She/her
Email Marketing Content
As the Creative Team Lead over Product Marketing, I had the opportunity to develop content strategy and copy for several email campaigns.
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Here are a few of the more recent ones!
Each email project included:
• Developing the content strategy with the team of marketers and email managers
• Collaborating closely with the design team to create an email that best delivered the message with the customer in mind while supporting business objectives, all within tight deadlines
• QA of the final email creative
Team + Stakeholders
Creative
Creative Team Lead (me!)
Graphic Designer
Art Director
Copy Director
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Marketing
Director of Product Marketing
Sr Product Marketing Managers
Product Marketers
Email Team
Engineering
Retention Engineering Team
Email Project #1: Information Architecture
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Renewal email redesign
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The ask:
Our original renewal email—letting a policyholder know that their policy was renewing as well as their new rate—contained limited information. Over the years, various teams had added information to it, and the marketing team was asking us to introduce additional information into it.
The goal of the email was to:
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Inform the customer of the most pertinent policy information: renewal date and price
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Limit customer support calls by answering the most frequently asked questions in the email
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What I did:
I reconsidered the format and information architecture of the email, in light of the additional content we wanted to include.
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The existing email consisted of a few paragraphs containing a bevy of information for the customer. Rather than simply add the new content to the existing email, I considered the email through the customer lens and what would be the most valuable to them.
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How do I surface the most important information that the customer needs to know?
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How do we make an email that contains a lot of different, useful information to be more scannable and digestible, to ensure the customer can discover the information they may need?
First, I placed the renewal price, renewal date, and payment information at the top of the email in a bulleted form to make them stand out.
I then reorganized the remainder of the informative content—what customers will often call in to customer service to ask about—into a Frequently Asked Questions format. This format allowed for a customer to easily scan and digest the information available to them in the email.
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What does success look like?
The email has only been in production for a short time, but the goal is to provide the information in such a way that customers are able to find and get the information they need, leading to fewer customer service calls. As of now, customer service has not seen any spike in calls as a result of the new email design, and in the future we hope to see reduced call volume related to this email.
Email Project #2: Re-engagement
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Rerating customers with a new, lower quote
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The ask:
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New data and rating systems allowed Root to offer a lower rate to previous potential customers in certain states. We were asked to create a series of 3 emails to inform those customers and encourage them to try Root again and see if they could save—and we only had 3 days to complete the project.
The goal of the email was to:
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Get people who had previously tried Root but had never bound to a) open the email and b) click the CTA to get a new quote
What I did:
First, I considered the audience of this email. Recipients could have tried Root and not bound as recently as 3 months ago or as long as 3 years ago. We may have not been in the consideration set or even thought about again for years, or we may be fresh on someone's mind—who did not like their quote and chose not to bind.
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Considering the wide audience as well as the positive nature of the email, I chose to keep the emails short, sweet, and direct. By keeping it to the point and strictly informational, we wouldn't have to worry about copy or tone that flexed in different ways for people with different feelings about Root.
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I also considered that the notion of getting a lower rate might feel unbelievable, so I included a high level reference to our data, giving people enough information to understand while not providing too many details to as to cause confusion (most people don't want a deep dive into data science...)
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These considerations lent themselves to a simple, straightforward, and minimal email that provided the most valuable information to the customers with an engaging CTA—that could be laid out and completed within our quick timeline.
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For the final email in the series, we included an urgency message to encourage customers to click thru and see their new rate, as we wouldn't be reminding them further.
Subject: Checked your lower rate yet?
Subject: See your new lower rate
Subject: Don't miss out on savings
The results:
Within the first 2 weeks of starting this campaign, we saw an increase of 2,000 incremental binds. This campaign is now going to be utilized for additional lower rerates as we establish them in more states.
Email Project #3: Difficult subject matter
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Re-engaging customers who had their insurance canceled due to non-payment
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The ask:
As with all insurers, we have customers who have their insurance canceled because they did not pay their bill. Our customers may not have paid for a variety of reasons (we've conducted research into pay habits, including bills misaligning with pay day or hardship and having to choose between bills). However, the business decided to test re-engaging these customers and see if they might be interested in getting a new policy with Root, using a 3 series email campaign with push notifications.
The goal of the email and push notifications was to:
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Let previous non-pay cancellation customers know that they could return to Root and get a new policy
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Inform them of the ease of returning
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Remind them of our value props and why they should consider us again
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Challenges
#1. My first challenge was for tone. People who have their insurance canceled have an inherently poor experience that could lead to stressful situations, legal problems, etc. We wanted to avoid the tone of "we miss you" or "we want you back," because we were the ones who chose to cancel their insurance. It would be tone deaf and disingenuous.
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So, I opted for a more neutral stance, leading with the value prop of ease. If they wanted to come back, hey, it's easy. Don't want to come back? Hopefully these emails don't leave a bad taste in your mouth.
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#2. I needed to differentiate this email from the campaign that is sent to the same audience directly before it—the Reinstatement email series. Anyone who no longer has insurance with Root has 30 days to reinstate their policy from their day of cancellation (get back the same policy they had at the same rate), regardless of why their insurance was canceled. This email series, however, needed to convey that this was not a reinstatement, and that even though they did not need to retake their test drive, they would still have to build and purchase a new policy at a new rate.
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I chose to be straightforward so as to avoid any confusion, directly stating that they could not reinstate their previous policy. It was important that this was clear for the customer.
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#3 Finally, I had to advocate for increased transparency in the first email of the series. If someone loses their insurance because they didn't pay and wants to come back, they first have to pay the balance of what they still owe. Marketing preferred to not share that information in the email—their goal was to get people to click on the CTA, and they considered it product's job to inform the customer of the balance due. I wrote copy that would make this transparent in the email, wanting to inform the customer of all the important considerations upfront and avoid them feeling like we had tricked them. Product and I fought for transparency, and marketing ultimately agreed to include the line in the email.
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Email 1
Transparency we fought for
Email 3
Email 2
Push notifications
