Email innovation and collaboration with Kelly Haggard of Synchrony

00:00:05

Eric Trinidad: Hello. My name is Eric. And this Jonathan.

00:00:07

Jonathan Torres: Hello.

00:00:08

Eric Trinidad: Hello. Welcome back to Emails Not Dead. Your fellow email geeks are here to talk to you in the New Year about all things that are coming up in all things email. Jonathan, What's up, man? How you been?

00:00:18

Jonathan Torres: Been good. First episode of 2023. So I'm excited. New Year. New me.

00:00:23

Eric Trinidad: Any big resolution?

00:00:24

Jonathan Torres: No, no, I don't believe in resolutions. I believe in small, incremental moving forward changes. So, you know.

00:00:32

Eric Trinidad: Just get yourself together. Just get your life together, you know? Right. Not just one thing but all the things.

00:00:36

Jonathan Torres: One thing at a time. Just a little bit every day. Yeah. I try to stay away from the resolution thing. I feel like it's an easy way to fall off if I can just, you know, remember to keep moving forward and keep doing that better thing every day, then that's fine with me.

00:00:47

Eric Trinidad: Yeah. Yeah. Just be better. Jonathan. Just be better.

00:00:49

Jonathan Torres: Yeah, exactly.

00:00:50

Eric Trinidad: Okay. Well, you know, we two geeks are always here, of course, but we are joined by Kelly Haggard of Synchrony. She is an email innovator and optimizer. She is joining us this week. Kelly, how are you?

00:01:04

Kelly Haggard: I'm doing good. Laughing at your whole new year new me. I was just thinking about New Year. Better Me. Which means getting some of those recurring meetings off my calendar.

00:01:15

Eric Trinidad: Yeah! You know, we like to bring people that are positive and kind of, you know, email centric. And you said, you know, you wanted to get the New Year going by talking about all good things in email. So we knew you were perfect for the show. What are things looking like in the email world for you?

00:01:31

Kelly Haggard: You know, I am probably in the funnest spot when it comes to email because I get to work on the new innovation stuff. I realize in order to bring email innovation to a big like enterprise wide company, you have to enjoy problem solving and figuring out how to do things that haven't been done before. So a little bit of the Nancy Drew. So, I mean, you know, I'm excited. We've got some great stuff that we're going to be working on this year, expansion of some of our current programs, as well as doing our due diligence to move to a new ESP and kind of just figuring out how to make the best of what we do. I feel like I have the funnest job in email because a lot of it is like you get to go to these meetings and tell people what you're excited about and what's coming and get them excited about it. You know, I'll just tell you, i'm living my best life. I have the best email job that I could ever wanted.

00:02:23

Eric Trinidad: So you're like the hype person, you know, just building up everything before you know, everything gets released?

00:02:28

Kelly Haggard: Pretty much which is fun because sometimes I like to joke around with one of our senior leaders where I'm like, "Don't sell it yet." We're still figuring it out. But you know, when you get excited, sometimes someone else picks up on it and then next thing you know, it's like, "Hey, you guys, we have this capability yet." And I'm like, "We almost do. Hold on."

00:02:47

Jonathan Torres: It sounds a lot like email world in general. And just to kind of like tie that all back in because there's so many things. Where thinking about it in the sense of enterprise level of things because email is so easy and accessible to everybody. And I think that's one of those things. It's just like if you need to communicate with an audience, you need to communicate with the customer base. If you need to communicate, you know, marketing, things like email is always just so easy for everybody to do, but then to keep going and doing it at scale. And as you go further and further up, it just gets more and more difficult, especially when you're not doing the right way. So it's like you have to do those things. You have to get moving in the right direction, I guess is kind of like the overall thing and kind of theme of the new year, right? So I just keep doing baby steps. And real quick, a brief summary of like what exactly is Synchrony?

