Email ROI Unlocked: Unraveling Insights from Litmus's Report

Intro VO  00:06

Welcome to revenue rehab, your one stop destination for collective solutions to the biggest challenges faced by marketing leaders today. Now head on over to the couch, make yourself comfortable and get ready to change the way you approach revenue. Leading your recovery is modern marketer, author, speaker and Chief Operating Officer at Tegrita Brandi Starr

Brandi Starr  00:35

Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of revenue rehab. I am your host Brandi Starr and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Gina mystery. Jana is the Director of Brand and content marketing at litmus, she leads a team that strives to create captivating and educational content for email marketers of all stripes. An email geek to her core, Jane has worked in and around email for over 15 years, and is now taking her email expertise into the world of brands and content marketing. Welcome to revenue rehab, Jaina, your session begins now.

Jaina Mistry  01:17

Hello, thank you so much for having me.

Brandi Starr  01:21

I am really excited to talk to you it is not often that I get a fellow email Geek on the couch. So it is great to kind of fan girl out for a moment and be able to talk about something that both of us love. But before we jump into that, I like to break the ice with a little woosah moments that I call buzzword. banishment. So tell me what overused word would you like to get rid of forever?

Jaina Mistry  01:51

It is the word hacks. Everywhere I'm reading something is a growth hack. Something is an email marketing hack. Something is like a hack to improve performance or engagement. It's not a hack. It's either a true tactic that will help you improve engagement to help you get that ROI. Or it's something that you want to call a hack because you're actually really tricking someone to take action. So it's truly not like a good something good you actually want to do but I do want to just banish the word hacks because they don't really exist. Hacks is not a positive word for us to be using in marketing.

Brandi Starr  02:29

I am with you on that. And it's funny you bring that up this morning when my son was in the shower. He likes to have all his morning conversations while he's bathing. And he's like, Mom, I learned a great Tiktok life hack that I think you can use. And I'm like, Oh my God, why do I need life hacks? I'm like, you think that I'm doing life poorly that I need to figure out how to hack it. Like I almost was having a moment about you know, and I was like, Okay, tell me your tick tock life hack. And to your point, it was just a tactic of it was about managing your time. And I was like, okay, you know, I was like So you mean tip like we like a tip and not a hack. So I'm with you. We can put hack in the box. And we won't talk about any sort of hacks today. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me what brings you to revenue rehab today.

Jaina Mistry  03:23

Yeah, so as you said, I am a an email geek to my core, I live and breathe email marketing, I adore it. And something that we learn in a state of email report level system email report last year as it was based off of a survey of 1000 Plus, marketers across the world and 41% of marketers told us that email was their most effective marketing channel, putting it above social media putting above paid search. But marketers sometimes don't know where to start with email. Because there are so many potential ideas you'd be doing lifecycle program cart abandonment, emails, newsletters, marketing, promotional emails, there's so many different ways of using email. But in the end, email marketing is about human to human interaction. 65% of marketers also told us that they classify direct contact with subscribers as the most beneficial part of email marketing. And like that, to me is the perfect place to start with email marketing, thinking about it as a as a way to build relationships with your customers and also kind of create a really good sense of, I want to say emotional, tired and emotional feeling between your customers and subscribers with your brand and creating that kind of positive brand vibe and feeling in the inbox is seriously one sees an email from your brand and like, Oh, I didn't even need to like, I know that's gonna be a great email before I even open it. So I think there's that's kind of where I'm going like, email marketing is so effective, but it's just where do you start with it?

Brandi Starr  04:57

Awesome.Yeah, and I have so many places. Is that I want to dig in from that summary. But before I do that, I believe in setting intentions, it gives us focus, it gives us purpose and most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should take away from our discussion today. So what is your best hope for our talk? So for the heads of marketing, listening, what do you really hope they walk away with from this discussion? So,

Jaina Mistry  05:23

email marketing, we've we've looked at the data and has a has an ROI, about 36, to one. So you can get $36 for every $1 that you spend on email. That's a massive area of potential, but you need to be able to create effective emails in order to get that 36 to one and potentially even more. So my intention here is to help CMOS folks out there who have email as part of their marketing tactics to aim for that 36. To one to find somewhere to be we will help you get there, and then hopefully help you get beyond that. 36 to one, two.

