A day dedicated entirely to emailing, without falling into commercial presentations, with many specialists and ... in Strasbourg! This was the challenge that theClic et Site emailing agency for this email marketing day. And we can say that it was a complete success, doubly complete even insofar as the room reserved by the organizers was too small for everyone and that they were obliged to provide a video replay in the networking area.
More than 150 people gathered for a day dedicated to emailing
As expected, a large part of the audience was made up of service providers, routing platforms, emailing agencies, acquisition platforms, ... But there were still many advertisers present, even if they were probably more shy than the other participants (which is always the case 😉 ).
Is this really a bad thing? Not really, it allows the emailing industry to exchange outside of any "political" framework (which are always a bit the different associations, unions, ...) and to meet for a moment of conviviality (and the Strasbourg setting was perfect for conviviality). On the other hand, many actors were missing, mainly in the world of routing (but not only) who would have undoubtedly taken full advantage of the event.
Two announcements: a feedback loop for SFR, a new label for APMEL
The day was punctuated by 4 main themes: Content, Deliverability, Acquisition and Loyalty. We even had two announcements, the creation by SFR of a feedback loop in collaboration with Signal Spam (on the same model as the Orange feedback loop) and a new label created by APMEL whose members will add a logo in all the acquisition emails sent.
Otherwise, a few lines on the different themes of the day:
- The content We had two presentations on content, and speaking of content, they were mainly about design and integration. The current big trend is of course responsive and its different variants... too bad we didn't put more emphasis on the editorial part and on the creative process issues. The round table that followed was also mainly about the use of email in mobile situations, without much novelty, it seems that everything is said on the subject, now we must move to the practice and know how to surround ourselves with the right specialists.
- Deliverability : For me, this was the richest part of the day! We were treated to two high-level speeches, the first by Jean-Philippe Baert (as president of Signal Spam), who presented Spam barometer and announced the implementation of SFR's feedback loop. And the second by Alain Doustalet (head of Orange's abuse desk) who, without slides, explained what goes on behind the scenes. This talk was a good opportunity to put into perspective the objectives of an ISP with regard to emailing, i.e. to make the use of email as pleasant as possible for its customers.
Finally, we were also treated to a high-level round table on deliverability, with, for example, Jérôme Gays from Delivernow, Sébastien Fisher from Cabestan and Arnaud Clément-Bollée from ExactTarget. The discussion quickly turned to the subject of acquisition, the fact that the footprint of a multi-router campaign can be detected by anti-spam filters, ... in the end, it's the recipient's satisfaction that always comes first! - The acquisition The most polemical part, the practices of the acquisition environment are always a good subject of debate in the emailing world. We had the right to a first intervention of the APMEL managers with notably the arrival of a label federating its members. Then, Frédéric Mouillé gave us a complete reminder of the best practices in B2B2 acquisition. The round table gave us a very animated discussion, the main conclusion of which could be that the different actors present are not really on the same wavelength concerning the role of performance, the role of affiliation platforms, ... there is still a long way to go before the slope is straightened.
- Loyalty Last part of the day with a duet between Bruno Florence (Florence Consultant) and Eric de Bellefroid (Selligent) on the best practices in eCRM, followed by an intervention of Jonhattan da Luz (Inxmail) on the role of a good integration between the various tools that revolve around emailing (ecommerce, CRM, ERP, ...) and finally an intervention of Jerome Blanchon (Hapymails) on personalization. The round table mainly focused on the experience of Tennis.fr and on the means (human and financial) to be put in place. It seems that some advertisers have doubts about the feasibility of all the good practices given when the budget is limited. The main answer is to manage priorities well, and to increase the complexity of eCRM programs at the same rate as the ROI they generate.
An experience to be repeated
Clearly, EMday must survive its first edition! It is exactly the kind of event that will succeed in federating an industry that still has a lot to develop.
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If I had two suggestions for the Clic and Site team for next year:
- Try to get more announcements and concentrate them at a strategic time of day. This would eventually get a little coverage from the tech/marketing press and bring in even more people. Everyone likes to get "Live" announcements.
- Do not try to move the event to Paris "at all costs". A progressive tour of France would allow you to meet local actors/advertisers who don't always have the time to travel. Why not Lille or Lyon for next year, I'm even sure that some locals would be delighted to help you!
Otherwise, congratulations again! And see you next year.
For those who missed it, find here Badsender presentations at EMday.
Note: I know, the picture above is not so good.
