when it comes to personalization. But so far, email personalization has been typically based on past events like user-created profiles and preferences, purchases, and life stage events. Consumer expectations are rapidly changing. They expect everything to work like Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist or Netflix’s Recommendation pages.

Our take on it: Spot on. All those other forward-thinking, bleeding-edge companies have reset customer expectations in every industry. And there is no going back. Yesterday’s good-enough, relevant email is no longer good enough. Personalization models and strategies now have to take into account real-time content consumption, infer customer intent, and deliver the next, most relevant content, CTA, assistance, or advice before the prospect (or existing customer) even knows what they need next. Customer journey mapping to stage-specific content inventory, overlaid with behavioral profiling, has to come together to meet the ever-increasing expectations of the prospect/customer. Those who get this right (and faster than their competition) will benefit because they will set the bar.

Expert Prediction 4: Investment Will Shift from Low-Value Emails to High-Value Emails

Investing the vast majority of our time in the production of mass emails that account for roughly 95 percent of our email volume but generate less than half of our email revenue doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll begin investing more time in the automated emails that account for five percent of our volume but most of our revenue.

Our take on it: That’s a fact. We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time and effort on emails that yield low per-unit results. But we’ve done it for two decades because it was really easy and cheap. It’s the 80/20 rule, or some variant of it. By shifting resources (time, effort, creativity) to the most valued subscribers, at scale, we expect to see better per-unit results. Each organization’s email models will need to adapt this concept differently, of course. However, we all still want some greater level of engagement (and maybe revenue). Shifting our focus and resources to those who are predisposed to engage, or purchase, makes perfect sense.

So, What Next?

Email marketing is not static and certainly not dead. In fact, it’s a more vibrant channel than ever. New research says we’re all about to boost our marketing budgets. We recommend you boost your resource allocations—budgets, personnel, training, technology, analytics—in this channel, which is far less likely to be disrupted (e.g., by a Facebook algorithm change) and continually evolves to provide a better, more tailored customer experience for all.

At Convince & Convert Consulting, we combine the latest research data with our marketing expertise to help our clients take advantage of the emerging opportunities in digital marketing. If you have questions, thoughts, or counterpoints, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

https://ift.tt/2vGjPFT

#8 Takeaways and Predictions from the Latest Email Marketing Research

[femininesuperpowers-blog]

Up close & personal with Michelle Zelli

It’s International Woman’s Day and there’s no better day to celebrate Inspirational women which is why I sat down with my good friend, mentor and feminist role model Michelle Zelli to dig deep on her views on Feminism and why she’s an advocate for Women in 2018.

The moment I met Michelle Zelli I knew she was going to become a significant part of my life but didn’t know quite how impactful a part she would be. I met Michelle through my husband years ago, we became fast friends with a shared love of hip hop, dancing, the universe, giggles and good vibes. I ended up working with her as my coach which accelerated my personal growth and took my life to the next level. Fast forward two years and I now feel very lucky to work with her on many levels including as a co- founder of Feminine SuperPowers, the incredible lifestyle and events movement birthed by Michelle and Cat Raincock last year.

Michelle is a one of a kind psycho-spiritual coach and speaker.  She plays by her own rules, she’s headstrong, super glam, does what she wants, knows what she wants, has an incredible life story worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster and is as inspiring AF! A woman on a mission and an incredible role model to me personally. You’re gonna be seeing a lot more of her this year as she stands in her power and shines her big badass light on the globe. If there was ever an empowered woman empowering women it’s Michelle Zelli.

What does being a Feminist in 2018 mean to you?

For me being a feminist in 2018 is about owning my power to choose. I don’t think there’s only one model for feminism.  2018 feminism encompasses all choices,  all directions and celebrates a woman’s right to choose her destiny.

I recently did a piece for The Daily Mail, Femail section, discussing whether it’s possible to be a feminist and have cosmetic surgery. The inference is that it can’t be both, as though we would only be having cosmetic surgery to please men! I totally refute this idea. Today’s women can make our own decisions. We make our own money, we’re empowered and play by our own rules. We can decide how we’re going to look and when.

You often talk about ‘Feminine Feminism’, what is it and how do you embody it?

For me Feminine Feminism is about the balance of retaining some softness, which is expressed uniquely for each of us.

I’ve recently had a backlash on social media for using the term ‘Feminine Feminist’ but I believe one of the reasons feminism as a brand is not  appealing to the masses is because it has been synonymous with anger and raging women.

In fact a recent study of male students undertaken by Student Room say 41% define feminism as ‘man-hating’  and 31% as  ‘angry women’.  A shocking statistic but also an opportunity for us to learn from.

In a poll conducted by Fawcett society 83% of people agreed with gender equality as the basic principal of feminism but only 7% identified as feminists.   Clearly there is a branding issue. We need to find ways to help healthy masculinity come to the fore in 2018 and promote a healthy feminism with positive connotations.

How can we help men embody the healthy masculine?

Now’s the perfect time for us to build bridges, and stop burning bra’s. Ironically Donald Trump helped feminism when he came to power. He was the catalyst for International Women’s Day.  Women around the world stood up, they were determined to be heard. In my mind, Trump embodies toxic masculinity – he’s narcissistic, chauvinistic and emotionally out of whack.   He’s even been caught on camera saying things about women that frankly you wouldn’t expect to hear from a  ‘healthy masculine’.

