
Top 3 Initiatives to Make 2020 Your Year of Change
Besides nailing down this key aspect, you also need to get the practical aspects right in order to have a successful retreat.
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- Block off a full day for planning. Impress on your team members how important it is to get participation and buy-in from everyone to be successful.
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- Move off-site if you can. If not, find a conference room in your building (without floor-to-ceiling windows to avoid distractions from passing co-workers) and a few places that can serve as break-out rooms, where people can discuss specific ideas without being disturbed.
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- Invite anyone with a stake in email success. That includes everybody from your CMO and the specialists, to your newest team members. They all belong at the table. Also, come with a set of ground rules that will set the tone and process for the meeting.
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- Foster open, focused conversation. Talk about what worked in the past, what's not working (stay out of tactics), and what ideas are worth trying. Conduct a Blue Sky Brainstorm! Leave the titles in the office. At your planning retreat, everybody gets a say (but keep the conversation on the strategic level).
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- Document everything. As soon as the planning session is over, gather up all the paperwork, and distill it into a workable plan. Distribute it to some key employees for their editing and input. Then, present it to your CMO. And, finally, execute on it the rest of the year. You might have to pivot at some point, but base all of your tactical and campaign planning on your new email strategic plan.
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2. Figure out how to better communicate the value of email in your organization.
If everybody from the C-suite to IT and Customer Service thinks of email as just the discount sales channel, it's no wonder you might be struggling to get budget and respect. If you don’t tell people about your success, then they define success based on their own ideas. You have to carve out your regularly shared success story to the organization. Maybe you aren’t explaining email's value effectively? Do you need to find a new way to attribute revenue from email? Look for numbers that show how email can drive action in other company departments. This could lead you to request control of the email reins throughout your organization so that you can ensure all messages reflect your company's brand voice and identity. Also, look for ways you can improve your email value for your customers. What could you push them to do in email that you aren't doing now? Could a new tech service help you reach out more effectively or add value to your messages?3. Look for ways to fund some R&D in 2020.
Every budget should have some money set aside for research and development. This gives you the freedom to test out new procedures, workflows, email programs and services. This initiative flows from the email strategic plan you create. That plan will most likely include some new ideas, and they'll need to be funded. If email is the poor cousin on your marketing team, this could take a little creativity. Add it to your strategic planning agenda. Could you partner up with another department? Your tech vendors might have some ideas, too. Ask them! Not everything you try will succeed. But building in the capacity and the tolerance for failure will lead you toward finding what does work. Failing fast is an essential aspect of your goal to expand the digital transformation of your business, and an R&D budget is key to that process.Final thoughts
Don't assume you have to tackle all three in a single year. Which of these could help you move the needle farthest in 2020? That's your starting point.