Last week, members of the Blue Tent email team traveled to Miami, Florida to attend MarketingSherpa’s 4th Annual Email Summit. For the second year in a row, Blue Tent won Gold for Best Postcard-Style Campaign (B-to-B) featuring A Blue Tent Christmas Carol. The goal of this campaign was to wish our clients and subscribers a happy holiday season while simultaneously incentivizing them to complete our Ghost of Internet Marketing's Past, Present and Yet to Come Journey. We had great feedback and an outstanding response that generated about 75 leads across 11 service categories. Below is a photo of our acceptance of the award. Pictured between the MarketingSherpa presenters, from left to right: Josh Lewis, VP of Marketing, Eric Taylor, Email Project Manager, and Mehri Movassaghpour, Email Project Manger. Ryan Austin, Director of Marketing, is not pictured as he attended the email summit last year and accepted the award on behalf of Blue Tent. Following are our “Top 5 Takeaways” from the conference:

1) Why segmentation is so important
The objective of segmenting your email list members is to increase the relevancy of your messages so that they add more value to your members. To improve responses and results, target messages to different groups with varying subscriber behavior and/or specific demographics.

2) Using trigger-based email campaigns
Trigger-based email can create a truly relevant email campaign that can help your messages connect with subscribers and increase your ROI. This type of email can be based on important dates, subscriber behavior, and recent purchases.

3) Optimizing your email campaign
Optimize your email and landing pages to increase the effectiveness of your email campaign. This can help you identify a favorable marketing strategy and add flexibility to future campaigns.

Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director of MarketingExperiments, pointed out that a consumer should immediately be able to answer 3 questions: 1. Where am I at? 2. What can I do here? 3. Why should I do it? If they can't answer those questions right off the bat then you have problems.

4) Don't sink in the in-box sea
Nowadays, everyones in-boxes are overwhelmed with mail, whether it's junk or not. This is a time when marketers will need to re-evalutate their email strategies and analyze how well their existing methods are working to connect with the subscribers.

Stefan Tornquist, MarketingSherpa’s Research Director, mentioned that people aren't bogged down with the amount of email they receive, they are bogged down with the amount of irrelevant information in most emails.

5) Test different approaches that have measurable results
Create tests that provide immediate results to plan an effective email marketing strategy. Whether it's a redesigned layout or a new email incentive, you can use the results to determine which approach works best.

Mehri Movassaghpour
Email Project Manager