For the next two days, I’ll be attending Digital Summit Los Angeles.

It will be an event chock full of every aspect of marketing. I’m going to do my best to bring as much of it as possible to y’all in real-time (as long as WIFI and my laptop battery allow).

I’ll obviously focus on email marketing as much as possible, but there should be a good amount of general marketing knowledge you can apply to your email strategy and every other channel as well.

Email 2020: Email Marketing for This Year & Beyond – Michael Barber, Godfrey

• 8:51 AM: Adobe Study: Average # of hours spent checking personal email: 2.5 hours
  • The same Adobe study showed 50% of consumers preferred email to other marketing channels
• 9:02 AM: 71.8% will spend more time next year on email, 86.7% say they’ll spend more money
• 9:07 AM: eConsultancy conducted a study showing businesses still may not be shifting enough budget to email marketing. The percentage of sales from email is greater than the percentage of a marketing budget dedicated to email.
• 9:12 AM: According to Experian, B2B conversions are more likely to convert on a desktop (but that doesn’t mean they’re more likely to open on a desktop).
  • On mobile, Women are more likely to convert on a tablet. Men are more likely to convert on their phone.
• 10:02 AM: We’re back from break and starting to look at the new inbox developments happening already.
  • Seeing some examples of the interactivity in the inbox that AMP allows for is exciting!
  • Text-based emails are seeing new life with wearables like the Apple Watch that only render the text of an email.
• 10:16 AM: We’re gonna start talking about building a list. I’ll share some of the more notable ideas here:
  • Create a page where site visitors can opt-in to any or all of your email content
  • Make your preference center look good, it’ll save them from opting out entirely
  • Create a sharable signup page that can be posted to other channels
  • Try using a chat-bot instead of a signup form on a page
• 10:30 AM: The best email marketers use subdomains for SPF and DKIM records. Example hello.yourwebsite.com, etc.
• 10:36 AM: Some highlights from the section focusing on the design of emails:
  • #1 Reason someone opens your email is the From Name. Using a person’s name rather than the company helps to build the relationship. The best use of combo tested “Name from Company” in one study.
  • Single column, skinny-based layouts are a must in today’s mobile age.
  • An inverted pyramid layout helps to show the subscriber what you want them to see
  • A Zig Zag layout helps get more complete eye coverage from the subscriber
  • Headlines: 30px, Body copy: 16px, Button minimums: 44×44 points (smallest one a person can click on)
  • Get specific with button copy. Google “Button Generator copy” if you have to. The top results are all good tools. Stop saying “Click Here” or “Learn More.”
• 10:52 AM: Talking ’bout Subject Lines:
  • Size doesn’t matter: the variance in opens is less than 0.1%
  • Sentiment; the words you use does matter. Use different word choices for different types of individuals/subscriber personas.
  • The more simple, the better.
  • Emojis make good subject lines good … and bad subject lines worse.
  • Superlatives matter! “Brand New” +37%, “Latest” +24%, “Exciting” +19%
  • Phrasee is a great subject line testing resource.
• 11:22 AM: The difference in average ROI for sending to your whole list versus segmented lists is $28 to $42.
• 12:12 PM: Welcome emails that are sent immediately after signup have a 10x higher transaction rate and revenue per email.
• 12:15 PM: My favorite tip so far: BE HUMAN
  • Write your emails like a human
  • Don’t start with “WHAT WHAT WHAT” ie the things you want to tell them, but instead “WHY” they need to know about it.
  • Ask subscribers what they want to receive. Give them options. Also, let them tell you when they want to receive it.
• 12:27 PM: Test audience segments that are similar and different. Test segments that are active. Ensure that your testing groups are statistically significant: 10,000 subscribers or more.

Opening Keynote: Future Consumers – Randy Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg Media

• 1:25 PM: Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, Randy, opened her speech by mentioning she graduated from Harvard … which her brother did not (she also mentioned that). There’s clearly no complex there.
• 1:30 PM: Randy’s marketing budget for her first year at Facebook was one box of t-shirts. I hope that worked out for them.
• 1:34 PM: Randy thought of Facebook Live at a Hackathon and thought it was an absolute failure. Only her mom and dad watched. Then, Katy Perry’s team called, wanting to launch her world tour on Facebook Live. They developed Facebook Live, just so Katy Perry could do it. Four months later, Barack Obama was regularly using Facebook Live to connect with US citizens.
• 1:40 PM: Randy’s best advice for women in tech: have a man’s name. Advice she rightfully called funny and horrible.
• 1:41 PM: Hearing the person who created the concept for Facebook Live talk about the highs of the platform and the lows (New Zealand mass shooting) was a sobering reminder that we don’t always know how the technology we create will be used.
• 1:48 PM: The Future Consumer:
  • Everything is media
  • Values unique experience
  • Wants a different kind of career
  • Craves healthy tech balance
• 1:52 PM: We should put a focus on long-form content that can engage an audience on a deeper level.
• 1:55 PM: Live content creates scarcity. Even with so many options to choose from, people still tune into live events to be a part of a cultural moment.
• 2:00 PM: Offline experiences also create scarcity. Examples like the Ice Cream Museum show that people will go to take pictures for social media. It also takes advantage of real estate spaces that were previously thought to be hard to fill.

