Category: Marketing Automation

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In the fourth post of our Demystifying Deliverability series, we take a look at Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection feature and the effects it has on email deliverability. To catch up on the rest of the series, check out our posts on ramping up your email marketing, bot clicks, and BIMI.
The 2021 email marketing busy season is upon us. Holiday decor is going up, and, just as rapidly, email marketers are sending Black Friday offerings to their subscribers. 
As is normal for this time of the year, global email traffic will increase over the coming weeks. And with that, mailbox providers will be under strain to manage the surge in volume. 
It can be a stressful time for email marketers, and Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) has added an extra layer of complexity. Not knowing the full effects of this feature on email deliverability can cause serious concern among email senders.
But fear not for fear is the mind killer! In this article, we will examine the email ecosystem, what’s changed in light of MPP, and the factors that affect your deliverability this holiday season.
A quick overview of the email ecosystem
To win the very competitive inbox game (especially at this time of the year), we need to know the rules of email and the other players in the game.
For simplicity’s sake, we will consider the four main players.

The Sender: the individual or organization sending the emails

The Email Service Provider (ESP): the service, like Campaign Monitor, used to send emails

The Mailbox Providers (MBPs): the service, like Gmail or Yahoo, that provide individuals or organizations with a mailbox to receive their emails

The Subscriber: the individual that receives the email

Subscribers hold the power
In October 2021, an average of over 90 billion spam emails were sent every day. It is the MBP’s responsibility to protect its users and reduce the risk of unwanted and unsafe emails landing in the inbox. This is why MBPs use strict anti-spam filters to protect their users.
MBPs rely on their users, and how they interact with an email, to train their anti-spam filters on how to treat future emails from that same sender. In fact, user engagement and sender reputation are the most influential factors for inbox placement.

The more subscribers interact and engage with an email — which MBPs call “positive signals” — the more emails from that sender will make it to the inbox. And the less engaged an audience is with emails from a particular sender, the more likely they’ll filter those emails into the spam folder (or block them entirely).
These positive and negative signals help make up your domain’s sender reputation. And a domain can have different reputations at different MBPs, too. Meaning, Gmail might score things somewhat differently than Yahoo, so your domain can have a slightly different sender reputation for each. It’s less of a single, universal score, and more of a combination of many factors.
That said, since engagement is the most weighted factor for deliverability, it’s essential for marketers to put user engagement and subscriber experience at the front and center of their marketing strategies.
It’s also important—particularly in this season of heavy sending—to monitor your delivery and engagement metrics for each MBP regularly. This way, you’ll know if you’re having issues reaching any particular inboxes.
How does iOS 15 affect email deliverability?
In September 2021, Apple released iOS 15 to the public, and with it, a new privacy feature called Mail Privacy Protection.
We’ve gone deep into detail on MPP here, but the quick summary of the feature is this:
MPP obscures senders’ ability to track open rates, meaning the future of open rates, and the use of this metric to measure success, is changing in real-time.
This feature caused a huge stir in the email world (and understandably so!). Since its announcement earlier in the summer, marketers have been preparing for MPP and its effects on email.
That said, we’re still learning how deeply the effects of this feature are going to play out. Though iOS 15 has been available for a couple of months now, adoption is still relatively low. 
That being the case, it’s difficult to predict what impact, if any, MPP will have on this holiday season. Even if adoption was higher, it’s important to remember that, just because a user opts into MPP, doesn’t mean MBPs will treat incoming emails differently. In a real sense, deliverability has not changed with the release of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection.
What it does mean, though, is that you’ll have to change the way you view engagement when monitoring your delivery and engagement metrics.
MBPs still use the same signals to determine how to filter incoming emails. And senders still need to comply with email rules and follow best practices. To stay on top of your deliverability this holiday season, make sure you do the following:

Get clear opt-in when collecting your list. Sending to a fully opted-in list means higher engagement. Which, in turn, shows more positive user activity to the MBP.

Manage and segment your lists. Sending to active subscribers means more engagement and more inbox placement. Sending to an old and unused list means lower open rates, higher bounce rates, and more spam complaints—all of which are negative signals to the MBP.

Focus on list hygiene. Permission to send emails isn’t evergreen, and monitoring list hygiene is an ongoing process. If a subset of a list has poor engagement metrics, consider trying to re-engage that particular group. And if that doesn’t work, feel free to say goodbye to the dormant contacts altogether. 

