100 Days of eMS with Selina

From intern
to employee

My story with eworx didn’t exactly start from scratch 100 days ago. Five years ago, I decided to study Marketing and Electronic Business for my bachelor’s degree, followed by a master’s degree in Digital Business Management. So I had known for quite some time that I wanted my career to take me somewhere between marketing and digital business.

I also already knew eworx pretty well. During my studies, I completed two internships here, which gave me the chance to get to know the company, the team, and, of course, the eworx Marketing Suite.

After finishing my master’s degree, I had a decision to make: take a little time off first or jump straight into the next chapter of my career? I chose the eworx adventure. :) After my two internships, I already knew that I felt at home here – so it didn’t take long for me to apply.

What I didn’t know at the time was just how much there was still to learn despite my previous experience – and how differently I would think about newsletter marketing just 100 days later.

Sending your first newsletter
is always a little exciting, isn’t it?

The newsletter is ready. The copy has been checked. All the links work. The target audience is correct. The test email is done. All that’s left is one click.

With my first E-News send, that one click suddenly felt surprisingly exciting. Together with our service team, I went through everything one last time. After all, everything had to be just right. And when newsletters are part of your everyday work, you probably care just that little bit more about making sure no mistakes slip through. ;)

Then the moment finally came. Send. And everything went well.

What I didn’t know at the time was that my previous idea of “text, image, button, done” would quickly turn into a whole lot more questions.

Who do we actually want to reach? Does everyone really need the same content? Which subject line works best? And is sending really the end of the process? I didn’t learn all the answers at once. With every newsletter I sent, I learned a little more.

One newsletter for everyone?
Hard to imagine for me now.

One of the questions that changed the way I think about newsletters the most was actually quite simple: Who am I writing this newsletter for? It sounds obvious. But during my first 100 days, I realized just how much this one question influences everything that follows. Our customers who already use the eMS are interested in different content than people who are just getting to know us and our solutions. And even within these groups, not every topic is relevant to everyone. I saw just how far this can go with one of our WhatsApp campaigns. We tried sending a follow-up message specifically to customers who had previously clicked a certain button. The idea behind it was simple: by clicking, they had already shown interest in a particular topic – so why send everyone the same next message? Situations like this have changed the way I approach communication. Instead of starting with “What do we want to send?”, I now find myself asking much more often: “Who is this content actually relevant to?” And along the way, my understanding of personalization has changed too.

A newsletter needs to do more
than just look good.

I also learned quite a bit about newsletter design during my first 100 days. My previous summary would probably have been: Logo. Nice image. Text. Button. Done.
Today, I pay attention to completely different things. I find myself wondering what happens with a long headline, whether the most important CTA is easy to spot, how everything looks on a smartphone – and, above all, whether the design actually guides readers towards the desired action.
At eworx, we work with individually designed newsletter templates. Working with them every day quickly showed me how much a solid framework takes off my plate. I don’t have to rethink colors, fonts, or individual elements for every send, which means I can focus more on the content and the actual goal of the newsletter.

My learning after 100 days: A good newsletter shouldn’t just look good. It should be practical and help achieve the goal of the campaign.

The few words
I now spend a surprising amount of time thinking about

Subject lines, preview text, and CTAs used to be things I would add once the actual newsletter was finished. Today, I know that these few words can take a surprising amount of time to get right. After all, even the best-looking newsletter won’t achieve much if the subject line doesn’t spark any interest. 
And what starts as a quick “Learn more” can easily turn into five different CTA variations before it’s really clear why clicking is worthwhile. “View benchmark results” or “Discover all tips” simply tells me much more about what to expect after the click.
The good thing is that, at least when it comes to subject lines and the like, I don’t always have to rely on gut feeling. In the eMS, we can A/B test subject lines, preview text, and sender names – and send time optimization helps us find the right time to send as well.

My learning: The few words surrounding a newsletter can sometimes be just as important as the many words inside it.

