Email is a proven conversion and revenue driver (see box for more) – but its evolving faster than we can keep pace! The email marketing manager’s role is going from operational to strategic because email is a marketing tactic that almost every marketing team will want to leverage. But what makes CMOs want to celebrate their email marketingOpens a new window manager? A combination of some hard must-have skills and a few softer skills that will help get the job done better. Here they are:
Btw, are you looking out for some interesting email marketing hacks? This will help.Opens a new window
THE HARD SKILLS
We all know we love stats and facts in this world of data-driven everything, so here are some:
- Automated emails get 119% higher click rates (Source: Epsilon)
- B2C marketers who connect with customers through automated emails see conversions as high as 50% (Source: eMarketer)
- The number one reason for top marketers to use email marketing automation is to increase revenue (Source: Gleanster)
- Companies who automate emails are 133% more likely to send messaging that coincides with the purchase cycle of their customers (Source: The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups)
1 – Awesome knowledge of the tool!
Undoubtedly, your organization uses some sort of marketing automation tool to execute email marketing campaigns. Given that, it’s quite the fundamental to ensure that not just the email marketing manager but everyone on the email marketing team has a good grip of the tool. But the email marketing manager has to go above and beyond and be the expert on every aspect, function, trick, workaround, and secret of the email marketing toolOpens a new window . This is about optimizing outcomes from email marketing and driving better results with a deeper knowledge of the email marketing tool.
ProTip: As an email marketing manager, start getting under the skin of as many of the most popular email marketing tools as you can. Not only will you then become strategic to the tool selection process, you will not be restricted to working on one tool and will gift yourself mobility across the industry.
2-Â Analytical ability
Analytics is the modern-day marketers’ favorite term, when its not data. The ability to breakdown and make good sense of all those numbers is crucial. The skill should go beyond open and click rates and move to a deep assessment of bounces, unsubscribes, the rate at which the subscriber list is growing. Like I said all these are basics- what is beyond these basic metrics?
An email marketing manager who can really understand the right analytics and impact it could have on campaigns will help drive success. Its not just about how many people clicked or opened an email but how many conversions happened as a result of the campaign! Its also about connecting the missing pieces and dots, for instance, a low complaint and unsubscribe rate can also directly lead to better delivery rates, while improving the sender’s (yours) general reputation.
3 – Solid knowledge of databases
According to Practicalecommerce, the most important email marketing metrics include:
- Open Rates
- Click-through Rates
- Unsubscribe Rates
- Soft Bounces
- Earnings or leads per Click or per Email
- Delivery Rate
- Inbox Placement
- Complaint and Abuse rate
- Forward rate
- Churn rate
Email outcomes are only as good as the list of recipients. No one wants an email marketing manager to simply shoot out bulk emails anymore. In order to ensure better delivery, the onus lies on the email marketing manager to work around the roadblocks. So what skills help most here? For starters, the ability to build and maintain fresh lists. The return on email marketing is known to be fantastic, but obviously not if you have inactive subscribers.
Besides playing with ways to avoid getting emails into a recipient’s spam folder, an email marketing manager must know how to build an engaged mailing list (this does call for some broad marketing skills and a good understanding of what your target audience wants and what they do once they come to your website), ideating on ways to get more people to sign-up and lots more.
Gone are the days of only being expected to analyze open and click rates or the length of the subject line. It’s time to think beyond, to come up with faster page load tricks for instance!
4 – Knowledge of segmentation and targeting fundamentals (to deliver some great personalized content maybe!)
Why would marketers keep talking about hyper-personalization if it wasn’t that big a deal? Now that they are, this also means that the one size fits all (read: Mass email to a common subscriber list) is not going to cut it anymore. Different lists, audience segmentation will help an email marketing manager to reduce opt-out rates and (boost revenue!). Working closely with the marketing manager who can provide the basis and insights for audience segments and the targeting logic will help the email marketing manager drive best results
5 – Knowledge of testing/email hacks
An email marketing manager who has prompt answers to questions like the following will always have an edge:
-What works/ what doesn’t with email in general- the classic best practices and trends
-What’s working for others/ competitors
-What subject lines extract maximum responses
-What content length works
-What call to action works best
-The optimum time to send an email
-The worst time to send an email
-How to best arrive at answers to the above
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Pro tip: The stronger the ability to test campaigns quickly and efficiently with the aim to optimize outcomes, the better it is for everyone!
6 – Awareness of compliance and security
Email marketers MUST keep a tab on country-specific marketing regulations. In general, email marketing that takes place within Europe is regulated at the EU level. The EU Directive requires marketers to ask for and receive explicit confirmation before receiving direct marketing material. Besides this, an opt-out or unsubscription must be available always.
These parameters differ for every region. It is definitely crucial for an email marketing manager to know which basic protocols and regulations to adhere to basis the location of their audience.
7 – Mobile-friendly email marketing – mobile optimization
Given that the highest open rate for email marketing is on mobile, the ability to maintain mobile responsive templates that display wells across screens is a key skill. More importantly, knowing the unique nuances of email marketing via mobile is certainly a differentiating skill.
8 – Interactive email marketing
Real-time engagement (including interesting quizzes, polls, surveys, trivia!) is important today. Creating stickiness through content that makes readers stay is the ultimate challenge of every (email) marketer. Interactive can also mean video email marketing- an area seeing increasing interest and GIFs, memes and other formats that drive stickiness/ shareability quotient.
Also Read:Â Opens a new window
Email Marketing Manager: Role, Skill Set and Job DescriptionOpens a new window
THE SOFT SKILLS
- Proper planning, prioritizing and alignment – In most cases, an email marketing manager will be expected to manage simultaneous campaigns for multiple teams within an organization. Without some strong self-discipline, the overall execution will suffer.
- Copy and creative check – If an email marketing manager doesn’t develop an eye for these, it might impact campaigns. Since this is the person who (usually) views the campaign collaterals together right before it is finally sent, a closing proof-read, formatting check, link check and more should be part of the routine to prevent minor errors.
- Communication skills – The ability to give the right reports to the right stakeholders at the right time while maintaining a transparent process is important of course, but also being able to communicate effectively and discretely to various stakeholders about what works and doesn’t work in order to build overall effectiveness is a skill worth developing. Helping internal teams learn from one another is also a role the email marketing manager could bring to the fore.
- Adapting to changing consumer and industry trends – Keeping abreast of latest technologies like machine learning and AI will help an email marketing manager to know what it could do to improve future campaigns.
Naveen Wall, Senior Manager, CRM at Shutterstock says, “If you’ve ever hired for this role, you’ll know it’s challenging. A successful Email Marketing Manager requires a unique combination of hard and soft skills that don’t often come together, including strong technical knowledge, analytics, strategy, and design. Getting the fundamentals right is paramount in building a good foundation. Understanding your tool, it’s capabilities, knowing your database, and how to analyze customer behavior effectively. These skills will define how you leverage what’s available to you, it will improve your current customer journey and help you overcome roadblocks to drive effective targeted communications. This, fused with softer skills of design, a relentless drive for always putting the customer first, and high EQ skills to build internal relationships to make change happen will allow you to drive transformation and effective email marketing strategies. Striking this balance of skills will result in the successful delivery of KPI’s that are most important to you, along with true value for your customers.â€
If you are an email marketer or are contemplating a career as one, start with building on these areas – they will not just help you drive real business results but also to evangelize email marketing as a strategic tool in the marketing arsenal. Most important though – these skills will help you become the kind of EMM that CMOs will celebrate, treasure and retain!
Updated as on Tuesday, Feb-27, 2018