Wrap up
Senders still have time to review their marketing programs and prepare for the holiday season. Even if your holiday programs have already begun, it’s still not too late to follow these deliverability best practices.
Be sure to check out our Ultimate Guide to Holiday Email Marketing in 2021 as well. It’s full of useful tips for marketers who will be ramping up their email output for the next couple of months.
And, as always, make sure to engage with your audience with honesty, respect, and clear communication. Do those things, and you’ll make it through this season just fine.
The post What Does iOS 15 Mean for Email Deliverability? appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Will LinkedIn sales navigator (or similar tool) allow you to search by people who are members of certain groups? I want to build two lead lists based on two groups. One I’m a member of, so I could figure out a way to scrape it. The other is private and I’m not a member of it… are there any paid products that would give you access to the list?
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A very famous Cheshire cat once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”
Alright, maybe Lewis Carroll is actually the one that penned that quote, but it’s true nonetheless, and good advice for life and business.
As a leader, you have expectations for your team. You want to see a specific level of performance and efficiency, but have you ever been clear about exactly what success looks like?
If goals and desired outcomes are not communicated to employees, they can’t possibly meet your expectations. This leads to micromanaging or helicopter-managing and instills the belief in your employees that you do not trust them or their ability to achieve results. Over time, this breeds resentment erodes job satisfaction and increases the rate of turnover as employees go off in search of greener pastures.
If you’ve seen this situation occur multiple times throughout your organization, it’s time to look at your leadership style. Do you provide your employees with the knowledge and the skills they need, and clearly communicate what you want to see?
If not, it’s not too late. Shift your mindset and company culture to management by objectives and watch your employees step up to the challenge.
What is management by objectives?
The term “management by objectives” (MBO) may be new to your vocabulary, but it’s certainly not a new concept. MBO is one approach managers use to get the most out of their employees. It involves creating a series of concrete goals for an employee to accomplish for the betterment of the organization.

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What is the purpose of management by objectives?
MBO ensures that employees receive clear communication regarding their roles and responsibilities, and they understand the role they play in the overall health of the organization. It not only helps them get clear on what’s expected of them but also gives them a sense of purpose as they take ownership of how they impact the rest of the organization and help meet its mission.
Businesses that operate in silos where from one department to another, people don’t know what anyone else is working on, have a lower chance of succeeding. Employees can easily become disheartened when they can’t see the larger picture. Management by objectives aims to break down these walls for great transparency across organizations.
Management by Objectives Advantages and Disadvantages
Just like any management style, there are pros and cons to management by objectives. Let’s take a closer look:
Advantages of Management by Objectives

Employees can understand and appreciate their individual impact on the company as a whole.
Expectations are clearly communicated and based on Key Result Areas (KRAs) tailored to each employee.
Employees understand what success looks like and what they have to accomplish to reach it.
Teamwork improves and finger-pointing decreases. Employees know their responsibilities and tasks are less likely to fall through the cracks.
Employees feel essential and indispensable to the organization as they each perform a unique task.

The Disadvantages of Management by Objectives

It’s possible for managers to rely too much on MBO and a management style. While it can revolutionize your organization, it has its limitations and is not always appropriate.
With goals and objectives overemphasized, non-measurable aspects of the work environment (like teamwork, positive customer interactions, etc.) may become less practiced and valued.
With a constant focus on numbers and metrics, employees may feel anxious about their performance which could make things worse.

As you can see, management by objectives can help your organization move in the right direction, however, it is not a cure-all for every challenge your organization may face. Let’s take a closer look at how to utilize this leadership style for optimum effectiveness.
How To Incorporate Management by Objectives Into Your Organization
Like everything in life, it helps to have a plan before you dive in. Let’s review how to implement MBO in your own company.
Management by Objectives Steps
Define Your Goals
What would you like to see the organization as a whole achieve, and during what time period? These goals should be shared with everyone in your organization.
Create and Communicate Employee Goals
How do your employee’s responsibilities play into the goals of the organization? This will allow you to create specific goals and objectives for them to meet.
Monitor Their Performance and Progress
Review your employees’ performance on a regular basis. Are they hitting whatever numbers you’ve assigned them? Are they steadily working towards a larger goal?
Assess Their Performance
It’s good to know where your employees stand, however, it’s even more important to communicate how they’re doing with them. Without regular performance reviews, your employees can’t gauge how they are performing and if changes need to be made.
Provide Feedback
If employees are doing well, let them know. You may wish to do this privately or publicly to congratulate them and inspire others. If they are not meeting your expectations, provide this feedback privately so as not to demean them in front of their colleagues. You will also need to give them steps to take to improve their performance.
If they’re not reaching their goals, this may be because those goals have not been properly communicated, or because they don’t have the right tools to do what’s expected. Have a conversation to assess if either of these factors is at play, and then do whatever is necessary to remedy the situation.
When you follow these steps, you can implement a successful culture of management by objectives and see an improvement in your team’s performance. This works for a sales environment, as well as customer service, or any other department in an organization.
Management by Objectives Examples
If this sounds like something you’d like to try, you may be wondering what are some examples of objectives that you could set. While specific objectives may differ depending on your industry, product, and specific company, there are some blanket objectives that you can begin with. While any department can use MBO, we’ll take a look at 3 specific instances.
Sales MBO examples

Decrease the sales cycle to 2 months
Increase the average sales to $10,000
Bring in 15 new customers

Marketing MBO Examples

Increase social media likes by 40%
Increase time spent on the website by 5 minutes
Generate 500 new leads per month
Get 5 media placements

Customer Service BMO Examples

Decrease call time to under 5 minutes
Increase customer satisfaction by 30%
Reduce manager call intervention by 10%

Human Resources MBO Examples

Improve retention rate by 15%
Implement a leadership training program for remarkable employees
Increase employee satisfaction by 30%

When it’s time to inspire your team and breathe new life into your organization, consider incorporating management by objectives into your company culture. You may be surprised how well your employees take to this new system and once they understand your expectations they’re in a better position to meet or exceed them.