00:03:33

Kelly Haggard: Yeah, absolutely. So we are a financial company. You probably may or may not have been exposed to Synchrony in one way, shape or form because we're a white label as well as like MasterCard products for a lot of the big brands that you know and love. We have a consumer bank also and then we have a few products that are wholly owned by Synchrony, including care credit, which is like our health care credit card. So we've been in business for about 89 years and we used to be a part of GE Capital and we're located across the U.S. I'm on the West Coast, so I get the 6 a.m. meeting invites, but I'm nice and I don't do the 6 p.m. meeting and vice versa. And so feel like I should get a shout out for that one. But our team works as a COE, a center of excellence in the business. We're called performance marketing. And so we support all the client teams across the board and then the client team specifically have their own marketers where they're managing not just email, paid search and direct mail and a lot of the other programs across the board. So emails a piece of what they do. I get to have conversations every day about something email that someone wants to either learn about or kind of figure out, make the most of the tools we have and kind of raise their hand to do the new stuff.

00:04:51

Eric Trinidad: You know, you talked about innovations with email. You know, what is like a project that you can maybe kind of give us some insight to and what you got going on currently?

00:05:01

Kelly Haggard: Yeah. I mean, I think when it comes to innovation, so we're onboarding a new solution that allows us to do personalization through personalized videos but executed through our email channel. So we're looking at taking those data signals and, and think about it. I like to think about it like a buffet. You're at the buffet and there's fifty items at the buffet, but you're only going to pick up ten of those items and someone else is going to pick up twelve of them and someone else is going to pick up eight. But it's all based on your on your individual internal data signals that say, I like cheese, I don't like meat, I like this. I don't like that. So we're able to take those data points and create a customized video that is rendered in real time based off of those data signals. So you open the email, click and watch the video, and the video may say we're a credit card product. So that video might say, "Hey, this person hasn't signed up to manage their account online yet." So the data signal is going to indicate that and then give them that element of the video story that says, "Hey, here's the benefits of managing your account online, here's what you want to do, and here's the next steps with the link out to that." I think that personalization elevation is really a big piece of how we're optimizing email today, is taking what we already know about the customer and then giving them that elevated message. So it's more relevant to them. If anybody should know the customer, it's your credit card company. They should know you. We should know you, like we should know your where you live, We should know what you're out there purchasing and the things that you're interested in. So if I send you something as your credit card and it has nothing to do with you and isn't relevant at all, that's a little bit. Like you should know that. You should know that about me.

00:06:47

Jonathan Torres: And I think it kind of falls in line with one of the things that we've been talking about in email in general. I feel like that's just been the theme of the past like 12 months, you know, maybe a little bit less, maybe a little bit more where it's about getting that personalization piece in because we've always talked about it. We've always talked about those data points and how to connect with your customers. And I think now more than ever, just because of all the changes that have happened and the way that the platforms themselves have evolved, like you need to form that connection with the people that you're sending to and you need to show them that piece. Otherwise, like things aren't going to get through. Like if people are ignoring you because you're not personalizing to them or you're not speaking to them and what you're doing that's so harmful now more than I think it's ever been. So it's just one of those things where, like, I love hearing that. I love when people are thinking about those things and kind of starting to push that way forward because it's really needed in the landscape for today.

00:07:40

Kelly Haggard: You know, definitely. And we're doing some stuff. So we partner with Movable Ink and I think one of the cool things that we're also able to do is live polling so we can actually send out an email and ask them a question and get first party data back. And then I can take that first party data and not only use it in email, but across any of those channels. So I can say what's next, what's next for you? But asking it in such a way where it's not just collecting data, it's us saying, okay, they've said that this is what they're interested in. So our content, maybe our hero images, our wording or the links that we put out or like maybe blog article content is related to what they've told us. They want to hear about it. So it's beyond just taking you're searching online and you're looking at different stuff. It's asking a direct question and saying what's next? And then having them tell us what's next and then doing something about it. Like that's pretty cool. Like, we haven't been able to do that in the past. Email is a much more personal channel than, I see a Facebook ad or I see something else. It's very like you're in my email box, I let you into my email box. And so when you provide back stuff based off of what I told you, it feels like you're listening. And now everybody, whether it's email or just live, you want to think that you've been listened to and that your, you know, whoever it is is communicating to you is giving you the right message.

