April Mullen is one of the star members of the eec's Cross-Channel Integration Roundtable. We asked her to share some of her enthusiasm for the eec and the Roundtable by answering a few questions:

Why do you volunteer with the DMA/eec Cross Channel Roundtable?
It is getting increasingly difficult in today’s marketplace to stand out against the competition during a consumer’s considered purchase cycle and marketers are deeply challenged by this.  In the Cross-Channel Integration Roundtable, we’re really thinking of how several channels can interact to create a consistent and positive experience for consumers to overcome the challenges.  If a handful of marketers can gain valuable insight from what the Roundtable is doing, then everything we’ve put into it has been worthwhile.

How do you use the info you gain from your DMA/eec experiences, either internally with your company or for your personal career goals?
My experience with the eec has afforded me opportunities to regularly gain outside perspectives and allowed me to apply fresh ideas to my own marketing programs. 

What is your advice for someone looking to get active with a Roundtable?
Don’t hesitate to get involved in industry organizations, specifically small groups like the eec Roundtables.  The networking and knowledge you will gain from your experiences will help you grow as a marketing professional.  Plus, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping to shape the future of email marketing. 

April Mullen
Branding and Marketing Communications Analyst – Email Management
Scottrade

Thanks you for your dedication to the eec, April!

If you're an eec member and you're interested in joining one of our Roundtables, please contact Ali - ali@emailexperience.org.

My point to this post is this: all the marketing chatter around “email marketing best practices” and related subject matter are mostly garbage.  It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in “email,” how many emails you’ve sent in your career, what company you worked for, how well you code, and I definitely don’t care if you’re an “expert.”  At the end of the day, it’s about data; it’s about results and overall achievement of the channel in conjunction to the goals set for it.  If you don’t have goals on your email channel – start tomorrow.

Email marketing, like any career, is likely to include working and collaborating with people who are not in the same physical office.   If you are the remote person, you probably have concerns about keeping in touch with others on the marketing team or in your department, and if you are managing people who are remote, you have to pay special attention to keeping them in touch with the rest of the group.

In an eec Member Initiatives Advisory Committee meeting on the Career Paths project last month, we discussed the impact of this dispersed workforce, and how it affects an email marketing team.

Angela Baldonero, VP, People of Return Path, reviewed four broad trends for career development among the diaspora:

1. Technology keeps us connected, and enables a broad dispersion of the workforce.  However, it also causes some practical issues. For example, we have an employee in Berlin reporting to a manager in California. It raises the question:  Is Skype enough?
2. Social interaction is good for the business.  Bringing on people in new geographies can be challenging for on-boarding as well as collaboration.  It's harder for new people to be remote.  However, people who have already built relationships in a core office and then move away can be successful in a remote environment.
3. Dispersion affects the talent development lifecycle.  For example, the key needs of top talent are relationships and recognition and it's hard for people to build relationships if they are not there.  Lots of good work happens when you are in the same room – including discussing the creative for the email campaign while you look over my shoulder, or brainstorming subject lines by the coffee machine.   Plus, it's hard to "make your mark" if you do not have access to casual interaction, and the only time you "see" colleagues is in formal business meeting situations.
4. It is easy to confuse connections with relationships.  It's easy to have connections. It's harder to build relationships.  However, it's relationships that drive recruitment as well as career advancement. Geography supports or inhibits relationship depth and meaning.

 

As the group discussed these ideas, we realized that these are challenges for workforce, but also for proving the value of email marketing within the organization.  We can't earn the respect we need for resources and a seat at the table just from the numbers; the relationships matter, too.

Other impact areas:

• Geographic dispersion and even business unit silos within the same geography also affect the collaboration and governance of different brand/business unit email programs.
• Participation in eec meetings is a way for geographically or functionally isolated professionals to network and be educated. It's also always helpful to hear that other marketers have the same challenges!
• Remote employees don't have access to impromptu conversations which can help your career and move your projects forward.  Baldonero quoted, "A lot of work gets done when you talk about nothing."  Relationships are not built just talking about business and trust is built when you know the whole person.  If you just talk business, you may actually have less trust, because you only know one aspect of that person.
• Sometimes there is a perception that if you are working at home you are not working as hard.  Jennifer Carmichael of Tenet Healthcare noted, "Some remote employees work harder or longer hours because they're 'always on.'"
• Relationships drive loyalty and the extra effort needed to get something done.  If I need help with a project or getting something run up the flagpole, it's a lot more successful to stand in that person's office, than to IM them.

