Guru 2024 Recap: Why Jay Schwedelson’s Email Conference Is Like, Totally Tubular

Grab your leg warmers, dust off that Walkman, and get ready to jump into the email marketing DeLorean! Jay Schwedelson's online Guru Conference 2024 went full-throttle '80s this year, bringing the era of big hair, neon, and synthesizers right to our screens—along with powerful email marketing insights. This wasn’t just any online conference; it was a total throwback packed with the latest email digital trends, all wrapped in vintage vibes that made learning feel like an MTV marathon.

With DJ Graffiti spinning bodacious 80s tunes, attendees were treated to far more than just strategies. We had world-eating champion Joey Chestnut demolishing SPAM in a high-stakes eating contest and none other than '80s icon Debbie Gibson rocking a blind karaoke session! 

Now that the dust—and glitter—has settled, we’re diving into the six most gnarly sessions that delivered actionable tactics you can use now to send stronger campaigns faster than you can say “back to the future.”

Highlights of Our 'Fav Sessions Below From Guru 2024:

🕹️ Do This, Not That (Jay's session!)
📷 7 Surprising New Ways To Increase Opens And Clicks
🕺 Inbox Hero: How Much Email Are You Actually Sending?
🛼 Totally Epic Tips On How To Grow Your Newsletter 
📼 Retaining Customers For Life Using Email Marketing
👩‍🎤 25 GREAT Email Marketing Tips

Do This, Not That

Yay Jay's presentation! Jay delivered the last conference session in his typical fast-paced, data-packed style.

He dove into email marketing trends, from boosting open rates with urgency tactics to using alt text and interactive elements to improve email visibility as AI-triggered inbox sorting evolves, all with an emphasis on standing out and adapting strategies for maximum engagement. Here were the top tips we were glad to hear:

• Capitalize on High Engagement Periods: From mid-October to mid-December, email engagement skyrockets. Use this time to push offers, year-end promotions, and 2025 content. It’s also a prime opportunity to re-engage inactive contacts, as non-openers are more likely to engage.
  ➡️ Speaking of engagement times, do not forget to grab Jay's BEST/WORST Days to Email calendar for 2025! The dates are based on over 50K email campaigns from over 7 billion sent messages. It's exceptional insight to have in your marketing arsenal!
  
  
• Embrace High Unsubscribes Without Worry: Expect a rise in unsubscribes as people clear inbox clutter toward year-end. Don’t let this deter you; it’s natural for the season. Position it as part of the year-end clean-up, not a reflection on your strategy.
  
  
• Utilize Loss Aversion in Subject Lines: Both B2B and consumer win-back campaigns can benefit from “loss aversion” triggers. Terms like “VIP Status Ending” or “Confirmation Needed” can reactivate dormant subscribers, as people are motivated to avoid losing a status or opportunity.
  
  
• Explore Emojis in “From” Names: Experiment with subtle emojis in the “from” field to capture attention. Emojis can help stop the scroll without cluttering the message.
  
  
• Test Alternatives to “Webinar”: The word “webinar” carries a reputation for dryness. Try rebranding your sessions as “live events,” “digital workshops,” or “insider sessions” for higher registration rates.
  ➡️ These are words we took to heart for our upcoming Live Session demoing new HubSpot AI content creation tools! - Thanks Jay, we're getting A LOT of sign-ups for this one!!]
  
  
• Boost Content Demand with Limited Availability: Promote limited-time access to guides or resources, even if they don’t technically expire, to create urgency for downloads. Announcing countdowns can drive a 77% increase in downloads.

• Tailor Lead Magnets: Adapt to shifting preferences; on the B2B side, content formats like swipe files, quizzes, and toolkits perform best. For consumers, quizzes, DIY guides, and style guides lead engagement.
  
  
• Optimize LinkedIn Sharing for Reach: To maximize LinkedIn post visibility, remove UTM parameters from shared links. Waiting 15 minutes before having your team interact with posts can also boost organic reach.

• Prepare for iOS 18’s Email Sorting AI: Apple’s upcoming mail updates will auto-sort emails into categories, making it crucial to use keywords that influence AI categorization toward the “primary” tab. Including text elements and alt text in emails will be essential to help AI interpret the message’s relevance.
• Add Live Text and Alt Text in Emails: Avoid image-only emails, as they lack the text AI needs for categorization. Use live text and meaningful alt text to reinforce key messaging and offers within visuals.

7 Surprising New Ways to Increase Opens and Clicks

This session, featuring Guru favorite Nancy Harhut from HBT Marketing, saw Nancy share behavioral science techniques to create more engaging, emotionally-driven emails that boost open and click-through rates. Key tactics shared were:

• Use Emotion in Messaging: People make decisions based on emotions and later justify them rationally. Adding emotional appeals to subject lines and email content can significantly increase engagement, even for B2B audiences.
• Enhance Cognitive Fluency: Our brains favor simple, easy-to-process information. Techniques like alliteration, repetition, and rhyme make content more memorable and trustworthy, boosting recall and engagement.
• Leverage Input Bias: Highlighting the time and effort put into a product or service can increase perceived quality, as people tend to equate more effort with higher value.
• Utilize Temporal Landmarks: Times of transition, like New Year’s, seasonal changes, or the start of the week, serve as "fresh starts" for individuals. Aligning marketing messages with these landmarks increases motivation and receptiveness to new products or ideas.