00:09:03

Jonathan Torres: I mean, at this point, I feel heard. Like since we read about this for so long, I think we've definitely had a lot of people saying it from, you know, from just strictly within the email portion of things. So it's been a little bit we've had people on the show recently, you know, who we talked about that exactly with and seeing. Know that it's happening out there, that people are doing it, that it's getting adopted and it's, you know, actually taking place in the real world and actual practice. That's I mean, what more can you ask for, you know, when you start moving in that direction? It's awesome. And with that, like whenever, we start looking at those things. I know you mentioned a couple of things already, so. Right. So direct interface with the customer. Is there anything else that you know, that you're plugging into or trying to find out or seeing in what they're doing and what the customer journey is including and doing to pull in that information?

00:09:56

Kelly Haggard: We utilize send time optimization, which is, you know capturing their engagement over time and understanding when the best time is, in order to get them the message. You know, I think before send time optimization it was like, okay, we're going to do a test and we're going to stop all campaigns. And so for the next seven days, we're going to send out emails every hour and see where like the best times are and the best days of the week. It's a very manual process. And send time optimization is basically I mean, it's AI basically. It's understanding as they're engaging with it over time what the highest propensity is for them. If I sent out a message at that time. Now, you know, we look at Apple iOS too and all that like definitely skewed some of that and some of that technology. And so, you know, we were on it pretty quickly reaching out to all of our partners and said, What are you doing about Apple iOS? How are you handling that? Because, you know, some of the stuff that we had turned on that. AI in its own ground, when they opened that message was a little bit in jeopardy of like, well, how do we actually look at it? And so I think that's going to be a really cool new innovation too. That, where we look at that and say, we know there's these bot opens, we know that Apple was the first to do it, they're not going to be the last. And so how do we get some of those better engagement numbers? And I think it then puts it back on like the ESPs to say, okay, we can't take that initial signal that says open, but can we now, you know, we haven't done that in the past, which is backing into those opens based off of people that clicked, okay, if they click and they weren't captured as open or captured as a bot open, now we can kind of take some of that. I just think there's a lot of opportunities to really open up that side of it and figure out how we look at it as well as and I'm sure both of you guys have experienced this, which is do we even look at open rates anymore is like open rate the right metric, which is probably a whole different conversation that we could get into, but is something, you know, in a role where you're focused mainly on the email channel, you've got to keep an eye on that stuff. You've got to say, okay, how applicable is this to us? Is this going to affect our experience of getting them the most personalized, relevant messaging? And if it is, what are we doing about it? What can we, you know, can we bring everybody together? And that's another interesting part of the business because an analytics person may not be specialized in email. So you're kind of it's a little bit of you're having to educate on email how it works and how we measure it and then also say, okay, now that you know that. And now you have that basis. Now let's brainstorm and look at how we address and move forward with this.

00:12:46

Eric Trinidad: Yeah, I think that definitely ties into a lot that we've spoken you know, with others about of understanding, you know, the open metric, you know, although has been like the bread and butter for many customers, even small customers that we've spoken with within the past have, you know, always relied on those types of metrics. And now they need to go further on down the down the pipe to see, you know, is it, the brick and mortars that are getting access to, are they getting more traffic there? Are they seeing more traffic to the website? Is a specific set or option that they have going on? Is that what they're looking for? So, you know, looking for those other metrics, you know, while, even opens although they give some good data, you know, are something that are going by the wayside.

00:13:28

Jonathan Torres: Yeah the relevance I think is still there. You know whenever we look at the opens, it's just that it's not as relevant. Right?

00:13:39

Kelly Haggard: Directional.

00:13:40

Jonathan Torres: Yeah. It's definitely now I think before it was definitely relied on more as the one metric that everybody paid attention to and that was it. And you know, and I know we've said it, I'm sure people will if you're listening to all these episodes in a row, you're sick and tired of hearing this, but it's just now one of the many parts of the data set that you're trying to keep track of and trying to pay attention to, because it's changed. The landscape has changed so much. So, you know, yeah, again, I'd love to hear it and love to see where it's being applied in like how it's being applied and I mean to kind of get into that next piece that you were just talking about, you know, like getting it into different parts of the business. And I feel like that's always like one of those things that just like, you know, people overlook. I think overall, you know, when it comes to email sending and when people are touching email as part of what they're trying to do within a business. Is there anything else that you're seeing within that? I know you kind of said like data analytics as part of the, you know, part of that expansion of having that email conversation. But, you know, where else are you doing that?