And then came WhatsApp –
and I sent “Servus Name”

Just when I felt like I was slowly getting a better understanding of newsletters, WhatsApp marketing introduced the next channel. With my first campaigns, I quickly realized that WhatsApp isn’t simply a shorter version of a newsletter. The channel works differently, the messages are more direct, and I have to think even more carefully about what content is relevant at that particular moment. And of course, I wanted to try out the possibilities myself. A personalized greeting, for example. So for my second WhatsApp campaign, I wanted to greet each person using their WhatsApp profile name. As the placeholder text, I entered: Servus [Name].
What could possibly go wrong? Well, there was one thing I hadn’t considered: everyone chooses their own profile name on WhatsApp. So some nicknames ended up in my greeting. And for everyone who hadn’t entered a profile name? Servus [Name].
Not quite the personalized greeting I had in mind. ;)

Shortly afterwards, my colleague explained what had happened and how I could set up the personalization better. (Thanks, Andreas!) But my boss’s reaction stuck with me just as much: “Another lesson learned. And pain is the fastest teacher.” And in the end, that’s exactly what it was: a learning experience. Small mistakes and mishaps don’t just happen to our customers when working with newsletters and WhatsApp campaigns – they happen to us too. For me, the important thing was to understand what had happened and how I could do it better next time.

And there’s one thing I know for sure now: “Name” probably wouldn’t be my first choice as a fallback anymore. ;)

Done?
Not sent yet.

After “Hi Name,” you might think I’d be even more nervous before every send than I was with my first E-News. Luckily, it’s not quite that bad. ;)
By now, I’ve simply turned some of that initial nervousness into a process. Because when I’ve been working on a newsletter for long enough, I eventually stop noticing the little mistakes. I know the text almost by heart. I feel like I’ve checked the link ten times. And at some point, my brain simply fills in a missing letter. That’s why we send a test email to our team before every send. And almost every time, someone spots something. A typo. A phrase that isn’t quite as clear to someone else. A link I should check again. Or simply an idea for how we could make something more concise. Many pairs of eyes really do see more than one. Our service team also supports me with testing. That slight nervousness when clicking “Send” hasn’t disappeared completely, though. To all new customers before their first send: I feel you. :D But maybe a little nervousness is simply part of the process.

Probably my most frequently asked question:
“Can the eMS actually do …?”

I’ve said this sentence quite a lot over the past 100 days. And surprisingly often, the answer is: yes.
Before I started at eworx, “personal support” was mainly a benefit that companies highlighted on their websites. Today, I use it myself. Whenever I have an idea but don’t know how to put it into practice, I explain to our service team what I want to achieve, and they help me make it happen. And the more ideas I come up with, the more I realize just how much is possible with the eMS.
My learning: I don’t need to know every single feature. I need to know what I want to achieve – and who to ask when I need help.

Sending isn’t the end either

For me, clicking “Send” used to clearly mark the end of a newsletter. Today, I’m almost as curious afterwards as I am before sending it. Which content did people click on? What sparked the most interest? Did anything perform differently than expected?
I don’t try to change ten things after every newsletter. Often, one insight is enough. Maybe we’ll try a different subject line next time. Maybe we’ll adjust a CTA. Or perhaps we’ll discover that a particular topic works especially well for a certain target audience.

Our goal: Every newsletter should be a little better than the one before.

So what used to be create → send → done has now become more like idea → target audience → create → test → send → analyze → learn → next newsletter. And then the whole process starts again. With one more lesson learned – and hopefully an even better newsletter.

100 days later:
Do I know how newsletter marketing works now?

Yes. And no. ;)
Of course, I know more today than I did when I sent my first E-News. At the same time, I’m also much more aware of how much there still is to discover. 100 days ago, I probably would have described a newsletter as text, image, button, and send. Today, I think about who we actually want to reach. What content is relevant to that person. Which channel is the right one. What we can try. And what we can learn from one campaign for the next.
So I didn’t start at eworx without knowing what a newsletter was. What I underestimated was just how much can happen between “We need a newsletter” and clicking “Send.” And maybe that’s my biggest learning from these 100 days: I didn’t simply learn how to send a newsletter. I started thinking about newsletters differently.
Does that mean my newsletters are perfect now? Definitely not. ;)
They probably never will be. There’s always something new to try, test, or learn. But maybe they don’t need to be perfect. If the next campaign is a little better than the one before, I’m already on the right track. And I’m pretty sure that over the next 100 days, I’ll show up at our service team with plenty of new ideas. The answer to whether we can make them happen will probably quite often be “Yes” again. ;)