Career objectives are a topic of hot debate in the resume space. Certain career experts say they’re outdated. Others claim they give hiring managers a quick glance at your top attributes and experiences.
Whether you call it a personal branding statement, experience overview, or resume objective, a career objective statement is still relevant. That’s because a well-crafted objective lets hiring managers learn about your skills, personality, and career highlights from the first look.

That’s if a hiring manager even makes it to your resume, of course. With an increasingly competitive pool of candidates, HR teams often rely on technology to help sort resumes and select candidates for the next hiring stage. Algorithms pick and choose people based on keywords, often prioritizing optimized language over someone who may be the best fit for the job.
But there are ways to ensure your career objective works for you, instead of against you. Let’s look at what a career objective is and how to make yours meet today’s resume standards.
What is a Career Objective?
A career objective is a succinct paragraph that summarizes your professional experiences, skills, and goals. It is usually two to three sentences long and sits at the top of your resume, under your name and contact information.

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Your career objective is one of the first pieces of information hiring managers will see when scanning your resume, so it has to stand out. You can do this in several ways, like tailoring the objective to the role you’re applying for, adding top keywords, and highlighting relevant skills. The result should be a concise summary that’s clear, actionable, and compelling. Bonus if it hints at your personality.
But what does that look like? Here are the steps you can follow to craft a great career objective for any role.
How to Write a Career Objective
1. Understand the job description.
It’s easy to copy and paste information for your career objective from a job description. But to show originality and thought, you have to understand what a hiring manager truly wants.
Do this by looking for the most in-demand skills or characteristics for the role. These are often listed within the job description under a section labeled “Required Skills” or “Core Responsibilities.” You can find the right skills or traits to include by cross-referencing the list to any additional descriptions about the company or position.
If you can tell it’s a fast-paced work environment, for example, the ability to multi-task and develop efficient processes are good skills to highlight within your career objective.
It’s also important to consider the job-specific software you may need for a position. For technical roles like SEO Marketing Managers, tools such as Ahrefs, Google Analytics, or DeepCrawl are needed to perform audits and analysis. Make sure to note the software requirements so you can reference one or two in your objective.
Here’s a sample job description for a Growth Marketing Manager in the foodservice industry that shows both the software requirements and the company personality.

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Once you comb through the job description, create a list of the top 10 traits and skills you want to include in your statement. You may not use all of them, but it’s good to have options as you write.
2. Know your value.
If you’re deep in the job hunt, you can probably recite your strengths in your sleep. Instead, write down the specific ways you add value to your list of skills and traits.
These can include your strengths, degrees, licenses, or certifications. It’s also worth mentioning any strong connections you have, such as working for top-tier clients or experience speaking at industry events. Just make sure the experience is relevant to the company, industry, and role.
Let’s say you’re applying to a Community Marketing Manager position and have a proven track record of running an ambassador program. The company wants candidates with experience leading teams and implementing community programs.
You can highlight your value by including a statement like this in your career objective: “Experience developing an ambassador program that elevated diverse voices and united micro-communities into one passionate group.”
Again, look to the job description to understand how you can most add value to the company.
3. Keep it concise.
A career objective should be no more than three sentences. Your resume still needs to include your work experience, core skills, education, volunteer experience, and certifications.
Write a draft of your career objective using the list you created in steps one and two. Your first few drafts may be more than three sentences. That’s okay. Try to remove any excessive language, like “that,” “a,” “the.” And don’t worry too much about using complete sentences (see more on this in the examples below).
Here’s what a career objective should, and should not, look like for a growth marketer role:

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If you get stuck, have a trusted friend, colleague, or mentor review the statement. They may be able to offer feedback and correct any errors. You want it to be absolutely perfect, so it’s helpful to have one or more pairs of eyes review your work.
How to Write an Objective for a Career Change
You may be comfortable writing a career objective for a field you have experience in. But what if you’re changing careers?
The goal when writing this type of career objective is to tie your previous experience into your desired role as much as possible. This requires you to draw connections between your past work and your new career. Let’s look at an example, where the candidate is aiming to transition from an accounting career to one in marketing.

The candidate uses the career objective to explain their career switch and draw attention to their analytical skills – a must-have in many marketing careers. If you want to make the switch to marketing, check out this list of in-demand technical skills to get ideas for your career objective.
Career Objective Examples
Every role has distinct requirements, and your career objective needs to reflect those differences. Look to the following examples for inspiration when writing your statement. But remember to change up your career objective based on the position and company.
Lifecycle Marketing Manager
Data-savvy lifecycle marketing manager with seven years of experience crafting omnichannel customer journeys. Have successfully built customer programs that increased loyalty by 25% using best practices for lifecycle frameworks and communication strategies. Strong analytical skills and familiarity with various ESP and CRM software.
Communications Specialist
Highly creative communications specialist who excels in collaborative, fast-paced environments. Over the past four years, I’ve coordinated and refined content for marketing industry leaders to ensure company narratives are compelling and accurate. Experience managing content libraries, social media platforms, and internal newsletters.
Senior Brand Strategist
Creative lead with a knack for developing strong client relationships and innovative branding strategies. Over 10 years of experience crafting strategic marketing plans that have led to 45% growth in clients’ brand awareness. Excellent communicator and coordinator with the ability to foster long-term partnerships while ensuring teams stay on track.
Communications Manager
Proactive global communications manager with 11 years of experience developing and executing strategic communications programs for fintech companies. Skilled at media pitching, evolving core narratives, managing external partners, and overseeing complex technology communications. Looking to guide teams on best practices for translating complex narratives into compelling content that attracts audiences.
Director of Content Marketing and Strategy
An empathetic leader with 15+ years of experience managing high-growth content and editorial teams for Fortune 100 clients. Passionate about building data-driven content strategies that simplify complex messaging to engage audiences and meet business goals. Seeking an environment that challenges assumptions to drive customer acquisition through best-in-class editorial strategies.
Now, it’s time to write a career objective that showcases your skills. If you follow the steps above, keep it original, and reference the job description, your objective is likely to wow hiring managers – and hopefully, help you move on to the next stage in the hiring process.