Brandi Starr  06:05

Awesome. Yeah. And because email is a topic that I know, you know, all of our listeners are familiar with, in general, I want to jump into some specifics. And so talk about some of the naysayers in you know, we are an email marketing consultancy. And so this is something that we talked about all the time. And whether it be in just everyday conversations with other heads of marketing or with clients, I hear some of the consistent, I wouldn't even say pushback, but sort of, you know, blah opinions in that people are like, you know, the first rebuttal I get is, oh, everyone gets so many emails, that, you know, email is, you know, email is not dead, but it's not necessarily effective. And the only reason that these ROI stats exist is because it, you know, is so inexpensive to send email. And so, you know, what is your response to that? How do you articulate to someone, you know, why there's still a value when there's so many tactics out there? You know, how do we get people to really understand the true benefit here?

Jaina Mistry  07:24

I will start by saying, like, I totally see that point of email is cheap to run. I mean, that's not something that I'm going to hide in this conversation, email, I either I'm going to put an email into the single word when we're saying here, because I care about it so much. But yes, I think, yes, email is, compared to other channels, it is cheap to cheaper to run. But what I will say is that, for brands to get out there, it's getting so much more competitive, when you're looking at organic, social, organic social has changed so much in the last 1020 years, algorithms are constantly changing, to show, oh, I'm gonna prioritize this content. It's not about when you post on organic social, it's not no longer about who's following you. It's really, really competitive out there. And the same thing can be said with organic search in any sort of search. Right now. You're fighting with Google's changing algorithms that I like, we've we've all been there, it's hard for us to kind of always place on the on the first page with our keyword right now. Whereas with email, you are asking someone for their email address. And by putting that email address into a subscription box, they're already raising their hand thing. They're interested in your brand. They're already saying, Oh, hey, I actually want to hear about this. And yes, you might, they might be getting inundated with emails in their inbox. But then you've got a captured audience, it's your job to then build your brand and build that relationship with that person in the inbox, right from the beginning, you can use email as just one part of that journey. Yes, you'll still be communicating with them on social, you potentially be using video, you'll be using so many different channels. But email, like I said, In the beginning, it's like that one to one connection that you can get the someone in the inbox. And it's worth the it's worth the effort to create that brand affinity in the inbox, I believe.

Brandi Starr  09:18

No, I agree wholeheartedly. And one of the things that I always talk about is, I think the thing that people don't think about is that email is, in my opinion, the connector of all of those other channels. So you've got organic, social, you've got you know, paid media, all these things that you're doing with the intent of capturing someone's attention. And those are things that do have high dollars associated with them. And so many times I have seen customers who spend you know huge amounts of money on their media plan and you know, in paid search and all these things. And then there is no communication plan afterwards. It's like the what's next? They downloaded that report and gave you their email address. And then what? Because those people are, you know, not ready to go to Sales. It's not buying action. And it's the and then what? That it always baffles me, that is such an afterthought of like, oh, yeah, we're gonna send them a welcome email. Okay, well, that's great. Like, yes, they're, you know, welcomes are good. I'm all for welcomes, but then what, like, how is it connecting that spend to the potential the spend on you know, attract efforts to the potential actual revenue. And so I'd love your take on both why you think people, you know, leaders especially ignore this in their strategy, as well as what is your advice in how people leverage email as that connector?

