Yes, I am guilty. I deleted your email.

When I​ ​returned​ ​ ​from my sunny vacation in Akron, I ​​didn’t have the strength to deal with my overflowing inbox. I saw the hundreds of emails and found it easier to send them to the Valhalla of the trash folder than ​ ​to ​spend a single second looking at them​.​ And I’m not the only one.

Companies are taking charge of their employee’s work-life balance. Employers are mindful to the time when you are expected to be available and how email correspondence impacts your time out of the office. Instead of leaving it to employees, more companies are creating policies to deal with emails over holiday and vacations.

Daimler, the German auto manufacturer, recently announced ​an ​updated email policy for its 100,000 employees​: ​ Al​l incoming emails ​will be deleted automatically ​ ​while an employee is ​on vacation. ​Other entities aren’t far behind. ​ In 2013, the German labor ministry announced it was setting guidelines to prevent emailing of staff outside of work hours except those in emergency. ​ ​Companies from Volkswagen to PricewaterhouseCoopers have announced policies limiting when employees should reply ​to​ or even read emails.

This does not mean this is the end of email marketing. ​ No​ need to go out and start looking at mobile or social marketing jobs​ yet​ , but you should update your email strategy to tackle this challenge.

Do More Segmenting

​If you haven’t done it already, segment work and personal email addresses.​ ​Although m​ost of us ​have done hundreds of ​segmented ​email lists, we haven’t ​necessarily ​put much effort in​to​ segmenting personal vs work email accounts. Rarely do we ask if an email is personal or work on any landing page, so you probably have both ​intermixed ​in your lists. ​Without this segmentation, ​you might misinterpret a drop in open rates to poor copy or design ​ when in fact, you just sent it at the wrong time​. If you have collected additional data from your landing pages, you ​can ​segment further by state or country. You might just discover which week people go on spring break or which months to minimize campaigns in Europe.

Some quick ways to start building your segmented lists:

• Separate all free accounts​ ​such as ​ ​gMail, Yahoo and ISP​-​​provided ​and add them to a personal email list​
• Add a new field to your preference center
• Send a survey to your subscribers

Other benefits ​of splitting ​ ​your list:

• Personal emails are ​often ​read while on holiday or ​ over​ weekend​s​. If you read your email like I do on my phones (yes, ​I use​ many), then you have a good shot of reaching your audience on their personal gMail or Yahoo account. ​ ​Even when I am on vacation, I will check my personal email while ignoring my work one.
• Work emails can be your captured audience. Like parents at a middle school band recital, many of your corporate workers are trapped on email to communicate to each other, but only during work hours. ​You might as well  just suppress the weekend sends knowing they won’t receive it until Monday.
• You can simplify​ ​your content and design rather than building one universal one.​  Nothing worse than building bulky complex emails for multiple audiences. With personal emails you can focus on making gMail and Yahoo the primary client and spend time on Lotus Notes for those work accounts.

Do More Scheduling

If you haven’t discovered which day of the week works ​best​ for you, you need to find out. ​The ​2013 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Report, looked into ​ ​the effectiveness of emails sent on different days of the week. The results show Tuesday and Wednesday as high performers, but there was no single best day. If you find your lists perform better on a different day, you probably need to ​adjust your ​plan ​during​ the long weekend holidays.

And Don’t Forget Your Drip

All you marketing automation folks who love building out hundreds of drip campaigns​ ​need to pay attention as well.  Think about ​adjusting​ ​ ​your drips​ ​during holiday​ seasons. If you haven’t added a marketing calendar into your strategic plans, you ​risk​ diluting the effectiveness of your campaign by delivering it ​while most people are still on vacation. Consider using a weekly​ calendar and plan out your execution accordingly. ​Take a cue from the​ ​ ​children who count​ ​down days until the next holiday break. ​You can make your drip campaigns ​more​ effective if you​ ​do the same. If you don’t have time to rebuild all your campaigns, ​​​at least ​make sure you turn off your drip before the next holiday.
Happy Holidays. Delete!

Account-based marketing (ABM) is designed to target specific “high-value” accounts. Data shows that it’s effective. Almost 85 percent of marketers who measure ROI describe ABM as delivering higher returns than any other marketing approach (itsma.com). So why aren’t all B2B marketers adopting ABM? There are several prerequisites to satisfy before you can start.

Alignment

ABM requires a strong alignment between marketing and sales. This requires the development of a common set of goals and objectives. A shared plan is developed that puts focus on the key accounts to be used in ABM. While this seems simple enough, it may require a shift in your organization and a change to the metrics you use to measure success. Typical large-scale indicators like website traffic, email volume or lead conversion may not translate good measures of ABM success. Remember, ABM is designed around a small number of prospects and existing customers. Success has to be measured by each individual targeted account. If you plan to measure email clicks from a blast of thousands of emails, you aren’t doing ABM.

Large Data Connectivity

ABM requires the capture and use of large amounts of data. Data collected at the individual and account level is needed to provide the proper insight and specific messaging for ABM campaigns. To achieve this, you need all of your sales and marketing software to work together. For example, if you are using Salesforce Marketing Cloud to manage email and Sales Cloud to manage leads and opportunities, you’ll need both clouds to share information automatically. Many ABM campaigns will require data stored from your CRM/ERP to provide the “personalization” required. Using just the first name of a contact is not sufficient for personalization. Account specific content must be part of any communication.

If you plan to use isolated spreadsheets or double-entry between your platforms, you probably should not adopt ABM. ABM campaigns are designed to provide feedback data to both marketing and sales. Only by combining all your data will you gain the insights on where to focus and to match sales with the right marketing activity and content.

Toolkit

The old adage of having the right tool for the right job should be considered before launching ABM. Before you start building your campaigns, do an audit of what platforms are being used by sales and marketing.

Here are some tools you should have ready for ABM:

• CRM – Most likely your database of record for your ABM activity
• Marketing Automation – Ability to send 1:1 emails, track and manage activity
• Social Monitoring – Be able to follow customers across social media platforms
• Ad Management – Define and distribute Ads to specific ABM audiences
• Data Management – Middleware to pass data between platforms
• Analytics & Business Intelligence (BI) – Be able to collect and report ABM activity to measure success

In addition to platform audits, you’ll also need to audit your team. While it may seem obvious to know what tools you have, many sales and marketing platforms are multifunctional like a Swiss Army knife. You might find different team members are using a single tool in multiple ways. Additionally, you might discover one task, such as sending out emails, split among multiple tools. Thus, you should make a point to inventory the tools and how each member of your team is using them.

During the audit, you might identify a skills gap among your team. It is common for marketing and sales teams to learn just enough about the software to meet their immediate needs. More IT-driven tasks such as programming and security or complex data operations may not be part of your skillsets. Consider looking at an agency or partner who can fill in these gaps. Be sure to find a partner who has the technical and marketing expertise as this could impact your ABM campaigns.

Account-based marketing is a great strategy for B2B marketing. With some early preparation, such as proper planning and alignment between sales and marketing, connecting your data and having the right people and tools in hand, you should achieve greater success on your first ABM campaign.

Contact me for additional help so you can implement Pardot and account-based marketing.