People often think of LinkedIn as the place to go for personal career growth but it can also be an incredible resource for growing your company. Especially if you’re a small business owner whose personal brand is closely linked to your company mission, LinkedIn shouldn’t be ignored as part of your social media strategy.
I sat down with a few founders to learn more about how LinkedIn has transformed their businesses. Read on to hear their stories, see their results, and learn the strategies you can start implementing today.
Quick note: Before you get started with these strategies I recommend you audit your LinkedIn profile to ensure it’s accurate and compelling. It won’t take much time and it can go a long way!
Building Thought Leadership
While other social channels are typically reserved for building your company’s brand, LinkedIn provides a unique opportunity for you to grow a personal following—that can, in turn, support your brand’s recognition. This is especially true when your individual thought leadership aligns closely with the mission of your company.
When Sherrell Dorsey started the digital news and insights platform The Plug, she knew she wanted it to be seen as the leading voice in the Black innovation economy—and she wanted her voice to be in the mix as well. She turned to LinkedIn to share the work she was doing and lessons she was learning a couple of times per week.
Sherrell Dorsey, Founder and CEO of The PlugThe results were shocking: “Just a few months later, the kind of engagement I received was insane. And then just a few months after that, I was named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Technology.”
This recognition has helped give Dorsey and her company more leverage when it comes to PR outreach and speaking opportunities. “There’s a little street cred to it. I think folks come across my profile and they see that I’m a LinkedIn Top Voice, so I must be legit,” she says.
She’s continued to double down on her LinkedIn strategy—adding LinkedIn Live conversations into the mix—because she’s noticed how demonstrating her passion ultimately boosts her company’s brand, too. “It’s been a way for people to see me, see the work, see the authenticity, and then make a decision that they want to engage with this brand based off of what they’ve seen me post or share on LinkedIn,” she says.
Connecting With Industry Leaders They May Otherwise Have Never Met
Social media is great for connecting with new people, regardless of where they’re based. But many entrepreneurs share that LinkedIn has been especially valuable in this respect. In a post-COVID world where conferences and gatherings are less common, LinkedIn is a powerful platform for finding peers to serve as sounding boards, mentors to learn from, and even future customers from afar.
Sheena Russell, founder and CEO of Made With Local, loves the fact that her company operates out of the relatively remote city of Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada. However, she shares, “In certain circumstances, it can feel isolating to not be where the action is.”
Sheena Russell, Founder and CEO of Made with Local Thanks to a strategy of sharing some behind-the-scenes action and reflections on her life as a CPG (consumer packaged goods) entrepreneur on LinkedIn, Russell has grown her network far beyond what would be possible locally. “With LinkedIn, I am personally connected to huge CPG founders and people who are running brands I really admire,” she says.
Beyond helping Russell and her team feel more connected and giving them the chance to learn from the best in the business, Russell expects these far-reaching connections will prove valuable as Made With Local sets its sights on expanding into the U.S. and beyond.
“It’s a really great way for us to start building a name for ourselves in the international CPG and natural food and beverage community that will serve us down the line when it’s time for us to finally start selling into those markets,” she says. “By that point, I will hopefully have shown up on the feeds of lots of other CPG founders and people from the States, so they’ll be somewhat familiar with the brand.”
Meeting Clients
Many social media platforms seem like a fun diversion—but do they actually help small businesses make money? The answer for LinkedIn—especially for companies in B2B or career-related industries—is a resounding yes. According to the Content Marketing Institute, LinkedIn is the top paid and organic channel for B2B businesses.
Latesha Byrd, CEO of talent development agency Perfeqta, has seen this firsthand. Back in 2015, before founding her company and while she was still working a full-time job, she started using LinkedIn Profinder (now called LinkedIn Services Marketplace) to advertise her career coaching services and find her early clients. “That essentially tripled the amount of revenue I was bringing in for my business, and in about six months I was able to leave corporate America,” she says.
Latesha Byrd, CEO of PerfeqtaEven today, as Perfeqta has established itself on other platforms, LinkedIn continues to be a powerful driver of clients. “One of my current retainer clients—a tech startup that we created a talent acquisition framework and did some diversity and inclusion roadmapping for—found me on LinkedIn and reached out,” Byrd notes.
Although not every new connection will lead to an immediate sale, putting yourself out there on LinkedIn can be a powerful way to build a pipeline of potential clients. “After my last LinkedIn Live, someone who works in diversity recruiting at a really great company reached out to ask for the inclusive recruitment guide I mentioned,” Byrd says. That LinkedIn Live has since been viewed almost 30,000 times.
The best part is that all of these business owners agree that LinkedIn requires less intense curation and content creation than many other social platforms. Post consistently a few times per week, engage with people in your world, and don’t hesitate to share your story authentically. With those three steps, you’re well on your way to building a strong LinkedIn strategy—and growing your business in all kinds of incredible new ways.

