‘They did it, so we should too’ isn’t an email strategy

Too often in email marketing, we see a tactic that worked for someone else and rush to replicate it — without asking if it fits our goals, audience or business context. Here’s why that approach rarely works as expected, and how to take a smarter, strategy-first path instead.

The email that worked — and why you shouldn’t copy it

At a recent email conference, a client and I teamed up for what has become one of my favorite presentations: all about a browse-abandonment email that helped our client capture more sales from people who clicked on their promotional emails but left the site without buying.

We walked our audience through the business case that led us to consider browse abandonment. Specifically, we wanted to test whether an overt abandonment email — one that acknowledged the shopper’s actions — would generate more purchases than a covert approach.

In the covert version, we softened the abandonment angle by blending the browsed products into a larger array of similar items, making the message feel more like a serendipitous promotional campaign than a targeted follow-up.

Then we detailed how we chose the copy and images for the two versions, set up the testing structure and timing, interpreted the results and used them in the client’s email program. (Curious to learn which test won? See the results at the end of this article.) 

But there was one thing we did not do: We did not urge our attendees to mimic what we did and promise that they would get the same results. 

Mimicry is not marketing

Our approach worked because we built it for that client. You might not get the same results, but not because our approach was fundamentally flawed. Rather, because your email program is different from my client’s.

• We sell different products.
• Our audiences are different.
• Our email programs and teams have different goals, dynamics and technology.
• Our customers have different relationships with our email programs and different motivations for engaging with our messages.

Opportunities for mimicry are everywhere — at conferences and training sessions, in books and white papers and in columns like this. When we do something that succeeds, we want to talk about it because that’s how we learn email marketing. 

Over the last three decades, we email marketers have built a shared knowledge base by discussing what we were doing, what worked, what didn’t and why. Many of us rushed to copy someone else’s success, and when it didn’t pan out, we moved on to the next new thing.

Dig deeper: Email marketing strategy: A marketer’s guide

Strategy always comes first

A successful email program has goals, strategies and tactics. It’s like a journey. 

• Your goal is the destination. 
• Your strategy is the map you use to determine how to get there. 
• You use tactics to follow your map and reach your destination. 

If you live in the U.S. and your goal is to go to Paris, your strategy will dictate which vehicle to use. Your options are limited — boat or plane.

If you let tactics rule the day, you might think, “I just bought this car that’s the hottest thing on the market and I’m going to drive it to France!” 

That will work if you live in England because you can take a car ferry or the Channel Tunnel. But from anywhere in the U.S.? Good luck with that! It doesn’t mean your car is flawed. You’re just asking it to do something it can’t. You do what your strategy tells you. Bon voyage!

Granted, creating a workable strategy takes time and effort. Tactics are more fun, especially when you are one of the first to demo new technology. But when you divorce tactics from strategy, you can waste time, energy and money on things doomed to fail.

Nobody ever grew an email program by copying what everyone else does. 

Dig deeper: Why you should always ask why: Strategy must lead tactics in marketing planning

Copy the insight, not the execution

Don’t ignore the success stories. It’s smart to keep track of what’s happening in email marketing, to see what others report and learn from their wins and losses. At the same time, think about how they got there and how or whether you could test something similar. 

Observe how they executed their plans, but pay more attention to what they learned. Don’t let glowing results distract you from asking important questions like these:

• What problem did you want to solve?
• What belief did you challenge?
• What decision-making barriers did this project remove?
• What buyer modalities did you address? In other words, did you speak to people who buy impulsively or prefer to research? Seek to impress or let empathy and connection rule the day?
• How did you test your changes? Did it have a control? Was it a 50/50 split?
• Was the hypothesis proven?

Be wary of reports focusing on results but not meanings or background. Everybody likes to brag, but if people can’t answer these probing questions, that could indicate potential potholes.

Now comes the more challenging part. Take what you learned and ask yourself or your team questions like these: 

• How does this apply to our customers?
• How would this help us carry out our strategy or meet our goals?
• Do we have the right technology to make this happen?
• What would be our hypothesis for this test?

This will give you the information you need to build a program and test whether it works in your contextual environment, goals, customers, products, technology and company mindset.

Dig deeper: 7 common problems that derail A/B/n email testing success

Bring critical thinking into email marketing

As I said, we grew email marketing by learning from each other. That’s what sets us apart from other marketers. But today, we rely too much on rehashed knowledge, vendor-driven information and uncritical absorption of other people’s stories. 

We need fewer recycled playbooks and more first-hand reports about marketers’ needs today. That can free us from the eternal cycle of chasing trends and give us the courage and conviction to chart our own paths. 

Those paths can be forged from what we have learned from others, but our experiences and insights must fuel them. 

I hope my conference presentation inspired attendees facing similar issues to consider a similar program. Still, I don’t expect anyone to do exactly what we did. Similarly, I hope this column inspires you to look at your email program and find the gaps and barriers that prevent you from achieving your goals, enjoying success or serving your customers as best you can.

Try this sequence:

• Ask deeper questions.
• Challenge assumptions.
• Test instead of guess.
• Lead with your brand instead of following someone else.

Your questions and answers will lead you to develop a browse-abandonment program like the one we created for our client, Cannadips. You’ll find the complete case study on Page 70 of my book, “Holistic Email Marketing, Second Edition.” But it won’t be the same as ours, and that’s as it should be.

And now for the test results I promised… 

The covert version got higher opens and clicks than the overt one. However, our strategy called for using purchases as the success metric. The overt version generated a 4% order placement rate and a 20% lift over the covert version. The overt version won.

And that’s another reason why you let your strategy dictate your tactics!