Jaina Mistry  11:07

I think it's, it's easy to ignore, because I feel like email marketing is less sexy of the marketing channels out there, it's perhaps a little bit old in the tooth. I mean, people have been doing email marketing for decades, I've been in it for 15 plus years, but that's barely scratching the surface of how long email marketing has been around. So it's kind of like, oh, we just kind of send an email out to the ether. But we could be doing something really flashy with paid media, or we could be doing some really cool videos. And those will be like the, those are the things that often capture the attention. Because they're so flashy. And because they're so cool and new and innovative. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's connecting with the with your subscribers, your customers. So it's, it's about kind of going into and kind of like taking comfort in the old school tactics of email marketing. And going back to the basics of email of marketing in general and wanting to connect to people based on like set, like you said, you downloaded a report, you send a weakened welcome email, and then what, then you start talking about your brand, maybe you build on the content of the report or the content of what's just been downloaded, because they've already been interested in it, how can you use that as a hook to get them interested in more interest in your brand, and then eventually more interested in your product. So it's, yes, email marketing is a little bit less sexy, especially when you compare it to some of the newer things that are going on out there. But it's reliable, it's one of those things that you can trust will work for you. People love, I want to say people love email, I look at my inbox, I'm seeing like, I don't see how many unread emails there are in that. But that's the thing I think people are so used to interacting engaging with email, too, it's, it's kind of like that, like a thing. It's a comfort blanket for people to be able to, oh, they've got an email, they might not reply to it right away, or they might not see it right away, but they will eventually get to it. So I think it's still valid for so many different reasons. And it's it, it is tough to get to get by, and I think I'm probably a little bit lucky working at an email company and the email side of things. But what we've learned, and what I've learned talking to other people is it's, it's just getting back to the basics of what marketing is truly about to be able to connect to people.

Brandi Starr  13:30

Yeah, because it is about that building that relationship, you know, that communication journey of how do we interact? You know, how do I get you the information that, you know, you really need at the right time, all of those things that I agree are like, it's not a lot that's new there. And, you know, I think I've been been in marketing now 23 years. And when I started, we were sending marketing communications via fax machines. So I was doing design work for, you know, how to get something to render well, when it's coming out of a fax, you know, sort of my claim to fame. But when I first got introduced to email, it was very much a game changer. And it was like, how do we tap into this because now we can have these one to one conversations, in the same way that people are having personal conversations. It's like, you know, I've got a marketing email sitting right on top of an email from my grandmother. And so it's like, this is where I'm living for being able to, you know, communicate with people and now we have a lot more text for personal communications. But if you you know, think back like that was one of those primary mechanisms. And yeah, I do agree that you know, I always say email is not sexy, but it's necessary. It's not sexy, but it's effective like There's so many words that you can fill in there. So I want to turn to the report a little bit and talk about that. So chapter one is by far my favorite. And kudos to whoever came up with the title, which is it. For those that haven't read it. There's no marketing, like email marketing, when I first heard that I was like, ain't no marketing, like email, marketing notes up, but I am one of those people who randomly sing song lyrics. But it is, is really true. And so looking at the report, one of the first things that you talk about is what the stat that you gave earlier, which was the 41% of marketers say that email is their most effective marketing channel. And then that it also has, you know, the 36, to one, ROI. And I'd like to unpack ROI and effectiveness for a second. Because some people interpret that differently. And so I'd like your perspective on what are people defining as email being effective? And how are we counting ROI? on email?

Jaina Mistry  16:16

Yeah, that's a great question. Email is not a single Tutton. It's a part of a journey of multiple touchpoints. And we see this in our own. In our own marketing, too. It's it use, it's often seen as kind of you, you send an email, you get instant ROI off of it. That's not how it works. And that's not how the customer journey works. They may get an email, they'll interact with a brand on YouTube, they will perhaps even go to your store, they will interact. And there are so many different touch points along the way, that the value of email, the ROI of email is kind of inserting it into the right and making sure that the brand is present via email at the right points and in the in the customer's journey or in the subscribers journey. But how ROI is calculated? That's a That's a great question. We're actually running a new set of email survey this year to kind of help us create some more reports. And I think so far, the majority, I think over 70% of folks have told us that they do. They are not sure what their email ROI is. And that's fascinating to me. Because email, they're like I said, a bit like email is just one part of the journey is that trying to calculate the exact value, especially when you're not necessarily an E commerce, or you're not in retail, where you send an email out, you know, the value of what it costs to send that email and what you're getting off of it. If you're working in b2b SaaS, or if you're working in technology sorts of companies, you need to calculate, yes, how much is it costing for you to spend on having an email marketing program. But you also need to consider the whole journey of Well, someone who's going in as part of the as part of their lifecycle, too. So I think calculating email ROI is important to understand to know like how effective your email program is, but I wouldn't say it's the be all and end all of of email marketing, it's a kind of a generalized number of knowing. Okay, so this is where we are at the moment, this is what we're doing right now. How can we do this better? And then I would almost say that, see what email ROI is, and see how that how when your ROI changes, affects your overall marketing pipeline, your overall like bottom line of what what marketing is generating. But it's, it's a tricky subject ROI. Because, like I said, like, the majority of people just don't know. But I think where we, where leaders have to really consider email is like, how email impacts the bigger picture. Imagine if you took email out of that. What would your losses be? If you didn't send that email? If you didn't send that newsletter? If you didn't have that lifecycle program? Where would you lose, you would lose out there? And I think that could be I mean, if you want to experiment with that, I would Yes, go ahead. But I'm like, No, we we will we will always be sending some sort of email or another. 

