With that headline, I either have everyone over 40 reading this or only those under 40 who are hoping that I can help advance their cause.
In truth, these words are a direct quote from a woman I met last week at Litmus' Email Design Conference. The whole quote actually goes like this "Look around this room. The whole conference is between 25-40, but the problem is that we all report to people over 40 who don't get it and just keep pressuring us to send bad email."
Then she said, "Please help-- people over 40 just don't get it".
In full disclosure, I'm 42 and was definitely one of the oldest people in the room which was a super odd feeling (quite enjoyable actually) because I'm so used to being in the association world where I'm perpetually either lumped in with Millennials or the Boomer-strong population thinks I'm also a Boomer and sees us as the same. (Gen X Pity Party Starts Now..sigh!). I actually found myself immersed in conversations that I didn't see coming, namely, people wanted to talk about how long I've been married, what did my wedding dress look like, what's my VVS number on my diamond, how old are my children, is my mother proud and can they see pictures of my kids because they want to have kids that play sports, too and they are sooooo cute.
The lunchtime conversation bounced seamlessly between professional and personal, touched on some topics where I was internally saying "OMG--can you talk about this at lunch???" and back to pixel art and the ridiculous work processes required to get an email approved. In short, it was incredibly fascinating and very, very enlightening because my insightful lunch buddy's comment was exactly right--if you're over 40, you don't get it.
I'm good with not getting it. I'm good with being my age and I'm good at being realistic about the need to understand each person and from whence they come so that we can communicate. I understand that I'm not going to be and never have been the target audience for anything other than Beverly Hills 90210 and The Goldbergs. I'm also good with breaking it down for people so that they start to get it. So, when it comes to understanding email, here's what you need to get if you're over 40 so you can stop abusing email & earn the respect of those under 40 (I know, I know--you're aghast that you should hear that you need to earn THEIR respect when you're the older one, but get over it--the under 40 crowd may be super fluid in what they love, like & share, but they're incredibly shrewd in giving out their trust).
Top Things the Under 40 Crowd Wished You Understood About Email
1) Email is an Artistic Endeavor, Not a Tactical Pursuit
The number one pain point for #TEDC15 crowd is trying to deal with people who still don't understand what's required in terms of time & skill to craft an email--with "craft" being the operative word. One of my tablemates summed it up like this "email is not wam! bam! thank you ma'am! and if you treat it like that, don't expect that people are going to open it". (I told you some of the lunch convo included phrases and topics that would make the most liberally minded 40+ cringe and wonder if HR was about to pounce).
The big pain point here is that email has multiple elements--each of which requires its own skill and artistry--and most people over 40 think its a matter of "just send an email" as in push some buttons and send it. Somehow the over 40 crowd hasn't distinguished email from fax (although in defense of Gen X, I'd say that it's the over 50 crowd who beloved the golden days of one-way, fax-based communication that was super cheap and pushed only the organization's message).
The reality and the cry of the Email Young & Rebellious is that email requires the following skillsets and the probability of finding them in one person is right up there with unicorn & Lucky Charms leprechaun spotting. Skills for email include:
- Writing
- Graphic design
- Visual information design
- Information architecture
- Coding
- Testing
- Digital metrics & analysis
- Project management
- Crisis Negotiations
with the skillsets of crisis negotiation often needed to handle inflamed department and program managers who are fighting over space within an inflexible email template that was last updated in 2010. The email designers of today that are doing extraordinary things don't have all of these skills--instead, they work with a team of people who together have these skills to craft an incredible email.
In short, it takes a village to build an email and constantly rushing the process & treating the creation/send/testing of an email as an easy 1-2-3 push-a-button-and-blast task is not only offensive, but abusive to your audience. Nothing screams "I'm all about me and don't care about you" more than a rushed, too-often sent email with irrelevant content.
2) Sorry, I Didn't Learn Email During College
#TEDC15 people were pretty uniform in their disbelief that people think that because they're born Digital Natives that this means that they somehow learned how to craft email along the way. In fact, my tablemates pointed out to me that the way that their 40+ superiors think about email and how they think about email is totally different and the 40plusers just don't get it. While email might be THE staple digital diet of today's association, don't for one second think that everyone is consuming email the way they used to because hey--we all get too much email (because remember? it is the easy and cheap better-than-fax solution that allows us to blast out our message).
My lunch buddies complained and complained that they were expected to know how to code email and how email worked and were SAVED when they found Litmus because who knows email under 40 and why would they EVER have had to learn this painful task??? The group agreed that they could put on their Beats and get lost in coding, but had to demand that they get some sort of training, book or something to help them because they had no idea where to start in troubleshooting Microsoft Outlook 2010 vs 2013 issues (because why would they have used Microsoft Outlook in college for email???).
In fact, the global crowd at #TEDC15 were so utterly thankful for any training because of the Black Art nature of email that is seemingly taught as all crafts are--verbally and from master-to-apprentice. If there's one thing that the association professional over 40 should know is this---get your staff members who are responsible for email marketing the right training. If you're trying to make your 'marketing specialist' a jack-of-all-trades, then do the right thing: outsource email.