 

In all this, we discussed that building relationships is a shared responsibility.  If you work remotely, you need to make time for making these connections since they don't happen organically. This is both the responsibility of the individual and the organization.  If a business hires people remotely for email marketing or any task, there needs to be a commitment to support this relationship building.

Some ways to build your own long distance relationships or help make it easier for remote employees to engage:

1. Stay an extra day when you do visit the office. Make time for coffee and hello's.
2. Corporate social networks can help facilitate information across offices.
3. Seek out similarities – find the connections outside the office with your colleagues. This might mean taking a bit of extra time on the phone or in an email to get to know the person.
4. Managers can facilitate team building prior to the business meetings. Build time into the weekly phone calls or hold quarterly in-person meetings that have time for socializing.   "This is a great idea that I can implement tomorrow," Carmichael said.
5. Conferences like the Email Evolution Conference are a good way to meet new people.   However, we are all busy; we have to make time for establishing these connections.  Nancy Atwood of Anchor Computer said, "In some ways, we are victims of technology – we can work all the time and we are always connected. So the "doing the work" is taking priority over "building a network."  We invest our time in replying electronically rather than establishing a personal connection."
6. Corporate HR or someone needs to accept some level of administrative support and education, as well as the remote employees themselves.  Be proactive. If no one is reaching out to you, reach out to your manager or the HR team, Baldonero recommends.
7. Working long distance is a reality for most email vendor/marketer relationships. Many of these same principles apply to good account management and client service. "Think of your colleagues as clients, and that might change the way you relate to them," Atwood said.

 

Lastly, we discussed some things that the DMA/eec can be doing to help facilitate career growth and help us all build these relationships internally and around the industry:

1. A member directory of names, company, industry, geography. Restricted access and "no sales calls."
2. Local events for members to meet and network and learn from each other. Perhaps in cooperation with local DMA groups.
3. Ensure there are strong networking opportunities prior to and during the main DMA conferences.

What are you doing to build relationships with remote colleagues, clients and employees?  What else would you like the DMA/eec to do to help the industry? Please leave your comments below or email Stephanie Miller at the Member Initiatives Advisory Committee.

 

 

Every week the EEC adds new content to its Whitepaper Room. Here are the latest additions:

ExactTarget: CareerBuilder.com Case Study
Taguchi Testing Strategy Delivers Results

Epsilon: The Fortified Inbox
Insight Brief

Bronto Software: Creating A Multi-Channel Strategy
Increase Your Email Performance By Integrating Other Channels

Abad Marketing: Claves para lograr que nuestros mensajes se lean en navidad

Return Path: Stop Sending Email Like It's 1999
Welcome Message Study: Marketers Are Missing Opportunities to Pave the Road to Relevancy

Email Data Source: Email Brand Equity Index™
The Email Brand Equity Index™ is the first score that reflects a 360 degree view of email marketing efforts.

StrongMail: Put the Action Back in Transactional Email
Transform your service-based messages into revenue opportunities.

*Have a whitepaper you'd like to contribute? Email it to whitepapers@emailexperience.org.

Participation in the eec's Roundtables makes you smarter, better connected, and more in-the-know, beautiful and recognized in the industry. But who's got time for that when we can barely get through the week? Who are these people who seem to be able to find time in their own hectic schedules to move the industry forward? This week in the Spotlight is one of them—Lauren Skena, co-chair of the Research & Intelligence Roundtable.

If you are like most people, you can't bear to recycle or throw away those National Geographic magazines—there is something faintly unpatriotic and painful about parting with the iconic yellow-bordered covers. Of course, keeping the magazine in a corner of the cupboard is not the same as reading it and acting on the articles. Behind that citron-hued brand is an active Society that wants to involve you in nature, community and world preservation.