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Email subject lines can make the difference on whether or not your email gets opened, or even noticed, in a crowded inbox. See what it takes to craft great ones time and time again in this post.

In any relationship, your opening line sets the tone for what’s to follow and emails are no different. Your subject line communicates your email’s value to the recipient and encourages them to read further and, potentially, to engage with your brand on a deeper level by responding to your call to action (CTA).
A poor subject line is more than just bad: It can contribute to your email being marked as spam, dinging your reputation with your customer and search engines. In fact, 69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line.
Even if your subscribers don’t report an email as spam, people typically look to the subject line to determine whether or not to open the email at all. And even in a post-MPP world where open rate tracking is less reliable, you should still be following subject line best practices.
Clever, attention-getting email subject lines can increase engagement and keep your emails where they belong — in the inboxes of your prospects and customers. That’s why it’s important to focus on your subject lines as an important part of your email marketing campaigns, instead of leaving them as a last-minute item to be completed right before you hit send.
In this post, we’re going to give you some email subject line best practices, and show you some examples of subject lines that really work.

How to write your best email subject lines
Before we look at some specific examples of great email subject lines, let’s review what goes into making a subject line that resonates with the recipient.
To stay on target, you must:
1. Get the length right
You’ll need to do some testing to determine the optimal length for your customer base, but guidelines show that the sweet spot is a subject line that’s between 6 and 10 words in length.
A few more words or a few less doesn’t won’t adversely affect your results too much, but too many words (over 20) or no words at all will cause a problem.
2. Exclude the word “newsletter”
Do not, under any circumstances, use the word “newsletter” in the subject line of your email. Statistics show that email open rates go down by almost 19% when this word appears in the subject line.
That’s typically because people think of traditional newsletters as boring rather than full of valuable content, as yours will be. So, even if you are, indeed, sending a newsletter, don’t mention that. Mention the value content packed inside the email itself.
3. Use A/B testing
One great way to make sure the subject line you craft is a winner is to conduct A/B testing over a few variations of subject lines. You can test word length, humorous tone versus something more to the point, word choice, or any other number of factors.
Once you’ve seen what type of subject line your audience likes and responds to most, you’ll be on your way to the best opens and engagement you’ve seen from an email marketing campaign yet.
4. Avoid spammy words, special characters, and SHOUTING
You want to keep your sender reputation pristine, and that means staying out of the spam folder. Nothing says “spam” to email recipients and internet service providers more than special characters (#%*@) and messages in ALL CAPS. At best, these will earn you an unsubscribe. More commonly, they’ll end up right in the spam folder.
Some commonly used spam words include:

Apply now
Auto email removal
Billion
Cash bonus
Cheap
Compare rates
Credit
Double your income
Earn $
Earn extra cash
Eliminate debt
Explode your business
Extra income
F r e e
Fast cash

Avoid the most common spam words and you’ll keep your subject lines out of trouble and your email out of the spam folder.
Oh, and don’t use too many exclamation points, either.
5. Consider all the options
There are many ways to approach email subject lines, from short and sweet, to personal, to keyword-specific, and more. Determine which of the many choices most closely fits your brand’s personality and your audience’s preferences and then craft away.
Some typical types of subject lines include:

Urgent
List
Controversial
Trending topic
Scarcity
How-to
Question
Local
Clever/catchy
Personal
Short and sweet
Sneak peek
Offer
Statistics
Command
Keyword

Explanations on how to craft each and every one of these can be found here.
6. Don’t shy away from emojis
When emojis were first introduced, it may have been pretty controversial to include them in an email subject line, but those days are long gone.
Time and time again, studies find that using emojis in subject lines is likely to higher open rates, and savvy email marketers are taking advantage of this.
You’ll want to be careful with how you use them, though. Too many emojis can come across as spammy, and depending on the tone of the email itself (like a transactional email, for example), they might be inappropriate.
You’ll also want to test your emojis across email clients and mobile devices as well, as they may render differently across each.
But, as long as you use them with caution and make sure they fit with the overall tone of your email and brand, emojis can be a great addition. And for a deep dive into emoji best practices, be sure to head here!
7. Remember to add preview text
If your email’s subject line acts as the title of your email, then the preview text is like the subtitle. It’s that small bit of text after the subject line that displays in your email subscriber’s inbox before they click into the email.
If you don’t customize your preview text, it’ll just pull from the beginning of your email. This is fine, but if you really want to make your email the best it can be, try to add some preview text that gives your email extra value.
Preview text gives you extra space to play off of your subject line, tease the email content, and capture your subscriber’s attention — make sure you make the most of it!
Good email subject lines are good on their own, but great email subject lines have preview text that plays along with them.
7 great email subject line examples and best practices
Now that we’ve walked through the basics and given you plenty of references to whip up subject lines of your own, let’s take a closer look at some examples, and the subject line best practices that make them work.
1. Make them timely
Giving subscribers information they need when they need it helps boost open rates and email marketing success, as these subject lines show.

