In this week’s interview I’m lucky enough to be talking to email legend Jeanne Jennings.
Jeanne is internationally renowned for her marketing expertise. She’s one of those people that every marketing undergrad aspires to be - a natural born marketer who, despite all her hard and important work, retains a powerful passion for the job.
As we discuss in the interview, Jeanne wears a lot of hats! She’s the Founder and Chief Strategist of Email Optimization Shop, a boutique agency which gives medium to enterprise level businesses the marketing skills they need to succeed.
She’s also the Programming Chair of the annual Email Innovations Summit (at which I’ve had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker!). In addition to this, she is the General Manager of Only Influencers - an online community for email marketers, and one of my favourite corners of the internet. You can find my thoughts all over the Only Influencers blog, along with insightful pieces by other big names in marketing.
As if all this were not enough, she’s also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University in the USA.
All in all, she knows a lot, does a lot, and is much sought after as a public speaker, consultant, and all-round expert in marketing.
So, it was very kind of her to take time out of a very busy schedule to chat with me!
Jeanne and I share a love of email marketing, so it was great to discuss some of the challenges and misconceptions around this much-misunderstood channel. We also delved into the importance of data and testing, the challenges involved in writing a marketing book, and why passion is vital if you’re going to get to Jeanne’s level.
You can watch the interview on the Let’sTalk Strategy YouTube channel or listen via Soundcloud. I’ve added timestamps for the interview down below, so you can easily find your favourite bits again:
- How did you get into marketing? 0:26
- Why we’re so passionate about email marketing. 3:35
- What do your current roles involve? 4:28
- What advice would you give to an aspiring marketeer, or someone who specifically wants to get into email marketing? 07:55
- What do you think are the main challenges to creating an email marketing strategy? 11:00
- The challenges involved in writing a marketing book 😉13:40
- The difficulties in helping companies to understand the importance of strategy 15:45
- What are the main challenges you find when helping clients to implement email marketing? 18:09
- The importance of testing and data. 21:30
- How different emails impact with different audiences. 24:27
- What are the most common pitfalls facing email marketers today, and how can we overcome them? 25:03
- What advice would you give a young marketer starting out today? 28:50
I’d like to give a massive thank you to Jeanne for taking part in this interview with me. If you want to know more about Jeanne, you can find her via the Email Optimization Shop website (linked above), or through LinkedIn.
For the next in my series of interviews, subscribe to the Let’sTalk Strategy Youtube channel or if you prefer listening on the go, to our SoundCloud playlist. Next time, I’m interviewing Tim Bond of the DMA (Data & Marketing Association). He’s got some great insights on how Covid has made us all more customer-centric. Click the notification bell and watch it as soon as it drops!
For more on marketing strategy and how it can transform your business, check out my 5* rated book, ‘Marketing Strategy: Overcome Common Pitfalls and Create Effective Marketing’.