Brandi Starr  19:15

I like a lot of dating analogies, because one they're funny, and two, most people can relate. And the analogy that I use for email is, it is a way to keep the conversation going. So if you think about, you know, you meet someone, and, you know, I'll compare email in b2b to, you know, texting in dating. It's like, there are periods where you'll talk on the phone with that person, you'll see them in person. And those are what I consider your like, high effort, you know, so that's what I would count as sales like you, your human capital is super expensive. And so those interactions are far fewer because you know, People have lives and jobs and all those sorts of things. And so texting with that person is that sort of low effort, low cost as well way to continue that conversation with the person. Because if I think about, you know, there was a guy that I was dating, and it was going well, but we both are busy people. So we probably talked on the phone, every three ish days, probably only saw each other once a week. And that was all that was possible. And if I think about if those were the only interactions that we had, in between, I forgot about him, like, you know, it's like you, there's not that connection. But those text messages here and there throughout the day asking and answering questions checking in, it helps to strengthen that relationship and that connection, until that next major touchpoint. And that same kind of relationship is what is happening when you're leveraging email, like there's only so many of those key milestones where they're gonna engage with a human or there is that became an opportunity, you know, moved officially in the pipeline, and you gotta have some way to stay in front of them, continue the conversation, help them know, like, and trust you in between. So I really equate that analogy to exactly what you just said is like, it's hard to calculate the ROI. But the loss would be obvious if you remove that as a form of communication. 

Jaina Mistry  21:41

Yes, I love I love that analogy. I think it's, I think I there's so many different analogy that had to do with dating and email marketing, because it is about relationship building, that makes a ton of sense. But you're right, it's, it's the kind of the minute you stop, even if you stop emailing and someone your your brand stops appearing in someone's inbox, they may not necessarily be always opening every single one of your emails and interacting with every single one of them. But just that presence of the inbox of seeing your brand name and the sender, sender column, tells, it's such a big indicator that, hey, oh, I do remember that brand. Cuz I've done that a few times. Like I need, I need a new pair of pants. And I was like I need where do I get my and I signed up for I think it was Everlane emails years ago. And I was like, oh, I should really check out Evelyn. And then I've gotten him like, this is my first purchase. But I've been a subscriber of their newsletters for years now. So it's that kind of you, it's a little bit psychological, that you're you're planting a seed of your thought of your brand in someone's mind and just kind of helping them kind of stick with it. And it's, it is challenging, though, when you think oh, but they're not opening every single email, I don't think you can expect someone to open every single email that your brand is, and that's totally okay, too. But it's just making sure that you are maintaining that relationship retaining that sight that like, that's like a vision of Oh, yeah, I'm gonna remember that brand when I need that brand. And also, I think I wish I had something like quotes or actual numbers here. But I think these days, especially on the technology and b2b side of things, customers are doing the legwork a whole lot more themselves, versus going to a sales team versus saying hey, I want a demo, they want to do that legwork themselves, they want to subscribe to emails, they want to check out help documentation, they want to check out the website. And then when they're ready, they'll get in touch, take the old way of kind of thinking, Oh, I'm gonna, like you said in the beginning, I'm going to download this report. And so from sales is going to reach out to me that old way is gone. Now people are people's times are stretched, and they want to do the work themselves in their own time. So I think that, like that's another area where keeping someone warmed up with email is ideal.