Image: StudioJPilates
These four newsletter subject lines prove that timeliness is important when bringing information to subscribers. None of these subject lines are over-the-top clever, but they all performed well because the recipients wanted to receive the information offered.
Automation is key to delivering the right messages at the right time. Simple automation sequences like a welcome email series or an abandoned cart email are some of the most high-performing emails you can send because they happen when you have the reader’s attention.
2. Make them specific
Sharing location-specific information tells your subscribers you’re paying attention to them.

Most people have an innate curiosity about events in their local area, so using email subject lines like these can garner more clicks.
3. Use your numbers
Sometimes numbers speak louder than words because they make information quick and easy to digest.
Take a look at this example:

Image: Newoldstamp
Not only does that subject line offer a clear benefit to the recipient, but it also has an actual person sending it. Having a person’s name in the sender field rather than the email looking like it came from an impersonal company or batch name increases the chances your newsletter will be opened and read.
4. Use targeted subject lines for segmented audiences
Segmented email campaigns achieve 760% more revenue than those that are just blasted out to your entire email list.
You can break your audience into groups based on any number of factors, including:

Geographical location
Age
Gender
Industry
Buying habits
Hobbies
Employment

Of course, you can use your email marketing to accomplish this task and then craft laser-focused email subject lines to wow your segmented groups and make it more likely that they open emails.
Some great examples of subject lines that appeal to highly targeted audience segments include:
Image: Mequoda
Delving deep into the interests and pain points of your audience will help your marketing team develop subject lines that pique curiosity and boost open rates.
If you’re doing a really good job of segmentation, you may be able to send email subject lines like the following:

Image: Yelpwifi
Being able to let customers know you appreciate their patronage is invaluable. And if you’re able to send them a personalized subject line, it’ll catch their attention immediately.
5. ‘Tis the season
The holidays are a great time to send an email newsletter because people are looking for holiday savings as well as gift ideas.
Here’s a list of fantastic holiday-themed ideas for your subject line this season:
Image: Mequoda
To show how easy it is to incorporate these buzzwords in your next campaign, check out this next example:

Image: Mequoda
If you combine these subject lines with personalization and segmentation within your content, your results will be even better.
6. Surprise them
Who doesn’t love a surprise? One great way to increase your newsletter open rate is to hint at a surprise inside.
You can use your subject line as a teaser:

Image: StudioJPilates
Or, you can give a bigger hint, like letting subscribers know what kind of content they’re going to receive in your newsletter:

Image: SearchEngineLand
Giving your audience little treats like 3D content, infographics, guides, and floor plans make opening up your newsletter like opening a gift,  a great way to increase your value in their eyes.
7. And finally, FOMO
FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a great way to get subscribers invested in opening your email newsletter.

Image: Yelpwifi
The greater sense of urgency you can deliver with your subject line, the more likely subscribers will be to want to see what your brand has in store for them. Terms like “last chance”, “expiring”, or “limited time” are great for inspiring urgency, particularly among eCommerce businesses who are sending an offer along.
Just be sure to deliver what your tagline promises. Opening an “urgent” email to discover there’s no real urgency in the email body will backfire on your marketing campaign and leave your audience annoyed. You might see a solid open rate, but your click-through rates and customer experience will suffer.
Wrap up
Few mediums in the digital marketing landscape are as personal as email. It’s a perfect channel for building trust and confidence between your subscribers and your brand. Giving your subscribers information they need and want will help position your business as the go-to for value, whether that value is in the form of content, products, or services.
To get to that point in your relationship with subscribers, however, you need to get your content in front of your subscribers. That means getting it past the quick inbox skim that most people do when managing their daily overload of emails.
While writing a basic subject line can be relatively easy, crafting one that amps up the opens and gets your material read again and again is a bit trickier.
We’ve given you a whole batch of high-performing, high-quality email subject lines that can serve as inspiration for your next email marketing campaign to help your email newsletter find pride of place as an inbox regular.
Editor’s note: this post was updated for accuracy and freshness in November 2021.
The post Email Subject Line Tips and Best Practices for 2022 (with Examples!) appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

To determine what causes employees to leave — and to create a better, happier employee experience moving forward — it’s critical you conduct productive exit interviews.
In this post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about exit interviews, plus the best questions you should ask. We’ll also go over an exit interview form template that you can copy and paste into a document and reuse for future interviews.