00:14:43

Kelly Haggard: Yeah, I mean, I think if you've been an email geek in this space for a long time, like you live it and breathe it and you can't assume everybody else does, part of it is bringing everyone else on the journey. So if you're really excited about something, it can be a little contagious. And other people like, I'm excited. I don't really know what you're talking about, but I'm excited to. I'll give you my secret sauce to business is the chocolate chip cookie concept. It's, you know, my thing was whenever I started a new company, I would make chocolate chip cookies and put them out and people would come by and introduce themselves to me, and we'd have a conversation and then have a new contact. Now, when I always heard that they gained weight from me, starting at the company. But it's the same sort of concept, right? It's okay. Here's some people in there on this call and they're interested and want to talk email. So I immediately, you know, reach out and say, hey, do you guys want to talk and learn about some of the stuff? You can set up a call and go through. You can tell me what areas you're interested in. And so you sort of build that over time. Whenever I get invited to brainstorm, I clear my calendar and just go because I want to hear the questions and I want to hear the things that they're looking for and trying to solve for. But then it's also when you get people that are excited and they raise their hand and they say, Hey, I want to be a part of the pilot or the POC, I'm willing to put dollars and time behind it. You take them through it. You know, I always do sidebars with legal, I do sidebars with the data team, I do sidebars with analytics. And I said, are you comfortable or do you have any questions? How can we work together on this? And I have a cookie list in December, and those will get cookies. And you know why it causes them to reach out to me. And if we haven't talked in a while, you know, for whatever reason, then they call and ask questions and then they feel good about the fact of the value of their partnership. And then I value that they're you know, that they're behind this. I have what I call ambassadors that are always that are around the business, always willing to raise our hand when something new comes up and they want to give it a try. But then we also do QBRs where we share out all the content, like, here's the latest stuff we're working on. And then I have my partners present out the specific case studies, like I can go through it, but I'm just one piece to it and at the end of the day, it's their customer or their part of the business. And with that we actually started doing awards. So I worked with some of the vendors on this. Movable Ink would be another great example here. And so we think about those that really have raised their hand to push the boundaries and to do true innovation. And so it might be, you know, best use case of a B2B example, it might be best use of API integrations. And so then they actually get a paper award. It's then a case study. And so we celebrate the fact that we've done this and that we've had a great win. We call out all the partners that help us from the legal to analytics to compliance. Whoever it is that got brought in on it, the ambassadors are also used to connect with each other. So I don't always have to be on the calls. You guys are looking to do this. This brand already did it. You connect with this person and then I take myself out of it and then it becomes more organic. And so then you've got it's sort of a groundswell, right? It starts with one. It starts with the seed. It starts with one person that kind of plants it, and then it just grows from there. And it's really been the success of it, every person that has raised their hand and say, hey, I want to be a part of this mix and how do I do it? And from sharing to learning to applying. And I think it's across the board. So it's been good. I have these innovators across the business that on every dotted line, your're a part of my team without being a part of my team at all.

00:18:34

Thomas Knierien: Kelly, I don't know what we can do. If you can add Emails Not Dead, to your cookie list for December 2023, but I just had to put that out there.

00:18:44

Jonathan Torres: You know, the one thing I would say is that like I mean, I understand the concept because when I first started working with Mailgun, that was one of the things. I'm not a baker, I can't do cookies. But coming into the office to get in some good graces and to make connections around the company. Our office used to be very close to a Krispy Kreme donuts, so there was me walking in the morning, you know, a couple of dozen donuts. Yeah. And it definitely helps. And it's one of those things where I think even looking back at us as an email company, as you know, people who are in email and doing email and talking about email day to day, we have parts of the company that were doing like email newsletter type stuff that weren't communicating with our deliverability services team, you know, And it was just one of those like, why? Why are we doing that? Like whenever we finally realized, why aren't we, you know, like consuming our own product and really optimizing with what we're doing and let's talk about that and this, and I feel like it doesn't take much because at that point it wasn't, you know, we weren't as large of a company as we are now. But, you know, even then we were, you know, getting bigger at that point. And we just, you know, nobody had thought about it. I'm sure it started off that way and then just grew away from it and then just never reconnected. So needing to do that is, you know, even more important when you're much larger.