Given the ability of email marketing to connect and engage with subscribers, it's no surprise that email has become a primary method of communication for the National Geographic Society. Lauren Skena, manager of e-marketing, runs the email program from the D.C. office and despite the strong brand and reluctance of many readers to part with their stacks of printed magazines, she faces the same issues we all do when it comes to creating email relevance, governing frequency, going multichannel, optimizing deliverability and battling for mindshare in the inbox.

Lauren says she acts as a gatekeeper between subscribers and the 25+ divisions of the Society that use email as a form of communication. "It's like an in-house agency," she says, "where the multichannel direct marketing is handled for all the National Geographic departments from TV, film, online, catalog and the magazine and website editorial groups to special projects like our current Genographic project."

There is a lot for email to do. While the mission of the Society is to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural, historical and natural resources, the Society also wants to sell subscriptions, films, educational guides, maps and travel adventures.

"I often have to be the one to say, 'No, you can't have that date for an email campaign,'" she says in regards to keeping a central email marketing schedule for the society. "All of the divisions and the philosophy of the Society center on protection and respect of our members and subscribers so most of the groups understand the need for frequency caps, respecting permission grants from other divisions to essentially 'borrow' their names and limits on the types of messages that drive ISP complaints.

"It's all one brand, but email in particular creates opportunity for the divisions to work together. We do a lot of cross promotion in newsletters," Lauren says. "We don't allow use of another division's permission group, but, for example, we encourage the Travel group to include Adventure Magazine messages, etc. Email and the database are a strategic asset for upselling and creating memorable customer experiences overall."

Leading one of the DMA's Email Experience Council's roundtables was a natural fit for Lauren, as the DMA brought her to the National Geographic Society in the first place! Prior to her current job, Lauren worked for the DMA, marketing events to members. At a DMA conference, she met the Society team and agreed to join just as email marketing began to be a focus area in the direct marketing group.

"I've always been a fan of National Geographic and, personally speaking, The DMA was supportive of my joining such a good member and great organization," she says of the transition. "It's natural for me to want to come back and participate, as I know firsthand the good work the DMA does in the community."

"The Society supports my involvement 100%—I always hear support and ideas," she says. "My director and vice president always encourage involvement within the community, including active participation in applicable groups, speaking opportunities and networking events."

Lauren chose the Research & Intelligence Roundtable because she knows how much research can be helpful to members, and frankly, saw some holes in the current benchmarking and available research that she hoped to fill. She wants to know what consumers are thinking and feeling about email—and to turn that information into actionable insight that email marketers can use today.

"I'd also like to publish benchmarks using the membership as an industry panel. I see a quarterly report that addresses problems that email marketers are trying to solve and identifies what is missing in the available data stream," she says. "Ultimately, I'd like this Roundtable to help make the DMA research and Annual Report more relevant to the email marketing community."

The R&I Roundtable has some major goals that are achievable and aspirational, but Lauren and her co-chair, Todd Purcell of American Express, want to create opportunities for members to do both small as well as larger involvements. Lauren plans to split the Roundtable into small working committees of two or three people, so that the work is manageable.

"There is so much that we could do, and it can get overwhelming," she says. "It was hard to put the mission together! But separating out the projects will help us achieve more and allow each member to have a rewarding experience."

"There is room and opportunity for all types of members," she says. "For example, my co-chair, Todd, brings a wealth of business experience as a user of research, and our companies are so vastly different it allows our two perspectives to balance and expand on each other."

Lauren also takes full advantage of the eec affiliation, speaking on a panel at the DMA's Email Summit this past May and serving on the Advisory Committee for the February event. The newly merged eec is in a powerful position, she says. "It's good to have everyone together, and to have one larger group that is working on one set of initiatives, rather than two groups working on similar initiatives. Frankly, the DMA has to be more involved in the online space and this is a great way to push that forward."

Lauren's advice to all of us is to get involved. "Get involved and see what is available," she says. "The networking possibilities alone make it worth being active in a Roundtable. You'll meet people who may be able to help you along the way. Plus, you get referrals, vendor reviews, all the whitepapers and research."

"Show this to your boss and offer to be involved," she says. "You just can't get this sort of career and program value with a passive membership."