Contagious Content: Turn Your Customers From Privately Placid to Publicly Passionate

• 2:45 PM: S.T.E.P.P.S framework. How to make something catch on:
  • Social Currency: “People care about how they look to others. They want to seem smart, cool and in-the-know. So be sure to find the inner-remarkability and make people feel like insiders.” – Jonah Berger (JB)
  • Triggers: “Top-of-mind means tip-of-tongue. So consider the context and grow your habitat so that people are frequently triggered to think about your product or idea.” – JB
    • Starbucks does this with its seasonal offerings: Pumpkin Spice Lattes
  • Emotion: “When we care, we share. Emotional content often goes viral, so focus on feelings rather than function.” – JB
    • Music is one of the best triggers of emotion that we can use as marketers
    • Anyone can be a hero, the power lies within
  • Public: “Built to show, built to grow. The more public something is, the more likely people will imitate it. Design products and initiatives that advertise themselves (e.g. red bottom shoes) and create some visible behavioral residue.” – JB
  • Practical Value
    • Something that connects with both the head and the heart
  • Stories: “Information travels under what seems like idle chatter. Stories are vessels – so build a Trojan horse.” – JB
• 3:01 PM: Take these concepts and infuse them into every single one of your marketing channels. Email, social, etc.

Content & Chaos: Diary of a News Marketer – Paul Plumeri, Wall Street Journal

• 3:21 PM: Marketing should be a service. Not a solicitation.
  • How do I serve the customer at this moment?
• 3:32: PM: Find your Game of Thrones: what brings people to you
  • Step 1: Recognize the disruption
  • Step 2 Build according to tiers
  • Step 3: Optimize
• 3:44 PM: Adapting audience experience: bites, snacks and meals

More Than Acquisition: Why Marketers Need to Own the Entire Customer Journey – Sean Johnson, Digital Intent

• 4:03 PM: A retention chart is the money chart. It measures the success and failure of products.
• 4:08 PM: User Generated Content  (UGC) Loops: User Content > Google Indexes > New Visitors > New Signup
• 4:10 PM: Strategies to Leverage for UGC:
  • Advocate for any and all user-generated content opportunities
  • Turn lurkers into creators: 90% of users that join a site will usually be lurkers. Levers you can pull to make them user-generated content creators. Ask a question!
  • Consider the cycle of the content: make it easy to share it early/often during that time.our
• 4:18 PM: Referral Loops let your customers do the marketing for you.
  • Test and build the opportunities for referrals into the flow your customers will follow.
  • Incentivize referrals: doesn’t have to be money. Dropbox gave away storage space, rather than money.
• 4:21 PM: Customer activation, especially right off the bat, is the best way to retain customers.
  • Small improvements at each step have a compounding impact
• 4:24 PM: Tip: go to Product Hunt every Friday and review the most popular companies from that week. See what they’re doing. What their onboarding is like. What their referrals are like.
• 4:25 PM: Two steps to all of this:
  • Create a habit
  • Get your timing right
• 4:30 PM: Create lock-in. What can you do to create more stickiness?
  • Example: Slack lets developers build into or on top of their platform to keep their users there.

Bloody Hell! And Other Marketing Truths My British Mum Taught Me – Michael Barber, Godfrey

• 4:55 PM: We’re in an era where easy wins. The least path of resistance is the best one. Too often, it’s a competitor.
• 4:56 PM: Be Bloody Brilliant
  • Create content where your audience is spending time. Let them get there as quickly as possible.
  • Use Native Always
  • Leverage the context
    • The Magic Castle Hotel didn’t have the best amenities, but there was something they could do. They could create an experience for kids. They created a popsicle hotline at the pool. All you have to do is pick up a phone and someone in a suit delivers a popsicle.
• 5:00 PM: Always Be Available
  • Reduce friction to give them what they want immediately. Don’t have a lengthy signup process. Conversion process should be frictionless.
  • Know your audience: understand their pain points
  • and be there for them
  • Connect people to the things they care about
• 5:03 PM: Consistency Above All
  • No surprises, ever. All platforms and channels should create a consistent experience for your customers.
• 5:06 PM: It’s the little things.
  • Little things create stories. The Hotel Monaco in Portland puts a teddy bear on every bed.
  • The tiniest improvements can have the biggest impacts on experience.
• 5:09 PM: Be kind. If you can’t be good, at least be kind.
  • Empathy matters. Build empathetic systems.
  • Do unto others. Live by the golden rule. Chewy (dog food company) has a “make it right” budget for customers who tell them that their pet has died. They suggest places to donate the food to, since they can’t accept it back. They refund them. They’ve even sent flowers with a note.
  • Bloom & Empathy created a Mother’s Day email opt-out ahead of the holiday for subscribers who may have lost their moms. It got them far more shares on social media than customers they have.