We can help men find their feet in this new era by finding our own ‘feminist’ comfort zone. It’s important to allow a man to be a man. Many women want strong men, “real men” but without the toxicity of the air of superiority, disrespect, sexualisation, objectification, whilst feeling the need to control women.

What’s one of the best ways to empower ourselves?

Stop worrying what people think. We never truly know what people are thinking and often we find ourselves making up stories in our heads. The funny thing is normally when we make the story up we are projecting our own fears!

If I am worried that someone will get upset or angry by me talking about feminism  it’s very likely to shut me down.   In the end we become our own silencers and dis-advocators.  Be concerned only about what you think and only ever compare yourself to the past you.  Frankly, screw what others think and focus on being the woman you’re proud to be!

Why are you an advocate for women?

I came up the ranks in business. I’ve spent years in director roles in both blue chip and at SME. I now work with a lot of women to dissolve their glass ceiling in the corporate environment, which is still a male domain.

As The Founder of Feminine SuperPowers I am blessed to have the scope to come up with creative new ways to help women stand in their power.  FSP is designed purely for women to plug into their superpowers, channeling creativity and sexuality on their terms. We bring together the spirituality and rock n roll with a purpose.

What are your thoughts on the Me Too Campaign?  Has it been influential in changing people’s perceptions in the long term?

Yes and studies have shown over half of female students feel more hopeful for an equal future following high profile campaigns like #MeToo and Time’s Up, which is great progress.

It’s been a long time coming. For too long women have been pressured to use their sexuality to open doors. A change is long overdue. The Me Too Campaign has reached far and wide, using the powerful force of name and shame – it’s scared people into behaving themselves.

It’s unfortunate that’s the way it had to go but we have seen some big shifts. I think we need to be mindful about looking back too far. We’re looking at people who have done something wrong 20 or 30 years ago.   I’m much more interested in looking forward and changing our current culture. We can’t undo past mistakes, it’s misplaced energy, let’s focus on making positive change in the now and move forward.

What do you see as the future of Feminism?

I think you’re going to see far more female leaders.  Currently 26% of Directors in the FTSE 100 are female. I think that’s going to increase quickly. Two years ago the government issued a quota target, saying they want  FTSE 350 to reach 33% by 2020.    I work with business leaders who are serious about implementing positive change in the working environment to help woman rise through the ranks and manage a senior role with motherhood.  It’s a big challenge but people are waking up and taking action.

In November last year in Reykjavik, 300 female politicians, from more than 90 countries,  met for a two-day global summit. The conference is organised by Women Political Leaders, an independent organisation dedicated to increasing the number of women in politics. Currently just 23% of politicians globally are female.

I think women lead in a different way to men, as a consequence the planet will move in a different direction… and we need to!

What’s your personal mission as a woman?

To be as fearless as possible and lead from the front, whilst making the most out of every day.  I refuse to be restricted by anyone’s gender agenda.  This is such an amazing time to be alive, I practice living in awe and help others to find their connection with the universe.  When we have true connection, we own our power.  Empowered women, empower women – I’m blessed to have found this work and now love spreading the word and the magic!

What’s next on the your agenda? Will you be Zellifying the Globe?

It’s funny you should mention that Julia!  Last August I felt a calling to expand the reach of my work.  In September the first Feminine SuperPowers was held at The Corinthia Hotel in London and sold out two weeks prior to the event!  We were blown away.  But I was confident the universe was guiding me.  I got out of my way paid attention and took the leap. It’s been the most incredible six months!  

Co-Producing the successful docu-movie, Forbidden Games, in 2015 about the life of Justin Fashinu was exciting and  I’m heading to LA in April, to discuss a TV series and a potential movie based on my coaching and my life.  Another exciting concept is a foray into the chat show world, it’s a great way to spread the word whilst entertaining.   Feminine SuperPowers Events are taking off with amazing success and our next is on 9th June with further events in the pipeline around the world.  I am also in discussions focused on Live coaching, an ‘Evening with MZ’ – all of this is a dream come true.  

My mission is to embody a woman who proves our history doesn’t have to dictate who we become, or define our life.  There’s never been a better time to be a woman on this planet. We have the ability to grow, learn and morph into the best version of ourselves.   We are the first generation of women who have the opportunity to earn our own money, to be truly independent, have a voice and go wherever we want to go. It’s now about growing our feminine balls and getting ourselves out there.

In a nutshell my mission is to help people find their courage and their place in this new feminist society and fulfil their potential.  

Who is MZ when she’s not working?

Wow, that’s a tough one as it depends which day you ask me!   I love walking in Richmond Park with my gorgeous shaggy dawg, Lily.  Dancing in Ibiza, writing in Devon, learning new shamanic wisdom, hanging out with friends and my family.   Talking about magic and mysteries of the universe with just about anyone who will listen .  I love to unplug with a good movie, I listen to oodles of audio books and keep pretty up to date with fashion.  Clothes are one of my greatest passions, along with my bed, there’s nothing like climbing into freshly made bed with cool white linen. That end of day surrender!

Catch Michelle at Feminine SuperPowers on the 9th June.

For Today Only Book your ticket for Feminine SuperPowers and get two for the price of one so you can extend this incredible experience to one of your wing woman.