Litmus Live Boston has come and gone—and our couple of days with email geeks were packed with amazing sessions and workshops, networking, and a seriously busy Twitter feed.
Couldn’t make it to Boston? Feeling some serious email geek FOMO and thinking about joining us in San Francisco in November? We pulled together our favorite takeaways and advice in tweet form:
Remember that your subscribers are real people, not just a list of names—be empathetic and authentic.
It’s so easy to get caught up in numbers and engagement when you’re looking at your email program. How many people opened your email, engaged with it in any way, converted… but it’s imperative to remember that behind every open there’s a human. Your subscribers are real people. They want engaging content, they want to feel included, and they don’t want an impersonal cold email.
This certainly was on everyone’s minds this year at Litmus Live (and this is only a small handful of tweets on the subject):
https://twitter.com/jeffwritescopy/status/1181993085733089280
I said it once, I'll say it again: HUMANITY METRICS, NOT VANITY METRICS! #LitmusLive
— Anne Tomlin (@pompeii79) October 10, 2019
https://twitter.com/kittehluvs/status/1182314322497802240
“Email is not marketing, email is relationship designed”
– Matthew Smith @whale @reallygoodemailPowerful. #LitmusLive
— Ted Colegrove (@primerx24) October 10, 2019
Sympathy is observational. Empathy is experiential. Don’t confuse the two… you won’t build authentic relationships with sympathy. 💕
Absolutely yes, @hillarts! Nailed it.#LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/3b0iksXk3L
— Kait Payne (@heykaitpayne) October 11, 2019
#litmuslive takeaway: BE AUTHENTIC. Your readers know a stock model when they see one. #emailmarketing #emaildesign #emaildevelopment
— Jessa Moon 🌜Developer • Designer • Artist (@lunascura3) October 10, 2019
#4. Designing for empathy is about taking yourself out of the process, and thinking about the people it’s made for. #Litmuslive #Emailgeeks
— ActionRocket (@ActionRocket) October 15, 2019
Accessibility is not a progressive enhancement.
We’re stealing this from Heidi Olsen’s session on data visualization, but it’s so appropriate:
If there's one thing you take away from @SwissWebMiss at #LitmusLive this year, it's this: Make sure your data visualization in your emails is accessible—otherwise it’s a nightmare for people using screen readers. pic.twitter.com/MVdyLYdK4i
— Litmus (@litmusapp) October 11, 2019
The world is growing, changing, and aging, and the world’s email subscribers are coming along for the ride. More people are accessing email on a wider variety of devices and types of connections than ever before. It’s becoming more and more important to make your emails accessible for everyone—not just because of the value it gives your program, but because it’s the morally right thing to do.
Awesome thoughts on reporting from @SwissWebMiss – don’t do too much; it literally creates headaches.
Reduce clutter, fix alignment (esp for accessibility), and strategize hierarchy. #litmuslive pic.twitter.com/svnDTw46EM
— Megan Reed (@iammeganreed) October 11, 2019
48% of the top 500 retailers have been sued for non-compliance with ADA accessibility standards. WHAT. 🤯
👏 We 👏 can 👏 do 👏 better.#LitmusLive
— Kait Payne (@heykaitpayne) October 11, 2019
Are you making your emails accessible? #LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/XSmeiuNYoi
— Britney Young (@BritneynYoung) October 9, 2019
“26% of adults in the US have some type of disability, that’s 6 million people” – Lauren and Sarah from @EpsilonMktg #LitmusLive #Emailforeveryone
— Ted Colegrove (@primerx24) October 11, 2019
There’s something new every day in the email world. You can always learn and innovate.
There are so many new things to play with in email—AMP, Dark Mode, interactivity, to name a few—and it’s exciting to include these in our own email programs. Each change provides its own challenges, and they can be hard to overcome. But change also means new opportunities to improve your program. Don’t be afraid to experiment—and to fail.
"When you work with bleeding edge software, sometimes you have to be ready to bleed." -Rohan Kapoor's AMP for email presentation at #LitmusLive presentation
— Mitchell Anderson (@mandersonMN) October 11, 2019
https://twitter.com/DocArtslop/status/1182675341317431298
Dude. @gemliza found a way to save 20 hours per build by using GSuite as a CMS! I'm gonna have to rewatch this on video because I'm missing so much, but what I am getting is glorious! #Litmuslive
— Anne Tomlin (@pompeii79) October 11, 2019
We’ve all made some incredible #emailgeeks friends and chosen family.
Maybe you’ve been chatting with fellow email geeks on Twitter or Slack for a long time but never met in person, or you joined a brand new wolf pack. No matter the situation, new and old #emailgeek friends unite at Litmus Live:
I think the best part of #LitmusLive (aside from all learning) is meeting people with the same struggles.#wearenotalone #notaboutaliens #LitmusLive #emailgeeks #weloveemail pic.twitter.com/8zVgTN8N8k
— Ted Colegrove (@primerx24) October 11, 2019
Thank you #litmuslive for introducing me to these lovely humans. 🙏💕 pic.twitter.com/0IOt96I26r
— evie ess (@isimma) October 11, 2019
Wolf pack is growing! Thank you #LitmusLive after four visits to the conference I finally have one! pic.twitter.com/bxhmyjWr5Z
— Kathryn Vannelli (@VforVannelli) October 10, 2019
Email geeks are also an incredibly supportive audience. We had so many first-time speakers this year and want to give a little shout out to them:
https://twitter.com/mattdionne/status/1182486117213491200
Shout to all the speakers at #LitmusLive, I’m continually amazed at how people before they talk are like “it’s my first time, I’m really nervous” then deliver a pitch perfect talk. Well done y’all 👏
— Elliot Ross (@IAmElliot) October 12, 2019
1/2: Thanks @litmusapp for hosting another fabulous #LitmusLive conference and for supporting me in speaking solo for the first time! pic.twitter.com/q8dKqoMVwB
— Bri Loesch (@BriLoesch) October 12, 2019
Plus, email geeks are incredibly generous. At Litmus Live this year we partnered with Pine Street Inn and unlocked a $5,000 donation from Litmus, in addition to donations from attendees.
We launched the brand new, redesigned Litmus platform
In addition to all of the excitement going on with sessions and workshops, we also announced our new, redesigned Litmus platform. You can now build, test, review, and analyze every email in one seamless view—and to celebrate that, we gave a little demo at Litmus Live!
Excited to learn about new @litmusapp! Great work team 💪#LitmusLive pic.twitter.com/Ag5wcJVNgi
— Elliot Ross (@IAmElliot) October 10, 2019
Those new accessibility and spam checking features, tho. Very well done, @litmusapp! #LitmusLive #a11y
— Megan Reed (@iammeganreed) October 10, 2019
Litmus Live is even better in person
Seriously missing out on all of this #emailgeek love? We’ve got one more conference this year in San Francisco (November 14-15) and a few tickets are still available. Plus, we’ve got some incredible workshops on interactive email, lifecycle campaigns, and email design and development.
If you join us in San Francisco, you’ll get the recordings and slides for sessions from all three conferences this year, so don’t miss out on your last chance for this wealth of email knowledge!
Whitney Rudeseal Peet is a Freelance Proofreader at Book Launchers.