3) Email is Not a Website
Speaking of education, the bottom line is that if you're over 40, you missed the email or weren't signed up for the listserve group that taught you about how email works. It means you think that email works just like a website and you should be able to copy in Word from your document, add in your hyperlinks and hit send. The #TEDC15 didn't call the association marketers over 40 rookies, but I am because most of the questions asked or complaints received stem from the fundamental lack of understanding of how the game is played--and that is what makes it a total rook move.
Email's lack of standardization across email clients, complex sending structure and constantly expanding world of devices on which email can be received is full-time job if your association standards are that EVERYONE must receive email. If your standard is truly that everyone needs to receive email AND it has to be readable on their device AND it has to be compelling AND it has to be personalized AND without error then there's only three things you need: time, money & talent.
However, if you don't have an unlimited amount of time, money & talent then you need to take 30 minutes and learn:
- what can/can't work on email (after all, if this is the #1 way you communicate, seems you could invest 30 minutes to actually understand how email works)
- pare down your email clients on which you'll test to the ones that really open your email
- allocate enough time/resources to making email great for a portion of your population and ignore the one guy who loves his Lotus Notes on his Blackberry
However, if you see focusing your efforts on particular populations as equivalent to discrimination, then you'll fall back into that over 40 crowd of Just Not Getting It. Millennials respect the communication channels of each person and wouldn't think of trying to force everyone to have just one of anything--let alone a channel--so embrace the very fundamental idea that email is not for everyone in your membership and embrace the idea that the people that want your email are trusting you to provide a personal experience. This translates into understanding what device they use to consume your email, how and when they read your email and what makes them take action.
Stop focusing on those who don't open and start focusing on those that do. Learn how to capitalize on the unique attributes of intimacy, personalization and storytelling that email provides over a web page.
4) Less is More
We saw a lot of beautiful emails and they all had one thing in common--simplicity. We collectively ooh'd and aah'd and instantly wanted to know how the email designer sold the exec on letting the elegant, simple, beautiful email out the door without it getting modified through markups on paper print outs and yellow notes within Acrobat. (As a side note, there should have been an award for Most Complex Email Approval Process because some of the ways organizations do this is ridiculous).
Turned out, a lot of the best emails were coming from new brands that had execs that were either no older than 40 or pretty close to it. Seems that if you already aren't old, you don't need a lot of convincing about why the simple email is better because you already get it and there's no time wasted in having to pitch the value of simplicity. In fact, all of your time can be focused on the creativity part and seeing if your work has the desired effect with people around you getting excited because simple email that has personality is proven to work! (News flash--brands that have a personality in email enjoy far greater engagement rates. This seems scarily similar to the fact that people that show personality tend to know more people vs. people who have no opinion, say nothing and love the color beige ).
Bottom line for association executives--depending on your audience, it might be time to rethink the sheer amount of content you're trying to shove into email and focus on connecting versus informing. If your email's only voice is Natively Neutral, it might be time to break apart your email program and infuse some personality into it to actually acknowledge the fact that we're trying to get humans to respond.
5) Email Newsletters Aren't Newspapers
The last Big Email Gripe was focused on the unholiest of emails--the e-newsletter. Straight up adopted from the paper version circa 1985 that went from print to fax, the circa 2005 email newsletter just put all that print goodness into digital and blasted out at a cheaper rate.
But here's the thing, 2005 (even if that was when we adopted email newsletters, but it's not because it was way earlier) was A DECADE AGO. Ten years, 1-0, X, double nickels. In the age of information and especially in digital, that is a very, very long time ago. You don't wear the same jeans or tie you did ten years ago, so why are you using the same layout for your newsletter?
Don't get me wrong--the concept of newsletters isn't old, the format that we've been using is. We've been focused on items like "above the fold", banner ad placement based on being above the fold, the inability and sheer fear of having to scroll and the idea that we're all sitting at our Very Large Desktop at 9 am with our Starbucks to read your association newsletter, the (drum roll) VOICE of your industry (because no one else has Google, LinkedIn or WSJ).
What I'm saying is that it's all changed and association executives are not understanding the modern consumer who is getting their news online, on their Galaxy while ordering their extra hot Americano and nine times out of 10 is OVER the age of 40.
My #TEDC15 tablemates are practically banging their heads on the table in regaling me with this insight and quote a line from New Jack City (I'm not sure they knew this, but I did) in saying "they're killing their own people!". "So get this," says my email sistah from anotha motha, "our median age is 54 and they're all travelling all the time, but our email isn't responsive and they want to know why my click through rates aren't better!".
(The Table Erupts in Email-Induced Laughter).
So, in my last comment to Those Who Don't Get It---please, for the sake of humanity, find out how people are consuming your email today and, at minimum, stop blocking them from your content.
I hope I've captured the angst and the utter frustration of my #TEDC15 lunch companions and been able to spur the need for greater understanding of email from the top down.