What is the purpose of an exit interview?
The purpose of exit interviews is to get valuable insight from employees who are leaving your company. When conducted correctly, these interviews tell you what, if anything, could improve about your company culture. You’ll then be able to improve moving forward and drastically reduce employee turnover.
Why are exit interviews important?
According to a study conducted by The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), on average it costs a company between six to nine months of an employee’s salary to locate and train a replacement for them. So if the employee who’s leaving makes 60K, that can work out to anywhere between 30K and 45K in recruiting and training costs.
Undoubtedly, a high turnover rate can hurt your company financially. Additionally, a high turnover rate can lead to less productive teams, and lower employee morale overall.
Luckily, you can reduce turnover rate by using the feedback you get from exit interviews. Many employees who are leaving can help you determine areas for improvement and provide valuable feedback. Additionally, it can be helpful to identify consistent patterns of discontent to figure out larger organizational issues.
For instance, let’s say you hire a new marketing director, and a year later, you see a severe increase in turnover rates. Out of 15 employees, only seven from the prior year remain. Undoubtedly, this change impacts your team’s productivity and morale, and leave you nervous about the future of your department.
So how do you figure out what’s going wrong, or how your marketing director can improve their performance to ensure higher job satisfaction for their team?
The answer is conducting an exit interview for every person who’s leaving. You’ll find out what your marketing director is doing wrong and help them improve in their leadership role.
You’ll also improve morale because you’ll show employees that you care about their experience. You’re not just letting people leave — you want to know why they’re leaving and stop anyone else from doing the same thing.
To ensure you’re asking the right questions during exit interviews, take a look at the questions you should ask below and what to look for in an answer.
1. How long have you been considering leaving our company?
This is a simple question that will tell you whether this was a rash decision or a decision that happened over time. If it seems sudden, then it was likely caused by a certain event, and you’ll be able to better tailor your questions to get to the motive behind the employee’s decision.
What to Look For
Look for a time range. A year versus a month is a big difference. Determine whether any major company changes happened at the time they considered leaving — an acquisition, a change in management, and so forth.
2. How did the job match expectations?
The job may have perfectly met the employee’s expectations, or maybe it wasn’t exactly what they were looking for when they were thinking about the next step in their career. Regardless, this question will help you determine where you could be clearer in your job postings and in your company image.
What to Look For
Listen for “I thought I would be doing more of X” or “I was looking more of an X type of company.” This will help you better refine your job postings and the way you represent your business online. If an employee was looking to work at a startup and you’re an enterprise firm, you’ll want to screen future candidates for these expectations.
3. What reason primarily describes your reason for leaving?
Was it a change in lifestyle, a career change, or a better opportunity elsewhere? While the last option may seem like the most common and useful answer, a change in lifestyle — such as becoming a stay-at-home parent — could tell you where else you could improve.
For instance, you could offer paid parental leave so that your employees no longer have to choose between their jobs and their children. Or if they’re switching careers, you could offer more interdepartmental mobility to current employees, so they don’t feel stuck in one role.
What to Look For
Dig into the specific reason for their leaving without letting the employee dive into anecdotes or frustrations. Focus on what attracted them to the new opportunity, new career, or new lifestyle, and use those answers to figure out what you could offer your current employees.
4. If you have accepted a new position, what is most attractive about your new role?
This is a fantastic follow-up to the last question if the employee has already accepted an offer elsewhere. It also helps you dig further into what convinced them to leave the company and see where, if anywhere, you may fall short.
What to Look For
Listen for standard answers such as “pay,” “benefits,” “industry,” and “location.” Only note those that you can improve. For instance, you can’t really move offices or change your industry.
5. What did you like most about your job?
Give yourself a chance to breathe — and your employee, too — by focusing on the positives. That way, you don’t accidentally overhaul the things that work. If the employee answers that they loved the people they worked with, for instance, continue attracting top talent to your firm.
What to Look For
Listen specifically for the people aspect and the project management aspect of this answer. If the employee loved the projects they were working on or the people in their team, you’re doing the core things well. If they only mention surface-level things, such as the snacks or the free parking, you’ll want to revise your recruiting strategy.
6. What did you dislike about your job? What would you change about your job?
This is your opportunity to truly dig into what prompted the person to leave as it pertains to their role. Employees will likely “skirt around” the true reason here — or they may launch into an anecdote. Either way, listen carefully, and remember that this is only one employee’s experience. Only when you see repeated patterns do you need to take action, which is why it’s important to ask the same questions every time.
What to Look For
Search for answers that allude to the people in the team, because as the old saying goes, people don’t quit companies — they quit managers. If they don’t directly mention a person, listen for emotional words that show how the employee felt working in that team, which would show how the team operates under its manager.
7. How would you describe the culture of our company?
With this question, you can identify the gaps between your employees’ experience and the culture you aim to promote. Hopefully, you’ve already defined an organizational culture that upholds your values. (Pro tip: If you’re in need of inspiration, you can take a look at our Culture Code and steal some ideas from there.)
What to Look For
Don’t look for direct antonyms to what you’ve defined as your culture, because employees won’t be as up-front. They might use seemingly positive terms, such as “fast-paced” or “structured,” but these may hint at a high level of stress and a sensation of immobility. Listen carefully for these seemingly positive adjectives.
Don’t let it stop here. To ensure you’re employing best practices to get optimal feedback from your employees, take a look at our exit interview form template. It includes even more exit interview questions that will help you understand why the employee is leaving.
Exit Interview Form Template
Once an employee has given their resignation letter, you’ll want to send them a form with some (or all) of the following questions. Give them time to submit their answers through the form before meeting with them to discuss their answers, face-to-face.
Below are some of the questions you’ll want your exit interview form to include. Simply copy and paste them into your preferred word processor.

