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How did you get into email? 

I was working at a company doing web design and I mentioned that I could code. Turns out the marketing department had recently lost an email specialist. My manager stopped by my cube and said “You can code right? I’m going to send you something, can you check it for me please.” I didn’t understand why there were SO. MANY. TABLES. And I took a bunch of them out to clean up the code. Then I sent it to myself via PutsMail and was like “Oooooh. That’s what the tables were for.” I’ve been in email marketing ever since building fun and interactive emails that engage and creating personalized customer journeys that convert.

How do you see AI impacting lifecycle marketing in the next 5 years?

I’m cautiously optimistic about AI’s impact on lifecycle marketing. I can see places where it will help speed up external and internal communications. I don’t see it taking over lifecycle marketing, but as a tool to help marketers brainstorm for communication programs, create automations and personalization flows, and even to help answer internal questions and document results, the potential is there. 

I’m excited about the idea of creating an internal chat bot for internal use. I get a lot of questions that I feel like I’ve been asked a million times. Creating a chat bot to be a go to resource for people in the company with questions about the lifecycle programs. I find even when I document things and organize them, others have trouble finding it since everyone’s brains work differently. Using AI to create a chat bot would help that documentation be more accessible. 

I also love creating automations that make other’s lives easier. I love Google Calendar and for me that’s where any lifecycle marketing calendar should live. But not everyone works from Google Calendar and I’m not going to force everyone to use my workflow. I used AI to help me build out automations in Zapier to create and update events across Google Calendar, Trello Calendar, and a JIRA Calendar. So the lifecycle marketing calendar looked the same everywhere and people could use whatever calendar fit in with their workflow. 

I see AI picking up the small day to day tasks that slow down the work on the larger programs. It’s not meant to replace marketers, but as a tool to help marketers do their work better and faster. 

What piece of work are you most proud of?

Oh man, so many things come to mind. From a fun pushing the envelope perspective the October 2022 Litmus newsletter was probably my favorite thing to work on. One of the first emails I did while at Litmus I added a CSS rain effect to and Jason Rodriguez mentioned that it looked like a glitch. I had wanted to create a glitch effect in an email since then so I worked really closely with Hannah Tiner to figure out how to incorporate that into the design. We ended up using CSS to glitch the copy and images and added a GIF of static as a background image to the buttons. Jaina Mistry came up with the overall theme for the newsletter and Kim Huang brought it to life with amazing punny copy. I worked on the CSS coding for several months to get it right. From the collaboration to the coding, I was so proud of that email when it came out. 

More recently I optimized Litmus’ customer onboarding flow. It was one of my first cross department collaborations and I was able to work with some amazing customer service and customer marketing people at Litmus to figure out what our customers needed the most help with as they started using our product. We shortened the onboarding flow and added a more personalized touch by adding check in emails directly from Customer Service reps. We also added in polls that we used to create different personalized branches of the onboarding experience to make sure we were meeting customers where they were in their onboarding experience. 

What’s in your toolbox?

Hardware: 

I’m a Mac user through and through. I think I had a PC for about a month or two at one of my previous jobs, but I switched to a Mac as soon as possible. I prefer a good mechanical keyboard but my last one broke and I’m too intimidated to dive down the rabbit hole to find another good one. My favorite part of my set up and one of the reasons I’m so happy I work from home – post it notes, dry erase boards, and physical calendars. I need the physical act of writing things and putting them out of my mind. I don’t know how many ideas started as a post it note and then grew to more through conversations and brainstorming on my white board, but definitely most of them. It’s also nice to have a timeline that isn’t buried in a browser tab that I can just glance at and be able to tell what’s coming up.

Software:

• Litmus for coding, collaboration, personalization, and QA
• Parcel for coding and QA for interactive emails
• FigJam for mapping out customer journeys
• JIRA for project management – I know it can be a hot mess, but at least it’s my organized hot mess.
• Zapier for automating EVERYTHING

What could most SaaS brands do to improve their lifecycle emails?

Triggered messaging! But don’t make them creepy like you’re following them around. There’s a fine line between using triggered messaging to personalize a customer’s journey and having those same messages come off as stalkery. The best way to limit the creep factor is to keep your customers top of mind. Ask yourself “Why do my customers want to or need to receive this message?” When you hit personalization right, it helps your customers feel like you’re listening to them and having a conversation. It’ll build trust and value in your brand, which will result in loyal customers.

What’s your favorite email campaign of all time? Why?

I was doing research for our onboarding series and signed up for all the onboarding series everywhere. I absolutely loved Zapier’s onboarding. It was a great blend of scheduled content and triggered content that really encouraged me to dive into the product.The zing when I got the “You’ve created your first Zap!” email was like a hit of caffeine to the bloodstream. I haven’t stopped making zaps since then.  

What’s your advice for new marketers entering the industry in the next few years?

I think the best advice for new marketers also applies to people who have been around for awhile: 

1. You will make mistakes. Don’t get stuck on the “why” it happened. Instead focus on growing and learning how to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. Building the processes to shore up the holes in your process will help you in the future as well as make your team stronger. 
2. Put your customers first. Marketing works best when you build a relationship with your customers based on trust. The best way to destroy that trust is to build your strategy without thinking of your customers. Asking yourself “How does this serve my customers?” and “Why would my customers be excited to be receiving this communication?” can help you build your customers’ trust. And it’s best to ask these questions at every level on a marketing team. 

Much love,
Andy

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @emaillove