Inbox Hero: How Much Email Are You Actually Sending?

ASIS' Adam Savino shared insights on effective email marketing strategies, emphasizing the importance of personalization and audience engagement. His key takeaways were:

• Implement and Regularly Monitor DMARC, SPF, and DKIM Records: Setting up domain-based authentication protocols like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM ensures that emails sent from your domain are verified, protecting your brand's email reputation and deliverability. Regularly review and update these configurations with tools like MX Toolbox or Cloudflare to detect and resolve misconfigurations that may impact deliverability.
• Define and Appoint a "Traffic Cop" Role for Email Oversight: Establish a centralized role, such as an email program manager, responsible for overseeing email strategy, list hygiene, and alignment across departments. This role helps streamline email volume, ensures that only relevant emails are sent, and tracks engagement metrics to adjust messaging strategies.

• Segment Audiences for Targeted Engagement: Instead of blasting broad messages, segment your audience based on personas or engagement behavior. This approach reduces email volume and ensures that each message resonates, improving open and click-through rates. Utilize tools within your email platform, like HubSpot, to create and test segmented lists effectively.

totally Epic Tips on How to Grow Your Newsletter 

Alex Liberman, Co-founder of storyarb, featured in a QA-style session where he emphasized that building a successful newsletter starts with solving a specific audience problem, creating high-quality, engaging content, and establishing content market fit before scaling growth. Key takeaways from his session included:

• Establish Content Market Fit Before Pursuing Growth: Before diving into growth strategies, confirm that your newsletter audience is engaged and values your content. Indicators include high open and click-through rates, as well as direct responses from readers. Solicit feedback to gauge if your content meets their needs, and use this data to adjust content strategy before investing in growth.
• Create High-Quality, Engaging Content with Strong Copywriting: Effective newsletter content keeps readers engaged by focusing on high-quality, conversational copy. Use techniques like a “slippery slide” (where each sentence compels readers to continue) and sentence length variability to enhance readability. Avoid clichés and strive for fresh, specific language to maintain reader interest and make your writing memorable.
• Maintain a Balanced and Diversified Channel Strategy: Avoid relying too heavily on a single acquisition channel. As a rule, no more than one-third of your audience should come from one source. As you grow, test and diversify channels while still in a position of strength to ensure sustainable growth without sudden plateaus. Channels like organic social media and cross-promotion can help broaden your reach and reduce dependency on paid channels.

Retaining Customers for Life Using Email Marketing

Dixon Flannel Co.'s Robby Keller highlighted actionable strategies for customer retention, including quality lead generation, personalized segmentation, interactive email tactics, and retention-focused tools to drive long-term customer loyalty and profitability. Insights he shared included:

• Retention is Key for Profit Growth: Increasing customer retention by 5% can boost profits by up to 95%, emphasizing the importance of nurturing and re-engaging existing customers.
• Lead Generation with Quality Offers: To attract new customers, use quality lead magnets, such as exclusive discounts or content offers. Avoid gimmicky tactics and prioritize genuine, value-driven incentives.
• Personalization and Segmentation: Segment customer data based on behavior, interests, and purchase history. Tailored automated flows, like birthday or post-purchase messages, improve retention by delivering timely, relevant content.

• Innovative Engagement Tools: Interactive emails, tools like Klaviyo, and retention software can enhance customer experience, while reactivation campaigns keep disengaged customers in the loop.

25 GREAT Email Marketing Tips

This session, delivered in rapid-fire style by a panel of experts, covered email marketing tips to boost engagement, optimize deliverability, and keep subscribers hooked through innovative strategies and metrics.

• Monitor Email Quality Score: Use the formula 1 - (unsubscribes/unique clicks) to gauge your email quality score. This metric balances positive signals (clicks) with negative signals (unsubscribes) to help adjust content strategy effectively.
• Implement Early Reactivation Campaigns: Don’t wait to re-engage dormant subscribers. Launch reactivation campaigns after a few missed engagements to increase the chances of winning them back.
• Avoid Generic External Benchmarks: Instead of relying solely on industry standards, create internal benchmarks based on your own historical performance for a more accurate measurement of success.
• Use a Snooze Option in Re-Engagement Emails: Adding a “snooze” button allows subscribers to pause emails rather than unsubscribe. This is helpful for seasonal or one-time buyers who may want future messages but not immediately.
• Leverage AMP for Email: AMP enables interactive features within emails, like making purchases, completing surveys, or tracking shipping, which creates a dynamic, website-like experience directly within the inbox.

Ride the AI Breeze to Faster, Smarter Marketing!

After diving into Guru Conference 2024’s ’80s-inspired strategies, it’s time to level up with Orange Marketing’s upcoming Live Session on HubSpot’s new Breeze Content Agent! Join us Thursday, November 21st, for a 30-minute demo where we’ll showcase how HubSpot's new AI tools make content creation effortless—helping you generate high-quality content, repurpose it across formats, and streamline tasks from blog posts to case studies.

Orange Marketing Live Session Demo 👀
📅 November 21, 2024. 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET  

Don’t miss this chance to see Breeze in action—Reserve your spot today!