Exit Interview Form
1. How long have you been considering leaving our company?
2. How did the job match expectations?
3. What reason below primarily describes your reason for leaving?
a. New industry (significant career change)
b. Compensation
c. More opportunities for learning and growth
d. Personal Reasons
e. Manager / leadership quality
f. Day-to-day work environment / culture
4. If you have accepted a new position, please select all the items that are more attractive about your new role:
a. Better pay
b. Better culture
c. Better location / commute
d. Different industry
e. Manager
f. Better work-life balance
g. More career advancement opportunities
5. What did you like most about your job?
6. What did you dislike about your job? What would you change about your job?
7. How would you describe the culture of our company?
8. How would you describe the general atmosphere in the office?
9. The quality of supervision is important to most people at work. How was your relationship with your manager?
10. What could your supervisor do to improve their management style and skill?
11. We try to be an employee-oriented company in which employees experience positive morale and motivation. What is your experience of employee morale and motivation in the company?
12. Please provide any context to further describe your reasons for leaving. Was there an event that led to this decision?
13. What were your reasons for joining our company originally? How have your feelings changed?
14. Do you believe your manager supported your professional development?
15. What are 1-2 things our company could do to promote a better workplace?
16. Please provide context and any additional feedback you’d like to provide on your manager.

How to Conduct an Exit Interview
Now that it’s time to conduct the interview, you’ll want to take the following steps to make sure the conversation is productive, amicable, and neutral.
1. Send the exit interview form to the soon-to-be ex-employee.
First, send the person who is leaving a form or document with your standard questions. This would happen the same week that they put in their resignation letter — ideally within one to two days. They should already know a form is coming their way, because you would have expressed that verbally.
2. Choose an interviewer and set up the meeting.
After you’ve given the employee time to thoughtfully respond, it’s time to choose an interviewer and set up an in-person meeting.
The interviewer should be an unbiased third party, such as a staff member from your HR team. Don’t set up the exit interview meeting with their manager or with anyone whom the person has worked with before. This may impair their ability to be honest during the interview.
3. Ask the same questions in every exit interview.
Ensure you ask the same questions in each exit interview so you can gather actionable data and insights.
Prepare a handout for yourself that prompts you to jot down similar notes for every person you or your HR staff member interviews. If all of the notes are highly disparate or seemingly disconnected, it will be difficult to glean insights and improve moving forward.
4. Keep the tone of the conversation neutral.
In person, do not ask targeted questions regarding specific people or departments — keep your questions general and don’t input your own opinion into the conversation. Don’t prompt the employee to over-share about their frustrations with the job.
This is not constructive to you as a company. Rather, you want to find out areas of improvement in more general terms, so that you can create company-wide change.
If the employee only gives personal anecdotes, that would only help you create a better experience for them. The problem is that they’re already leaving. What you want to find out is how you can improve the employee experience for those who are staying.
5. Distill the answers into insights.
Identify patterns you see from different exit interviews, and use that data to draw conclusions on which feedback you should use to improve the employee experience moving forward. As mentioned, take similar notes for each exit interview. To make it easier, you could use a survey software that helps you collect the employee’s written answers.
Exit Interview Best Practices
Ultimately, an exit interview doesn’t just help you understand why your talent is leaving — it also helps you ensure you can implement strategies or cultural changes to improve the satisfaction of employees who stay.
However, it’s not always easy to discern what a highly productive exit interview looks like.
To learn more about exit interview best practices, I spoke with Winston Tuggle, an HR Business Partner at HubSpot. Here are some of the best practices he suggests.
1. Always ask the same questions.
When it comes to exit interview best practices, Tuggle suggests, “For conducting productive exit interviews, I think one key is asking the same questions of all people who leave. This structure allows us to codify the exit responses so we can extract actionable data around why people are leaving, and how we can improve the employee experience.
We do this by having a standard exit interview form that leavers submit, and then have an unbiased third-party follow up in-person to go deeper on the answers the person filled out in the exit interview. Exit interviews aren’t necessary unless you plan on using them to gather as much data as possible that can be coupled with employee survey data to understand the employee experience.”
2. Understand the “why” behind the person’s resignation.
Tuggle also notes, “[It’s critical you understand] the ‘why’ behind someone leaving … to gather trends over time. As an HR team, it helps us to not overreact to one person’s experience and conversely helps us identify trends that we can proactively address before they lead to more unwanted attrition.”
3. Explain the purpose behind the exit interview.
It’s important you explain the purpose behind the exit interview to each employee before you begin. You might say, “We hope to use your feedback to continuously improve our culture and business processes, so we are interested in your honest opinion on how your experience has been.” That way, they don’t feel they’re taking part in a conversation that won’t be used to create change.
4. Ensure interviews stay confidential.
You’ll also want to make sure your exit interviews are confidential between the HR team and employees. While data or general insights can be used to improve employee experience and should be shared with leadership, your employee needs to know their exact complaints won’t reach their old manager or coworkers.
5. Thank the employee for their time.
Finally, be sure to thank your employee for taking the time to provide feedback during an exit interview. While one individual likely can’t pinpoint issues regarding an entire team or department, you’ll likely see commonalities over time that can help you determine how you can improve your workplace for the long-run.
Exit Interviews Will Improve Your Company Culture
Exit interviews are the key for improving your business from the inside out. Knowing what makes some employees leave can help you keep the employees you already have. As a result, you’ll improve your company culture, reduce turnover, and boost productivity — leading to a better and better workplace over time.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.