00:19:55

Kelly Haggard: Yeah. And new people start, right? So people start shift jobs and so keeping up with it is a full time job in itself of like, wait, this person's over here now. Okay, now there's a new team here and they were brought in externally, so you definitely have to take the time to meet them. It's funny because it ends up being a little bit of marketing of you and what you're doing and what you bring to the table with your job and how you can help them. And so you kind of have to be a little bit outgoing, which is an interesting battle. Like I would say, I have a very strong, introverted and extroverted side. And so there are times where I'm in the introverted mood and I don't want to get on those calls. And then when I hang up after the call, I'm like, It feels good. It feels right. It feels like they're excited, they're willing to do something new. And I think it makes all the difference in the world. And you're genuine about it, right? You're saying, Look, I'm not trying to sell you vaporware. And I'm you know, this is something we're doing. This is something that, you know, there's a mix of people, too. There are people that are, hey, we're all in. We know, we don't know it all. We're good. And then there's others that are a little uncertain about the ambiguity and a little afraid, and you've got to handle them a little bit more and walk them through. But it always works out. I mean, it always works out for the best, even if it's even if you do the test and like you don't get the results you were expecting. I think just to get people in the innovative mindset is a win in itself.

00:21:23

Jonathan Torres: I think with email it just becomes so much that there are it's not unique to email where you have that hesitancy where or people just, you know, you, you see the numbers, you see the proof, you see the case studies, but you taking that leap and what you're doing and what you're responsible for, it's like it just takes a little bit of that, that push, a little bit of that encouragement to get them to commit to something like that.

00:21:44

Kelly Haggard: Yeah. I mean, if you think about your first job ever an email, I think about this sometimes and the fear of hitting send for the first time like, Oh my God, what if there's a mistake? Or what if there's so it's a challenge both on the strategic side and the execution is like if someone's doing it for the first time, they're like, "How do I know that it's going to work?" You know, there's a lot of the trust tree involved when it comes to reference tables and pulling from external data sources and like, what if the API feed comes out blank? You know, there's the testing and the safety and soundness and making sure it's fine. But at the end of the day, when you hit send, it's sent. You know, and so the tools today are a lot better. You can update links and update stuff post-send. In the beginning, it was just like, you know, the apology email still ranks as the most opened and engaged on email across any brand. Right. People want to know how you mess up. But there's a real fear in people. I think when they're doing it for the first time is, I'm going to hit send and everything's going to blow up. Building that confidence to like, hey, we're going to do this. We're putting in stuff in place, We're going to be able to test and QA and be fine. And then when you hit send, you have that confidence that, you know, you're going to start seeing those results come through right away and it's not going to be something that needs a oops.

00:23:05

Eric Trinidad: Yeah, yeah.

00:23:07

Thomas Knierien: You know it's funny, as you know Jonathan and Eric there used to being on on the back end, right? And me as an email marketer, I am traumatized by my first campaign I ever did because it was for a product launch for us. And my boss had been out of town and she sent me the copy to send to all of our customers. And I remember I put the copy in and in our our front end to send the email out and I copied the subject and it was group a subject. And then for the second cohort, group B. Well I included group A and group B, I sent this out to thousands and thousands of people and I am still traumatized by it and I had people come to me. Why is group A and Group B in the subject line? Yeah. So all email marketers. Yes, I know we were all traumatized by that.

00:24:00

Kelly Haggard: So I worked at a retail store and I was doing their email and they were segmented out by male and female because they had full product lines for each and the male segment got one with the subject line that said, "Hey girl." And it was really funny the complaints we got because and that's a great example of personalization gone wrong. The complaints of like you don't know me. I mean that's basically at the end of the day, what was being told is you don't know me. It's one of the dangers too right? Is the placeholder stuff or the stuff that's very specific to the audience. And then when it gets mixed up like I was, it was funny because I was like, well, here's the thing. We know people are reading our emails and they're calling in and saying stuff.

00:24:56

Eric Trinidad: How do you know I got it wrong?