Brandi Starr  23:56

Yeah, and I remember seeing a statin and you know, I'm doing the best to remember the numbers, but it was like, at one point, buyers were roughly 30% through the buying cycle before they engaged with a human. And then it was 50%. And the most recent stats I've seen have been in the upper 80%. And it is, you know, it is a very different mentality. And it actually, in my opinion, makes the role of email that much more important. Because to your example, about the pants, I just had a b2b experience in that. And I this tool, you know, martec tool, I had downloaded something that they had put out forever ago, probably a year and a half ago, and was like this would be really cool. But we didn't have a use case for it. At that point. We didn't have budget for it like it just was. This is really interesting, of course, because I downloaded the report. I'm on their emails periodically I'd see things i had ignore most of them. And I happen to get an email, right as I was starting the strategy for a project that totally aligned to what they offered. And it was like, Oh, I can do this so much better. If I had this technology. And I reached out, we got on the phone, the guy did his usual intro Spiel before the demo. I was like, okay, he gave me a trial for seven days, or 14 days, whatever it was, I went in and played, we had another conversation I came in, and I was like, Okay, I need to see these three specific things. He showed me and I was like, send me the invoice. probably easiest sales cycle ever. And it you know, and I don't, you know, they probably don't attribute it to email. But literally, that email popping up in that moment, where I went from not having a need for what they had offered for a year and a half to having an unrealized need in that moment. Got them a sale and an easy one at that. You know, I think the longest amount of that was that first initial call, because you go through all blah, blah, blah blahs of who are you What do you do? You know, all that? Yeah. Um, so kind of the last thing that I really want to hear your thoughts on, is, in my opinion, most people are doing email marketing wrong. They are doing it in the most generic fashion, it's an afterthought. And you know, our tagline is unlocking the potential of email. And I would love to hear from you. What good really looks like so people who are nailing it at email marketing, you know, whether they can prove the ROI or not, they know the ROI is there. What does that look like? What are they doing? You know, if I'm listening, and I'm like, I know my email marketing is, what am I striving towards? So I'd love to hear your take on that.

Jaina Mistry  27:04

I've got so many ideas bubbling around in my head right now is kind of trying to pick one. I think people who are doing email marketing Well, right now are the ones who are really leveraging newsletters. I honestly think newsletters are the new nurture, going back to kind of our original kind of a idea of someone downloads report, they get a welcome email, you throw them in the lead nurture. When they downloaded that report, they never really raised their hand to receive emails from them, they raise their hand to receive a report, the minute they start getting nurtured with all these these kind of emails that they didn't really expect, like, oh, hang on a sec, what's this, I'm going to unsubscribe, I don't want this moment. But with newsletters, someone's raised their hand like, Oh, this is interesting content, this is going to help me in my day to day life, this is going to help me in my job, this is going to be really interesting. So you kind of learn them in with content, you and they've raised their hand that they're interested in your brand. And those newsletters as long as you've seen them on a regular cadence. So it's whether it's weekly, whether it's monthly, whatever you can commit to, you are constantly showing up in that person's inbox with valuable content that they are going to consume. Or maybe they're not one month, maybe they're not going to be one week, but you're still going to show up in their inbox. So I think people who are doing email, well are doing things like newsletters, regular cadence newsletters, and also doubling down on their lifecycle programs. I think we know right now that retaining customers is cheaper and more effective than trying to get new customers. So lifecycle programs and really using email to trigger emails based on what a customer has done, or maybe what's something that they haven't done. Or maybe it's another way of kind of, you can use your account manager, your CSM, and try and encourage them to really know how to do email well, how to communicate with their customers and their clients to be able to leverage it to keep that constant engagement so that when a renewal comes up, rather than a renewal email coming up out of the blue, you've had that constant communication with your lifecycle protocol with the customers. So when that renewal comes up, you're like, oh, yeah, we do want to renew, we do want to stay with you. And we're happy to perhaps pay that extra extra for the renewal for the next year or whatever it might be. But I think between the two, I think musel is from a top of funnel perspective, and your lifecycle programs, they are the two biggest areas I think where email can be most effective for marketers right now.

