Doing A Welcome Email Fast
Our welcome email has featured the same offer for the past twelve years: a complimentary basket of “Piping Puckers.” These bite-sized hot dogs, sprinkled with a variety of spices and served with a trio of sauces, are delicious and a perfect introduction to our diverse menu.
The “Piping Puckers” offer was meant to be exclusive for new signups. Still, we often used it in our weekly offer emails as we sometimes would not get approval for other free offers to entice customers into the restaurant. Over those twelve years, we tweaked the creative a bit, adding better imagery, an easier server redemption process, some copy changes, and finally, simplifying and shortening the T&Cs. These changes worked for a while, but the feedback we would also get from our customers, both in social and focus groups, was that the offer was overused and, in some cases, not redeemable for those loyal to us. Additionally, I just learned that “Piping Puckers” are being considered for removal from the menu, so we must be prepared if they go away. While we have a stable of decent offers to choose from, such as the 4-pound slab of ribs, the 2-gallon ice tea jug, and the bottomless chocolate cake, I felt we needed something a bit more special.
My morning routine consists of a one-hour session I call “sharpening the saw,” during which I read about the food industry and marketing, journal, and play my banjo. One morning, I was overcome with joy as I came up with an offer that would be a game changer not only at Forkoff but also for the industry: a tipless and taxless meal. Forkoff would pay the taxes on the meal, and the servers would have to hope that our guests would leave them a tip, even though they didn’t have to. It was a cost-saving measure and a brilliant way to tap into a new demographic for Forkoff, which we have long been missing. I was able to put my data analytics team to work in creating a financial model on how Forkoff could be impacted by making such an offer. After 3 weeks, they came back with the brilliant recommendation of raising prices by over 12% on our most popular items. After seeing this, I started getting more excited about this new email we were about to create that would shock and rock the entire food industry (and possibly beyond food and beverage)
With the model in hand, I got senior management approval quickly and promised that this new email would be in production later that week. I called an all-hands meeting for marketing and broke the news to them. They seemed surprised at this new offer and even more surprised that the new email I was calling for would be in production within four days. Essentially, I wanted the creative team to revamp our existing email entirely, and my instructions were straightforward and clear: Make it 1. Pretty, 2. Minimal, 3. Functional, and most importantly, 4. Engaging. I pumped them up by saying this is a new day for Forkoff, and we might win an award at this year's Email Creative Conference! They thanked me for my brilliance and said they would get right on it after I gave them a brief, to which I replied, this is a game-changing email and one that needed to not have a brief as skys the limit when it comes to creative contributions.
Two days go by after the meeting, and needless to say, I have been underwhelmed by what the creative team has shown me. The email did not pop as I asked, and it seemed rather pedestrian, with no pizzazz or anything meaningful regarding relevance. I then showed them a few examples of emails I liked and could draw out on our whiteboard what I had envisioned for this. They looked inspired and even happier when I told them I could extend the deadline I gave to senior management with the email launch on Monday. By giving them the whole weekend to work on this, I was confident they would show me amazingness come the Monday morning stand-up.
The good news is that the entire creative and email team worked diligently all weekend to complete this. As Monday came, while not perfect, the email was a dramatic change to what we did have, so I gave the ok to have it coded and pushed live by 8 am Tuesday, just in time for my senior management update meeting. Once again, the email team worked throughout the night, coding and testing the email, and they were able to have it live and in production at 5 am local time on Tuesday, which was a testament to their dedication! I showed the entire management team the email and offer and was told it went live that morning. They were happy and applauded my effort. They then asked where they could give feedback on changing the structure of the email, especially the imagery and layout, and that they would want to see those changes implemented by Wednesday morning. I gladly told them to send it to me by four and then called another all-hands meeting for 4:30 pm……
***CORE insight from Andrew Kordek @emailnucleus***
I have long had the mantra of “we can do it fast, or we can do it right,” and nothing is more evident than what happened here. Aaron displays a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for wanting to do the right thing to improve the business. Still, he doesn’t respect his team’s time or talent enough to set realistic expectations with senior management around the timing and process that the team needs to do a great job. In addition, giving the team “creative freedom” to do their job is a recipe for mistakes and interpretations when creating things from scratch.
He gave them nothing other than general instructions. When presented with stuff that didn’t fit his vision (which, as you remember, didn’t go over very well with management), he managed to give them ideas on “stuff” he likes and the vague comment that every creative person hates to hear: “Make it pop.”
Because of Aaron’s miscalculated steps, the teams worked nearly 3 days and nights straight to make it happen, only to face another punishing deadline again. Email teams, especially those in creative and production, are often some of the most dedicated people in the organization. They care about what is sent and how it is sent and take great pride in their work almost every time.
Don’t bastardize their talent or time with unrealistic expectations and little direction, or you will be faced with a revolt of voluntary employment terminations.