00:25:00

Jonathan Torres: It's also one of those things that to me, like, I don't think I've ever seen anything happen like that where you can't recover from it or, you know, and even before then, like leading up to those events, especially when you've built up that resiliency. And I think that's one of the things that I've told customers like. So I'm sure my customers have, you know, gotten sick and tired of me telling them that, you know, that so many things that you're trying to do within email and, you know, paying respect to the people that you're sending to really optimizing toward them, you know, respecting the cadence at which they want email, even like there's so many of those little things that you're with each one of the things that you do, you're building resiliency within your list because inevitably something is going to happen. Something can go wrong. And when it does, if you haven't built that and you have only been doing the wrong thing, your email sending list, your reputation is not going to be resilient to that bad thing that happens. So it's just yeah, I feel like that came all around full circle.

00:25:59

Kelly Haggard: Like, here's the other thing around email relevance too. Is everyone was told to social distance and brands that were slow to respond and change out their hero images of everyone touching each other and like hugging and high fives like the stuff that they told us not to do. The brands that were slow on it. There was backlash, you know, on Twitter and on Facebook still comes down to that they don't know me. They don't know. The relevance isn't there because the images and the messaging is suggesting something other than the CDC is saying. You know, I think all of that is interesting because, you know, a lot of times the personalization challenges can come from data points. But another time it's just it's not being quick enough to respond, Get out there and make sure your messaging is relevant based off of how society is changing. You know, how things are changing around you.

00:26:55

Jonathan Torres: Yeah, it's at that disconnect. It feels like a disconnect from what's going on. Yeah. I mean.

00:27:01

Thomas Knierien: Yeah, that reminds me. Actually, I got an abandoned cart email this week because I got a new gaming system that I was trying to find an accessory for this gaming system. And I wanted a leather accessory because I thought it would be.

00:27:13

Eric Trinidad: As you do.

00:27:13

Thomas Knierien: You know, I'm 30. I should probably, you know, update all my stuff to leather, you know. Anyway, I got this abandoned cart email and the subject line was like, "What did we do wrong? Why didn't you buy it?" And I was like, Hey, I was just looking. It's okay. It's all right. You don't know me. Yeah, it goes back to that, if you think about it.

00:27:32

Eric Trinidad: Yeah, I get my leather from other places, you know? You don't know.

00:27:39

Eric Trinidad: Kelly, if people want to learn more about you, if they are interested in being an email innovator or looking at doing some innovations themselves, do you have some place where they can get some information?

00:27:49

Kelly Haggard: I would say they can connect with me on LinkedIn. So it's Kelly Haggard from Synchrony. I'm also really excited this year to be the co-chair for the email chapter of the Association of National Advertisers. If your company is a member, I would encourage you to sign up for your individual account. We do webinars as well as a big annual conference that's coming up February in D.C. this year. I would say, you know, I love to talk email, so always happy to have those conversations to brainstorm and information share. You know, I feel I learn as much from everybody else as I can give back to the conversation. So happy to connect. Excited to talk to you guys today. Had the pleasure of meeting you in person at the ANA conference last year and love what you guys are doing to really keep getting the message out there. Just around email, the opportunity and the fun. The fun of it all.

00:28:52

Eric Trinidad: Yeah. Well, we're looking to have some more fun in 2023 for sure. Hopefully in the next couple of conferences. We'll definitely be out there. We'll be doing some live events hopefully soon. Thomas If anybody's interested in where we're at, where can they find us and get more information?

00:29:07

Thomas Knierien: Yeah, for sure. You can reach us at mailgun.com/resources/podcast. We took a little break for the holidays, but we're back. We're in the middle of our season. We're getting ready to bring some more guests on. So super happy about that. But I want to ask you one last thing. So you got this integration coming out with the Movable Ink. When is that coming out, when can we see some information and where can we find more about that?

00:29:29

Kelly Haggard: We're doing a lot of great stuff with Movable Ink. I presented out at the think summit last year, which is their annual customer event, hoping to have some more great stuff to share. If you are a Synchrony customer, you already seen some of the stuff we're doing and we really have more great things planned to ensure that you're getting the best, most relevant content and all your emails. So I would say stay tuned.

00:29:57

Thomas Knierien: And Emails Not Dead is a huge supporter of the ANA organization and we love taking part of anything that they have so you guys give them a follow and make sure to back them and to also just stay tuned for more of their events because we love being there.

00:30:11

Eric Trinidad: Well. Kelly, thank you so much again, I really appreciate your time and hopefully we'll be seeing you soon and everybody else, we'll catch you next time.