Brandi Starr  29:34

Very interesting. I always you know, not I can say not what I expected in a response, but I love that you've, you know, it's funny talking about newsletters, because I think newsletters have gone through kind of a bell curve, like they were really popular at one point. And then it seemed like everybody had a newsletter and there were an abundance of newsletters and And most of them were so salesy, that they really fell off in value. And what I'm hearing now is that doing them right or doing them different, and doing them consistently becomes that and, you know, thinking about it easier touchpoint than doing full on nurtures and figuring out, you know, what's the right communication, and then looking for those opportunities where someone is exhibiting buying behavior to then jump in and nurture them. And then also, I definitely always believe in the benefits of customer marketing, and having those lifecycle programs. So I love that as advice there. And so talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes, if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at revenue rehab, we like to flip that on his head and ask you to give us some homework. And so for those heads of marketing, that are listening, and recognizing that they're kind of mad at, you know, email, what is your recommendation for where they start? What's that one thing that they can do to start moving their teams and their leverage of email in the right direction?

Jaina Mistry  31:18

I think it would be to ask their teams, how they think they should be doing email, because I think one of the like, one of my favorite things to do with my own team, is for me not to necessarily come up with the solutions to the problem, but for my team to rally around the problem. And for them to come up with the solutions and for them to kind of investigate where the power of email could potentially live. Because I think that's when you have those kind of lightbulb moments with your team. And they're like, oh, wait, we could be sending an email when someone abandons their cart, why are we not doing that? We could be capturing or even just looking, asking the team, where are we seeing? Where are we seeing our metrics for for? Are we seeing our KPIs now, like, is email a way for us to help us fix that solution? But I would say like for the leaders on this call for, like listening to this podcast, I would say, go to your team and ask them, Where should we where should we be doing email? And I think you will be surprised at the answers that you get, because I think when you pose a question, and when you open yourself to open yourself to getting answers and brainstorming like that, you can get some really great replays.

Brandi Starr  32:31

Yeah, I love that as an idea. Because quite often, especially subject matter experts who, you know, mainly run other channels, sometimes they probably do have those ideas of like, oh, we should do this after that, but because that's not, you know, in their swim lane, they don't even bring it up. So being able to like tap into everyone's collective brain to say, how do we do better, you know, with this particular channel, and everyone thinking about it from their own perspectives, the work that they do, I do agree that that's a great way to get some insight. And then, you know, it almost becomes a checklist like, Okay, what's going to be most impactful? That's where we start. And

Jaina Mistry  33:20

also, I would say, if I could add one more thing, start with the lowest hanging fruit you don't want to go into so ambitious, like, yes, collect all of these ideas. And it's great to brainstorm. But if you start with an ambition, an idea that's too ambitious, and you don't necessarily win at that, and it feels like you're failing, then it might feel like you failed at email marketing. Think about what is the quickest, easiest win we can have right now with email marketing, and run with it.

Brandi Starr  33:46

I love that. Yeah. And that is, I always love starting with quick wins. Because people feel good when they're able to, you know, get a quick win and see some results. And that gets you committed and focus for those bigger efforts that may take some trial and error to get it right. So awesome. Well, Jay and I have enjoyed our discussion. But that's our time for today. But before we go, how can our audience connect with you?

Jaina Mistry  34:18

You can find me on LinkedIn find me on the Jaina Mistry. I'm currently at litmus, you be able to find me pretty easily. But feel free to connect with me. I'm more than happy to connect to any and all listeners with revenue we have. 

Brandi Starr  34:30

Awesome, well, we will make sure to link to your LinkedIn and we will also link to the litmus 2023 state of email report. So that if they have not already downloaded, it will Shame on them. But we will make sure that we get that link in there so that they can see all of the rest of the statistics and insights. And I love that there's also some links to other reports in there that dig deeper into specific areas. So you know, kudos to your team is it's one of the Better reports that I have seen this year in being able to, you know, really concisely show the info but then also allow you to dig in a bit deeper. So wherever you're listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes will have those links so that you can get the report and to connect to Jaina. Well, thank you so so much for for joining me. I have truly enjoyed this discussion. I love when I can talk to someone who is just as passionate about email as I am. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome. And thanks, everyone for joining us. I hope you have enjoyed my discussion with Gina. We will see you next time.

Outro VO  35:44

You've been listening to revenue rehab with your host Brandi Starr. Your session is now over but the learning has just begun. join our mailing list and catch up on all our shows at revenue rehab dot live. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at revenue rehab. This concludes this week's session. We'll see you next week.